BS: Strange occupations

Subject: BS: Strange occupations
From: Arnie
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 12:25 PM

I was chatting to a friend from Stoke on Trent today and for some reason, helped along by sunshine and a few glasses of red wine, we got to talking about jobs that used to be around when we were kids. I grew up in a Yorkshire mill town (remember mills?) and recall job adverts for shoddy sorters. At the time I wasn't sure if being shoddy was a requirement for the job. However, my Stoke mate recalled an even more interesting occupation - a saggermaker's bottom knocker. I thought he was having a laugh, but I've now googled this and it did exist! I also think there was a pub in the Midlands called The Drudge's Arms, after some long-lost occupation as a drudge - not sure about this one though. Just a bit of harmless fun, but are there any more offers??

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 12:40 PM

Here in the States you even now get a job as a skull grinder, a condom tester, and a brush ape.

Condom tester ain't what you think it is....

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 12:51 PM

another occupation no longer around (at least THIS side of the pond):)

Knocker-up

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: GUEST,donuel
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 02:10 PM

Thats condom taster, not tester. They come in flavors now.

The strangest occupation I had was hypnotist. It led to even stranger things.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 02:17 PM

There are very few topics Mudcatters have missed...

occupations

On that thread I note that *I* was a gen-you-wine *bean counter*.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Arnie
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 03:37 PM

Emma B - I'll always remember my younger sister's gaffe when she worked as a nanny in Canada. She asked her host if he could knock her up at 6 o'clock! He just replied 'I don't believe you meant to say that! In the UK it's a common expression and she didn't appreciate the US/Canadian significance until someone kindly explained it to her later. Embarassment or what!

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: gnu
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 03:44 PM

A buddy's wife is in charge of collecting semen at a large hog farm.

Yes, she does... all day long.

On his birthday, we gave him a box of laytex gloves.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 03:53 PM

My first ever job was as a "Wringer Out" for a one armed window cleaner!

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 04:09 PM

I've been a milkman's helper and a tombstone setter.

(The last is just like an Irish setter only different.)

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Amos
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 04:39 PM

Our own red-headed veterinarian once performed a similar operation on a local bull named, if memory serves, Tornado. The bull never forgot her and would run up to the fence whenever she came back to the farm, even years after the manual treatment.


A

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: GUEST,LTS in New Zealand
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 04:44 PM

There are people employed by Purina Foods, whose job it is to taste dog and cat food.

By UK law, dog and cat food has to be fit for human consumption, and there are people employed to taste it.. how else do you think they get the glowing descriptions on the tins?!

LTS - who was once a cleaner for a soil surveyor - if there was mud in the sink or on the floor, I had to leave it, it was probably a specimen!

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 04:47 PM

There's night soil collector, rat catcher, and cat skinner (for the fur).

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Emma B
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 06:02 PM

From today's New York Times the story of a professional 'street comber'

link

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Sorcha
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 06:05 PM

Preg testing cows? Or pigs?

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Bert
Date: 15 Apr 09 - 11:39 PM

A saggermaker's bottom knocker. Those of us old enough to remember will tell you that it was a made up job title for the TV show "What's my Line". Gilbert Harding gave the contestant hell because it wasn't a real job.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Gurney
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 01:45 AM

As a boy in the coalmines I had two jobs which weren't strange, but the job descriptions were! A Jig Runner, and a Ring Dragger.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Seamus Kennedy
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 02:40 AM

I was a floor screeder in my college days.

Seamus

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Thompson
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 05:24 AM

Apparently the word 'drudge' comes from the Irish drúgaire, an old word for a slave.

Division by a common language goes the other way too; after a course in Irish in Donegal a lovely American girl was making her thank-you speech. The cheers that greeted the words "and boys, thanks for all the great rides" (she'd been given lifts all over the place by all the men) raised the ceiling. That glow New Yorkers saw to their east was her blush when she realised what she'd said.

A fripper used to mean a collector and seller of old clothes, to add another profession.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 05:46 AM

one for Geoff? Duckmaster

...then there's Frank the Dinosaur Duster at the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C.

"Five days a week in the early hours of the morning, he has the dinosaurs all to himself as he grooms them with a feather duster and a vacuum cleaner"

...and you may have come across a sniffer dog but...a Dog Sniffer?

"There are 700 dogs, mostly beagles, on site at Hill's Pet Nutrition in Topeka, Kansas. The odor of their breath is analyzed once a week in order to test the effect of their diet on their teeth. Hill's prides itself on making dog food that eliminates plaque build-up and fights gingivitis. Roxanne Livgren has been trained to sniff the dogs' breath to determine the state of their health and the effectiveness of the dog food"

and, not really strange but try pronouncing it..... Theriogenologist!

Lots more from Nancy Rica Schiff, a New York City-based photographer who crisscrossed the country looking for people with strange occupations in her spare time.
When she found one that struck her fancy, she took a black-and-white portrait and some notes.
After years of indulging her strange hobby, she put together her favorites in 'Odd Jobs: Portraits of Unusual Occupations.'

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 05:55 AM

btw, nice photo and explanation of saggers and why their 'bottoms' were so important!

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 07:01 AM

Interesting thread for hard economic times. There truly is a job for EVERYONE - if they will only look. These are not obsolete - but current occupations - there are statistics to show how many are employed in each field.

Every job in the USA is classified according to a DOT number in the government's Directory Of Occupational Titles. There are thousands and thousands:

HUCKSTER (retail trade) -May attract attention by playing chimes or chanting song.

POULTRY DEBEAKER - Burns chicks beaks and toes

HURL SHAKER - - separates broomcorn stems according to thicknes stacks stems in storage bins.

HOSE SUSPENDER CUTTER - leave this to your imagination

HOT-STONE SETTER - Sets rhinestones in plastic buttons

APRON CLEANER - Combs asbestos

TOE PULLER - Pulls off toenails, using hook May remove eyelids of hogs

WORM PICKER Sprinkles chlorinated water on lawn to cause worms to come to surface

STONER - Stones (polishes) watch parts

LIFEGUARD-UNIT REPAIRER - another for your imagination

Sincerely,
Gargoyle

As a child we were fortunate in our neighborhood to have visitations by the pushcart knife-grinder and the pushcart rag man, also the lame push-mower lawn man and the pony-photo man along with various gypsies since the US king was local. My first job - with SS and Workmen's Compensation? "Burro Wrangler"

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Donuel
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 09:42 AM

Bill Clinton has a new occupation. Whore.
Mrs. Clinton is in such need to pay off her outstanding campaign debt that she has now started to pimp out her husband. Today on MSNBC it was reported that they are raffleing tickets to win the opportunity to be with Bill all day long.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 11:59 AM

Official Piss Taker ?

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 12:27 PM

occupational kidz quiz

I managed 60% :)

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 05:53 PM

Resurrectionist.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 06:54 PM

Come to think of it, whoremonger.....

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 09:38 PM

90%, Emma.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Emma B
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 09:48 PM

hmmmmm ....
"If you scored 90-100: You've been dreaming of getting the most unconventional career around" !!

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: pdq
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 09:57 PM

Dave Van Ronk said he once worked in a toy factory painting the eye spots on Mickey Mouse dolls.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Joe_F
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 10:54 PM

The last time I quoted Dave Van Ronk, I was told he had said a lot of things.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 16 Apr 09 - 11:03 PM

More than you need to know about saggers...

Saggers are reusable fired clay boxes into which pieces of glazed pottery are placed during the firing process. They protect the glazed ware from the atmosphere of the kiln. They're usually used in kilns which are fired with "dirty" fuels such as wood or dung. Saggers prevent the ash and other impurities which circulate in such kilns from settling on the pots and marring the glaze. Saggers are not necessary when firing in electric or gas kilns.

Saggers are also used by some art potters as containment vessels to trap color-producing fumes given off by various materials such as metal shavings and colored berries. This is a relatively low-temperature technique so it's not necessary to use specially made saggers. Terracotta flower pots with shards of clay covering their drainage holes are adequate.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 09:19 AM

I went to high school with Art Potter. He was no relation to Harry.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: bubblyrat
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 02:48 PM

In the Royal Navy,you could be many strange things.You could be a Fresh Water Tanky,or a Salt Water Tanky.You might like to be a Jossman's Runner, or being an Outside Wrecker might have some appeal.Officers might become Jimmy The One (a ship's First Lieutenant) ,or Little F ( Lt/Cmdr, Flying) or,indeed, Big F ( Commander, Flying).If you were a NAAFI rating ( No Ambition And Fuck-all Interest), you might well be appointed Captain Of The Heads,especially if you were a Big OD,or a 3-badge FA.But nothing could be worse than joining the Air Force and becoming a Rock Ape !!

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 03:12 PM

I've written about this before, but--

I once knew a woman who worked for a medical school as a "gynecology model." She was the person on whom the medical students practiced doing gynecological exams before they were allowed to touch real patients.

She was also supposed to give the students feedback on their "bedside manner." She said male students in particular tended to be over-cautious, and she frequently had to tell them it was OK to be less gentle and tentative in the way they touched her.

I have since learned that medical schools hire a whole array of such people, and many of them are trained actors who are called upon to fake certain symptoms such as pain or emotional distress. (My friend wasn't one of those.)

It was a part-time job, of course.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 08:18 PM

In my first career, I was a wage & salary analyst. Part of the job was preparing job descriptions. In the training class I made up an occupation which I called Galvanized Steel Garbage Can Lid Fitter, and wrote a description of the education, training and skills needed to do that job, and the various actions needed accomplish the task. Now of course, as no one hardly uses them things, it is an obsolete occupation.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Joe Offer
Date: 17 Apr 09 - 10:16 PM

I suppose I had two or the more unusual occupations among us. When I was in the Army, I was a spy in Berlin, keeping tabs on East Germans phone calls. For 25 years after that, I did security clearance investigations - I called myself a door-to-door bureaucrat or a professional gossip.
NOW look at me...
-Joe-

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 12:08 PM

Back in about 1957 or '58, when they were new and faddish, I made hula hoops for the Fairyland Toy Company, in Minneapolis.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: GUEST,Bruce Michael Baillie
Date: 19 Apr 09 - 05:59 AM

...I saw a job advertised in the Yorkshire Post for a strange occupation and decided to write a song about what I imagined it would be like to be one, it's called 'The Ballad of the Assistant Banana Ripening Manager'

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Allen in Oz
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 03:29 AM

Pity we don't see any calls for Mule Skinners these days

AD 1943

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 04:00 AM

I served my time as a Coppersmith

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Rapparee
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 12:59 PM

Dog Shit Collector -- a real job during Victorian times, where the stuff was used by tanners.

Magsmen.

Subject: RE: BS: Strange occupations
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 01:31 PM

Coronation programme salesman??