What were your weirdest jobs ever?

[PackWest]

$ 7/ hour

Worked at the State Lab of Hygiene in WI
Responsible for STD testing; we never saw the patients, just did the lab work
Gonorrhea, chlamydia, herpes of all varieties, Hepatitis and the new rage at the time was HIV.

We'd get calls all the time from frantic people begging us for the results, but it was verboten for us to say anything.
The tough ones were where "Mr Green" tested positive for an STD on Tuesday and then on Wednesday "Mrs Green" would deliver a sample for testing too - that had to go over well at dinner.

" Umm honey, can we talk ? "

interesting slice of society and the repeat offenders were just walking vectors
.

[Riccardo]

Yeah collections were the worst

My route went from dumpy apartments downtown to nicer homes further out and collections were always tough

[Irish George]

my paper route was pretty mundane but...

First job I had also ... did it for two years from when I was 12.

Collecting was no problem for me ... I even got pretty good holiday tips.

My problem was this one dog ... still remember that mean fuck's name: Pepper.

the "branch" where all the kids with routes in my part of Collingswood picked up their papers was a real trip. the "branch captain" was an older (high school aged) kid who also sold fireworks and beer out of the same garage. The interior walls of the garage was decorated with authentic japanese and nazi flags this kid somehow acquired, and there were fights among the paperboys almost every day. If you didnt get there early you got shorted on papers and had to buy the remainder retail.

I had an average sized route...only about 45-50 customers. I had maybe three good tippers. I got small tips from maybe half of the customers. I would stalk the deadbeats and knock on their doors at 10 pm on a sunday night if I had to.

[Eagle In Ohio]

I odn't know

isn't the max donation for a candidate significantly less than that?

It may be now, but this was almost 15 years ago. I just know that we had to ask for double the amount that the person gave the previous time.

[Two Gap Penetrator]

The weirdest job for me was.....

....when I got a job at the RCA Microelectronics Center at age 24. I had no idea what I was getting into. I go in there and they take me by the wafer fab. I'm looking in to the cleanroom and everyone is dressed in those white space suits and I'm like, "What IS this place?" I was so young and naive. So they take me in to get "gowned up" in a "bunny suit" and now I have to go through multiple air showers before I get into the cleanroom. Very weird. Now they tell me that I'm going to be the scanning electron microscope operator. WHAT? I ended up doing just about every job you could do in a wafer fab. Plasma deposition, reactive ion etch, photolithography, wet etch. Learned how all of those "tools" (machines) operate.

[PackWest]

You were exposed to some interesting "stuff" doing those jobs

Did you ever wonder: "Why does it hurt when I pee ?"

[Two Gap Penetrator]

Dude: I was Haz-Mat in a microelectronics lab...

...in later years. Talk about scared sh*tless. You develop a real respect for that stuff. I went into a lab once that had a fluorine fire in a scrubber room. A scrubber is this wet chemistry vessel that neutralizes whatever nasty gas you have bubbling through there. Anyway I had to don an SCBA and go in there and manually close a valve to stop the flow of fluorine to the process and stop the fire.

[Riccardo]

Not a weird job but weird projects

My first job out of Penn State was at the Monell Chemical Sense Center (basic research) on Market Street in Philly. Some of the bizarre projects included conducting chemical analysis of underarm pads soaked with sweat looking for steroid based materials that could possibly be human pheromones. Also analyzed smelly socks and sputum from cystic fibrosis patients.

[Riccardo]

My route maxed out at about 115 customers

Fortunately our shit paper was pretty thin but on wednesdays they'd have this big coupon insert that nearly doubled the weight. Many a time those inserts got the heave-ho into a sewer drain

[Loki]

Burning marijuana fields on the Big Island.

We got coptered to the site and dropped off at one end, once they determined the wind direction. Torched the field then coptered to another one. Course, there was some getting stuffed into rucksacks when the officers weren't looking.

[Two Gap Penetrator]

That is weird

How about this for weird? Columnist for a free supermarket exit vestibule newspaper.

[PackWest]

We got coptered to the site and dropped off at one end, once they determined the wind direction. Torched the field then coptered to another one.

How do you light it up ? Gas ?
I wouldn't think the still-green plants would ignite too easily

[Drama Queen]

I did some research on the DE City plant. You are right, they had some major law suits during that era.

[nor'easter]

when you mentioned your job was clean out that's what made me think of that incident. Four guys were cleaning out a tank and poisonous fumes gathered and started knocking 'em out one by one and everyone who came in after them. On the scanner it went from one ambulance for a man down to a mass casualty incident in about 5 minutes. One of those as a reporter I won't forget.

[Irish George]

yeah I did that too

every now and then a prick customer would complain he wasn't getting all his fucking inserts. We also used to pool the inserts and burn them