17 strange professions that actually exist (18 photos)

The world is full of unusual and rare professions that we simply don’t think about. In this collection you will find stories from netizens about the most unusual work in their lives: from a monkey game developer to a professional bridesmaid. First part.





1. My job was to timestamp Netflix videos for the "Skip" button. This was the best job until they banned remote work. I woke up, went to a special page, and in front of me was a list of videos/series that needed to be marked.



2. “In Japan, my wife worked as a “foreign wedding attendant.” It turns out that they like to invite foreigners to weddings because it makes the photos look more interesting. She used to earn up to 20,000 yen a day.”





3. “I sell private murder mystery parties. I find out about an event (birthday, office party, holiday, etc.) and send trained actors there to act out a murder mystery.”



4. “I’m an IT specialist at a Buddhist center.”



5. “I work as a falconer: with the help of birds of prey I drive away other birds from railway tracks, airports, farms, etc. It's like being a bounty hunter, but with birds."



6. “I work as a bridesmaid. That is, if the real bridesmaid refuses to go to the wedding at the last minute, you can hire a replacement. Hired bridesmaids do everything that real bridesmaids do, except you pay them, and they usually do a much better job because it's their job."



7. “I used to do “children’s” drawings for a TV series that took place in a kindergarten. Each episode had a new thematic design. Children are simply not good enough artists. Sorry, kids."



8. “I design simple video games for monkeys, complete with a joystick and a ball dispenser.”



9. “I make virtual clothes and sell them for real money in a dress-up game.”



10. “When I was a kid, my job was to walk through the llama pastures and throw their crap around. They have a habit of pooping in communal piles which, if left undispersed, become very large and eventually the nitrogen burns the grass. The grass grows very well around them, but the llamas don't eat it because it smells strongly of their feces. So instead you have to take a snow shovel and spread the poop, and the result is that all the grass in the pasture grows really well, and doesn't smell like poop too much, so the llamas can eat it. In short, I don't really like llamas."



11. “I transcribe phone calls for the deaf and hard of hearing in real time. My profession is in danger of disappearing due to automation, etc. »



12. “Basically, I watch TV all day. What I'm actually doing is digitizing old VHS tapes, but for large networks with huge libraries of things like BETA, VHS, U-matic, 1" and 2" tapes, and so on. All old tapes expire, so pallets of tapes are sent to our company and we transcribe them in real time, then send the files back. It takes years to completely digitize such a library. Some of our old big clients have been regularly sending us tapes every month for the last 5 years, with about 5 more years left.”



13. “I worked at a grocery store last winter, just before Christmas. My task was to stain the potatoes with soil so that it looked like they had just been picked. And then the buyers would come home and wipe away all the fruits of my hard work.”



14. “I am a sound effects librarian for film, television, advertising and games. Essentially, I maintain a high-quality database of every sound imaginable so that it can be used in any entertainment environment. We have everything from the noise of military aircraft to the sounds of superhero combat, footsteps on virtually any surface in almost any shoe, virtually every type of weapon... everything you need for the job we do. The most interesting thing is that I run around and record non-standard things for many series. Just recently I needed to record the sounds of very expensive cars and some sound effects from different places in the state in which I live. It's like taking a vacation every few weeks!”



15. “Funeral homes should be open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, but in today's society this is unrealistic. Funeral homes and embalmers are already suffering from massive burnout, and weekends, late-night calls, and mandatory holiday work are only making the situation worse. Thus, in essence, Uber for the dead appeared. They are called "pickup companies" or "commercial embalming businesses" depending on whether they do only transportation or also do embalming. I worked for a company like this when I was learning embalming, and it's hard work. The funeral home faxes the list and you respond to calls instead of the funeral home staff. It is 100% legal and very common. You drive around in a van all day or all night, depending on the shift, with two stretchers and just pick up and drop off bodies. Sometimes, if the embalmers are in a good mood and it's a quiet day, they'll let you do the embalming yourself, but most of the time you just have to drive until you get a license.”



16. “I am responsible for demand planning. My job is to make sure that the product you want to buy in our store or on our website is always in stock. In most places I've worked, the warehouse always had to have more than 95% of the product in stock. Usually when we don't have something in stock, it's because some genius decided he needed 64 hammers or 500 gallons of milk at once, and that breaks our demand model."



17. “I had a job where my job was to feed folded and crumpled dollar bills into bill checking machines. I worked in a locked room where I was surrounded by thousands of dollar bills and constantly watched by a security guard. It was boring and strange, the guard never spoke to me except when it was time to go for a break or lunch.”