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by Laurel Mills
Back when we were in preschool there were only a handful of sensible options for the career-minded 4-year-old: doctor, plumber, fireman and astronaut. Clearly, had we heard about “sin-eating,” “knocking up” or any of these other fine ways to make a living, we would have eaten more paste and focused a little less on our permanent records.
1. Filibuster
Long before the term “filibuster” came to be associated with elected officials, it was actually associated with violence and trickery. (Wait a second …) In the 1600s, pirates known to the Dutch as vrijbuiters pillaged the West Indies, and eventually, the word was assimilated into the English language as “filibusters.” Between 1850 and 1860, the name was used to refer to the American mercenaries who attempted to revolutionize Central America and the Spanish West Indies. The most famous of these filibusters was William Walker, a U.S. citizen who succeeded in gaining control of Nicaragua in 1856 by overthrowing the nation’s administration. Walker became president of Nicaragua, but only until May 1, 1857, when a coalition of Central American states ousted him. Because filibusters of previous centuries strove to interfere with foreign regimes, the term evolved to refer to anyone who attempted to obstruct the government, as our legislators occasionally see fit to do when a particularly troublesome bill comes before them.
2. Lungs
Perhaps the cruelest case of naming irony in history, anyone employed to fan the fire in an alchemist’s workshop was known as a “lungs.” And because most alchemists were constantly trying to make gold out of lead and other such base metals, you can only imagine what kinds of dangerous materials were floating about in the labs. As a result, the actual lungs on a lungs gave out relatively quickly, leading to a profession with widespread early retirement.
3.Sin-Eater
No matter how much you loved Grandma and Grandpa, you can probably admit your forebears weren’t perfect. So, if you ever had a loved one that passed on before his or her last chance at absolution, it makes sense that you might want to call in reinforcements. Fortunately for the fretful and grieving of yore, there was the town sin-eater. For a small fee, the sin-eater would gladly scarf down a meal (usually bread and ale) that had been placed on the deceased’s chest. By letting the food lie atop the dearly departed for a while, it was believed the vittles would absorb the last transgressions. And, once the food was gobbled up by the sin-eater, Grandma or Grandpa could get into heaven without any major roadblocks.
4. Knocker-Up
In British towns of yore, particularly those with a mine or mill as the center of commercial activity, knocker-ups were responsible for going from house to house to wake workers in the mornings. The title, not surprisingly, came from the sound they made rapping on windows. As for the evolution of the term “knocking,” it also denoted a collision of sorts, and in the 17th century, it was used in reference to childbirth. Even poet John Keats wrote of “knocking out” children in some of his odes. It wasn’t until the 19th century, however, that Americans began using the phrase as slang for getting a woman pregnant.
5. Ratoner
Ain’t it grand to live in a world where the Black Death isn’t a daily concern? Fortunately, when it was an issue, a ratoner was there to lend a helping hand. A ratoner was a rat catcher, who served a vital role in maintaining the health of the villagers. Those of us accustomed to modern pest control techniques might be a bit surprised to learn about the disposal method employed by a typical Victorian-era ratoner, though. After capturing the rodents, he would set out for the town pub, where dogs made a sport of devouring the day’s catch. This earned extra cash for the ratoner and was considered great entertainment by saloon regulars. The most famous ratoner, Jack Black, was appointed Royal Rat Catcher in the mid-19th century and bred some of his more interesting and colorful finds as household pets. In fact, The Tale of Samuel Whiskers by Beatrix Potter is said to be dedicated to her personal rat, one of Jack Black’s progeny.
6. Alnager
In merry olde England, an alnager was a sworn officer of the court who garnered much esteem. He was responsible for ensuring that woolen goods were of the highest quality and that no one was being cheated on the amount of fabric ordered. The job was important not only because the king earned taxes from wool sales, but also because goods approved by the alnager carried the town’s seal of approval. But, as the textile trade grew, it became nearly impossible to hold all wool to the same standards of size and density, so the king abolished the position. Today, you might know the alnager’s modern incarnation best in sticker form, a.k.a., “Number 6.”
7. Badger
Odd as it may sound, badgers were part of the rat race in prior centuries, serving as intermediaries between the producers of goods and the consumer. Most often, they traded in corn and other foodstuffs, buying from farmers and reselling the goods at markets in town. And if you think the salespeople at Macy’s are tough, some historians think badgers were so persistent in pushing their products that the term came to be associated with an often annoying and forceful adamance—i.e., “badgering” anyone in sight to buy from you instead of another vendor.
8. Gong Farmer
Not unlike The Gong Show, a gong farmer was far from being the cream of the crop—and even that might be the understatement of the year. In Tudor England, a gong farmer’s job was to empty the town toilets. But the job did have its perks. Typically, a gong farmer would “mine” the waste for any items of value that might be found amongst the city’s excrement—a penny here, a button there—before it was used as manure or thrown into the river. For a while, it was falsely believed that gong farmers were immune to the plague, but you can’t help wonder if that was more of a pity belief, like the whole idea that being hit by bird droppings is good luck.
9. Fuller
Making textiles hasn’t always been such a streamlined process. Once upon a time, there were spinners to spin the thread, weavers to weave the cloth, and fullers to finish the goods once they came off the loom. Almost Lucy-and-Ethel style, fullers walked on the back side of the cloth to bind the fibers together and give cohesion to the newly woven fabric. But stomping alone wouldn’t accomplish this feat. Instead, fullers soaked the cloth in a mixture of clay (“fuller’s earth”) and urine while it was being trampled. In fact, medieval housewives often earned extra cash by saving the family’s urine and selling it to the fuller, and some schools even had children use one bucket as a toilet for the same purpose.
10. Bullocky
It sounds like Lewis Carroll came up with this word around the same time he was writing “Jabberwocky”, but a bullocky was actually a person who drove cattle to market. Yet, the bullocky and the Jabberwock might share something in common—nonsense. According to some historians, to say bullocks swore like sailors would be an insult to sailors. In fact, it was the bullocks’ foul mouths that led the term to be associated with bastardized speech. That, combined with the fact that they worked with “bull” (which had the same connotations we know today), could have helped bullocky evolve into a term for ridiculous or dispensable speech.
* * *
What’s the weirdest job or job title on your resume?
Comments (29)
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“Pooper Scooper”
Back in college I worked a few hours a week for the town picking up dog poop at the two dog parks. Those “Please Pick Up After Your Dog” signs were not very effective.
posted by Kenny on 12-2-2008 at 10:17 pm
I actually learned about William Walker in AP US HIstory today. What a coincidence?
posted by gdbeal on 12-2-2008 at 10:23 pm
I was once a professional online stalker. A wealthy relative who was running for city council hired me to dig up dirt on his opponent. I didn’t find anything of note but I definitely felt dirty about it. Though the $500 I got for a few hours’ work made it go down easier.
posted by Bryan on 12-2-2008 at 11:00 pm
My best job was “cashier’s assistant” at a hardware store. I answered a help wanted ad which said they needed someone to work the register. I said I could do that and the owner hired me. His wife, however, was not happy about me (a high school girl) being part of the team, and so she refused to let me actually do any cashiering. So I would stand next to her and put stuff in the bags and hand them to customers (there was only one register). It was the easiest and most pointless job ever.
posted by claudia on 12-2-2008 at 11:26 pm
My business card at my internship said “Code Guru/Stud”
posted by Nathan Giusti on 12-2-2008 at 11:40 pm
Nothing too crazy, but I did work as an accountant for a cemetery company once. And the office was in a house in the middle of one the cemeteries owned by the company. Part of my job was reconciling inventory – of grave plots and spaces in mausoleums.
posted by Dawn on 12-2-2008 at 11:57 pm
Inventory service.
I would go around to different stores (grocery and department) and count things, and tally it on a small hip computer.
First day of work at 5AM I had to get into a van and go to an unknown location. Talk about feeling kidnapped.
posted by Morgan on 12-3-2008 at 2:47 am
I spent a summer working at a fiberglass factory threading spools of fiberglass line through a machine that cut it into six inch peices.
posted by Diana on 12-3-2008 at 9:18 am
My friend worked for a summer camp where his job title was “Master of Fun and Games” – it’s still my favorite job title!
posted by Clifford on 12-3-2008 at 9:36 am
Morgan:
I did the same thing for a summer when I was younger. It was quite a surreal experience now that I look back. I worked with 95% elderly people, one gang banger (drove a $50k Saleen Mustang and made $8/hour), and my boss had this weird growth on the top of his head the size of a golfball. What a boring job. Has anyone thought what it would be like to count nuts and bolts at 6am at your local Home Depot?
posted by Bryan on 12-3-2008 at 10:10 am
And to think before I read this that I would have thought a sin-eater made his living at Nathan’s Hot Dogs on Coney Island every 4th of July. At least I know have a new name for my little girls’ pooh. Gong. It’s got a nice ring to it.
posted by Michael C on 12-3-2008 at 10:48 am
Nude model (art school drawing classes). Great money, under the table. All you have to do is stand still!
Also, I worked at a KB Toys in high school. The name tag they gave me had my name and the words “Fun Expert” printed underneath. This usually resulted in raised eyebrows and lots of dads going “reeeeeaaaaallly?” in a very creepy manner. Cool job, though–we were allowed to take any toys we wanted off the shelves and play with them for “demonstration purposes”.
posted by JenPo on 12-3-2008 at 11:12 am
I’ve got two that always come up in conversations about weird past jobs.
First, I spent a summer at an apiary, although I don’t know that I had a cool-sounding title to go with it. I wasn’t a bee-keeper, per se. I was the guy who took the individual frames of honeycomb out of the boxes and ran it through a conveyor belt contraption designed to remove the wax and ultimately deposit the frame into the centrifuge at the end, where the honey would be spun out. I learned one very important thing about bees: the swarm is not a problem, it’s the lone, lost, scared ones separated from the swarm that always stung me. Almost daily.
The other job was as a swordsmith’s apprentice out on a ranch in the middle of nowhere. Didn’t last long, but it was interesting, nonetheless.
posted by Jeremy on 12-3-2008 at 11:17 am
Sample Collector for avian flu research…. I drew rooster’s blood as an undergrad…
posted by Lauren on 12-3-2008 at 11:31 am
How about a fallout shelter surveyor? In the early 70s, engineering students were recruited to survey known and prospective fallout shelters, to determine capacity, structural integrity and accessibility.
I measured bank vaults, jails and courthouses throughout Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas. I drove a gray Chevy with black vinyl upholstery and 4 liquid natural gas bottles in the trunk.
posted by Tom on 12-3-2008 at 11:33 am
I was an “inserter”.
I worked in the pressroom of a small-town newspaper. The press could only produce a maximum 48-page paper. If the day’s edition was more than that, it was printed in two press runs. Then I, and a small team of others would stand at tall tables and *insert* the first section into the second one.
We also inserted the comics and advertising junk into Sunday’s paper.
This was the job that convinced me I really should go to college.
posted by Doug on 12-3-2008 at 12:00 pm
“Night stocker”: stocked shelves overnight at a department store
posted by Marc on 12-3-2008 at 12:40 pm
I had an internship as a nudist camp fry cook.
posted by Josh on 12-3-2008 at 1:17 pm
My first job had a fun name and was seasonally appropriate– I was a gift wrapper at Cracker Barrel. I am now a pro at wrapping gifts (literally!) but can’t stand Christmas music or any of those cutesy butt-shaking, singing Santas.
posted by Orange on 12-3-2008 at 1:20 pm
One summer in college I worked for an insurance company in Nashville. They handled workmen’s compensation liability. (On the job injuries).
My job was to drive out to the smaller towns around Nashville, and visit all the hospitals and court houses to see if the injured person had a pre-existing conditions or had previously been to court over the same injury (which implied a pre-existing condition).
The job paid well and was simple to do but I mentioned it because I was actually able to walk right up to the records desk in any hospital and get medical records for any person I requested. The only ID I had was a business card.
Man, have times changed. I couldn’t go to a hospital today and get the records for my own wife- even with a photo ID.
posted by Morris on 12-3-2008 at 2:45 pm
blast monitor
Although my title wasn’t great, I think it was something like Engineering Technician I, the actual internship was interesting.
I was paid to go into people’s homes and photograph the entire house for existing damage to prove pre-existing conditions if someone tried to sue over damage done to their house due to nearby construction activities. I would then use seismic equipment to measure the large truck/equipment traffic, pile driving, or actual blasting work.
I saw a lot of houses, met a lot of strange people and got to watch some stuff blow up. (Nothing big like buildings, but cool nonetheless.)
posted by Dianna on 12-3-2008 at 4:32 pm
Ninja of the Stage.
Dressed in all black and ran around getting things ready for the play. At the end, they played James Bond music and we came out to it.
posted by Rola on 12-3-2008 at 5:43 pm
Satellite Telemetry Exploitation System Software Analyst
posted by PartiallyDeflected on 12-3-2008 at 7:49 pm
Siege Engineer
Really, I design and build catapults of various kinds at the company I work for. These sell mostly to schools for science, physics or history projects but we get a lot of folks who simply want to Hurl! Get fun and the history behind them is incredible. Sometimes the “historical” jobs really do come back to life…
posted by Ray on 12-3-2008 at 11:05 pm
Panty Crotch Inspector
Temporary job for a discount clothing store chain.
They bought several truck-loads of panties from a defunct manufacturer.
Approximately 5 percent of the product was defective, mostly improperly sewn seams in the crotch area.
Sat on our butts and went through hundreds of boxes containing thousands of panties in each box. Grab a panty, peek at the crotch, then either accept or reject said panty then throw in the approppriate container.
All male crew, for whatever reason.
We were not too picky.
posted by Obbop on 12-4-2008 at 12:50 am
Inventory service.
posted by retak on 12-4-2008 at 3:12 am
10 Jobs You Didnt Hear About On Career Day | politikly.com…
\r\nBack when we were in preschool there were only a handful of sensible options for the career-mind…
posted by politikly.com | politics and world news on 12-4-2008 at 5:18 am
My first “real” job, I had fresh out of the army. I’m not sure there’s an english word for my position, but it translates to “everything-guy”. I only worked there for six months, and the pay just about covered beer anc cigarettes, so being supported by my parents with food and a place to stay, it was absolutely perfect.
I got there in the morning and would find a list telling me what I was supposed to do that day. It was just me and the owner, and since this was a farm mechanic’s shop, and he would keep really long hours for himself and travel all over the place, it was just me there. All the time. Oh, and a radio. I’d look at the list, roll a cigarette, turn on the radio and sit down and smoke while contemplating what to do first. Sometimes I would start by sweeping the floors, but I usually postponed that for later. It would be metalworking, fixing stuff, figuring things (including a metal lathe and welding) out for myself, tending to the one a week drop-in customer (most jobs were dropped off outside my hours or off site), and clean engine parts off in a half barrel full of diesel (you smell nice after that. or manly.). I did some forestry work, digging with an excavator, wall building for the expansion of the shop and once even dumping two metric tons of old potatoes next to a field for composting.
It was a great job! If I could live on the pay, I’d probably still work there! Nowadays I work as a stage tech (continuing playing with my mechanical skills) and photografer.
posted by Hælvis on 12-6-2008 at 12:01 am
Well, I have worked as a Bouncer in the past, but there wasn’t as much jumping as I was led to believe. Other jobs have all been pretty standard, but some of the names for jobs nowadays are getting so ridiculous.
I worked as a cashier, but my job title was ‘Customer Service Representative’. I was not a telemarketer, I was a ‘Telecommunications Research Technician’ (this particular company did phone surveys).
posted by M on 1-11-2009 at 7:56 pm