6 Silly Sounding Jobs That are way harder that you think

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look at what is number 1

I've said here many times that I wouldn't be a dealer for $20
an hour and tips. Eating crap from hoopleheads is not my idea of a
good time. It's masochism, plain and simple.

I've got two of the six covered.

Quote: ontariodealer

I've got two of the six covered.

I'm going to guess dealer and mascot :)

Its not as bad as these, but being a sports announcer ain't that easy either. Six guys barking in your ear while you are describing the play. And you've got usually 4 to 6 monitors in front of you, because at your location you can't see squat. Radio is easier than TV, but radio ain't easy.

I've always known FA's, wrestlers, and dealers had crap jobs, and we know from NFL... as Hank Stramm said it, "You know what NFL means?... It means Not For Long...". And he was bitchin up a ref in the late 60's. Now thats a job I don't want... NFL ref.

Quote: 98Clubs

as Hank Stramm said it, "You know what NFL means?... It means Not For Long...". And he was bitchin up a ref in the late 60's. Now thats a job I don't want... NFL ref.

Could have sworn it was Jerry Glannville that spat those words at a referee. Maybe he stole it from Hank.

Quote: Tomspur

I'm going to guess dealer and mascot :)

Those are actually the 2 I've done (not sure about ontariodealer). Dealt BJ for a year in South Dakota, was Buddy Bear, the mascot for 5th Northwestern Nat'l Bank in Minneapolis.

I preferred the dealing.

I actually experienced the dead player scenario while dealing in Ontario (around 1999).
A player at the roulette table beside mine keeled over.
The man had stopped breathing and turned an odd shade of green while the paramedics were working on him.
Less than 6' away, my roulette players decided to keep placing bets.
I glanced at the shift manager who had come to the pit. She shrugged her shoulders; I did the same.
And then I spun the ball...and kept spinning until it was my break.

It's a tough call as to whether that was better/worse/same as having to deal on a Carnival cruise ship within a couple hours of the WTC towers coming down back in 2001. Normally a personable dealer who considered his craft to be performance art with money, I recall maintaining a blank expression and not speaking for a whole eight hour shift that day.

dealer and caddy.

Quote: Scooter77

I actually experienced the dead player scenario while dealing in Ontario (around 1999).
A player at the roulette table beside mine keeled over.
The man had stopped breathing and turned an odd shade of green while the paramedics were working on him.
Less than 6' away, my roulette players decided to keep placing bets.
I glanced at the shift manager who had come to the pit. She shrugged her shoulders; I did the same.
And then I spun the ball...and kept spinning until it was my break.

It's a tough call as to whether that was better/worse/same as having to deal on a Carnival cruise ship within a couple hours of the WTC towers coming down back in 2001. Normally a personable dealer who considered his craft to be performance art with money, I recall maintaining a blank expression and not speaking for a whole eight hour shift that day.

was that at RAMA???

Quote: ontariodealer

was that at RAMA???

Yes. Table 601 or 602 IIRC, facing BJ pit 4 (looking in the direction of the host desk)

PM me if you think we might know each other from back then

I wasn't working there at that time, but i think i was playing craps when that happened....i worked there from 02 to 04

Silliest job title I ever heard of was those guys on tuna boats who bait the hooks.

Apprentice baiters.

Quote: Buzzard

Apprentice baiters.

Do they learn it from the Master-Baiters?

Gee Bob, not sense me setting a trap Golly , somebody would have asked for sure. SIGH

Quote: Buzzard

Gee Bob, not sense me setting a trap Golly , somebody would have asked for sure. SIGH

I know, I ruined it for you. I heard that joke
in the 60's in the first job I ever had.

My first job 1957 $67.50 a week, Blue Cross & Shield medical fully paid. Of course back then retails clerks union had some power. Or rather Jimmy Hoffa did. They could hire scab workers, but teamsters would not cross picket line to deliver groceries to the store.
Butchers made $100 a week. Is that even a skilled trade anymore ?

Quote: Buzzard

My first job 1957 $67.50 a week, Blue Cross & Shield medical fully paid. Of course back then retails clerks union had some power. Or rather Jimmy Hoffa did. They could hire scab workers, but teamsters would not cross picket line to deliver groceries to the store.
Butchers made $100 a week. Is that even a skilled trade anymore ?

Sure, let's go with "My First Jobs". My first job was at age 12 as a bus person in a pancake house for 1.35/hour.

Oh, and in 1974, the high school debate team all got t-shirts that said "Master Debaters". The shirts got confiscated.

Quote: Buzzard

My first job 1957 $67.50 a week,

I had jobs at a car wash and orchard in HS and
got paid $1 an hour. But gas was .19 cents a
gallon and McD's burgers were .15, so there
was that..

My first job where I was paid other than directly by the person for whom I was doing the work was a paper route at the age of 15. It was $150/month + tips (when I started) and it started with about 60-something houses Mon-Sat and about 70 on Sunday, got bigger, though.

Prior to that, I'd run around doing lawn mowing, leaf raking, car washing, snow shoveling, clean siding...that kind of stuff. I started doing that kind of stuff when I was eight or nine, I suppose.

I'm a little embrarrased to say but my first job was as a "security guard" at a ladies department store in Johannesburg, South Africa. I was 16 at the time and got paid about $1.75 an hour.

The perks far outweighed the money though especially when you are standing at the entrance to the ladies changing room :)

Quote: Mission146

My first job where I was paid other than directly by the person for whom I was doing the work was a paper route at the age of 15. It was $150/month + tips (when I started) and it started with about 60-something houses Mon-Sat and about 70 on Sunday, got bigger, though.

We have lost so much in the USA since paperboy ceased to be a job in the late 80s/early 90s. I had a route, kind of hated it but it taught you to go to work. It taught me what happens when you wait too long to collect what is owed to you. Taught how easy it is to lose a customer. Years later when I managed the pest control company I had grown men who did not at all understand these concepts. Drove me crazy.

As society got more affluent parents wanted to go places but the kid had the paper route, so they decided they would rather give him the $10-15 a week. That combined with the cost of such a system killed the job, now adults deliver in cars and don't have to collect.

Quote: AZDuffman

We have lost so much in the USA since paperboy ceased to be a job in the late 80s/early 90s. I had a route, kind of hated it but it taught you to go to work. It taught me what happens when you wait too long to collect what is owed to you. Taught how easy it is to lose a customer. Years later when I managed the pest control company I had grown men who did not at all understand these concepts. Drove me crazy.

As society got more affluent parents wanted to go places but the kid had the paper route, so they decided they would rather give him the $10-15 a week. That combined with the cost of such a system killed the job, now adults deliver in cars and don't have to collect.

I don't know, the newspaper is still somewhat popular in my area. I still seem some walking routes advertised. Keep in mind that I started this job at the age of 15 in 1999, there were motor routes, and when my route grew they considered converting it, but I threw a royal b**** about it. They did convert it after I moved and quit the route.

See, I did free snow removal for all of my paper customers! Sometimes they'd come give me something, sometimes not, sometimes they didn't even know I did it. I didn't care because the goal was to get more customers! The prospective customers see you deliver the paper in the evening (or Sat/Sun morning) and then the next day...or after delivery on Sat/Sun...they see you come back and knock out the person's driveway/porch/sidewalk with or without being paid.

"Hey, how do I subscribe to the paper?"

"Here's the number, please request, 'Carrier collect!"

I always preferred carrier collect, the paper was $9.00/month if you were seven days per week, so they'd usually just hand you a ten and tell you to keep it. The real tippers might give you 11-12 and the REAL tippers gave you $15. The PIA people never tipped, and even if they did, I wouldn't have ever trusted the paper to give it to me. They were a bit upset that I grew the route and quit on them (one month notice) in May 2000 because I felt my $150/month base pay was bull****. Sure enough, they gave the route to someone else who couldn't handle it, that lasted two months, and then they called me back with, "How about a base of $350/month?"

That's more like it! Did it for another year until we moved to a different town, nothing I could do about that one. December of 2000 was awesome, I probably made about $3,000 that month between the route, tips and paid snow removal. Ton of ice that month, awesome for me! Also had an arrangement with the car lot nearby, Marhefka's (closed and in a different location now) that I would come and scrape off all the windows and windshields on about twenty of the better cars and brush the snow off best that I could. That was $50 each day I did it. They also pooled a Christmas tip of $200 for me, and then I won another $50 on a putting tournament we did in the office area, each guy put in $10 and there were six of us!!! I won pretty easily.

Great times, best time I ever had. I would say I felt pretty loaded between the ages of 9-17 because I had more money than anyone else my age, and almost no expenses. Once I hit 17, though, I couldn't find anything except traditional jobs. I had the odd deck finishing/staining/building job between the ages of 17-23, but nothing frequent enough to really count for anything.

I had a paper route when I was 13 to 15 years olf. 52+/- 6 customers. Manual collection. $1.35 / week, 40 cents per customer profit for me. I made about $25 - $30 / week, an extra $150 or so at Christmastime. This was 1982. Townhomes so the route was really easy, took maybe 15 minutes to do the whole route.

Quit that job to do computer programming in the spring of 1984. I was in grade 10, writing accounting software, getting paid a massive $3/hour. Kept that job for about 4 years until University, was making $8/hour by the end!!! Fast forward 20 years, and I'm still working with freaking accounting software, just making alot more than minimum wage!