My Own Oddest Jobs List

Because someone asked, and because I don't have much else to write at the moment, here's my own personal list of oddest jobs, adapted from Carerbuilder.com's America's Most Unusual Jobs list.

Here's where I made the list.

A) Actor for haunted house: Once upon a time I was a make-up artist and, in that life I did special effects make-up for a haunted house. While I was there, I took a part as a victim in a freakish laboratory experiment.

J) Jelly donut filler: It was one of my duties when I worked in a donut shop as a teenager.

P) Phone Psychic: A lot of phone sex operators also work as phone psychics at one time or another. Many of the skills are the same, listening and being understanding. I did it briefly.

To my profound surprise, I quickly saw there was something to all that paranormal stuff. The more calls I took though, the more I understood that what there is to it would be the natural inclination of the converted to believe they find confirming details in vagaries. Once I realized it was too often a placebo for real problems, I had to move on. The few weeks it took me took between my realization and taking up another job was the only time in my life I've ever felt like a whore.

It shouldn't surprise you that many of the same companies that have phone sex lines also run psychic lines. After all, they already have the system in place. I once worked at a call center that had phone psychics on one floor, phone sluts on another, and yet another floor full of people taking catalog orders for mail order companies. The break room was always an interesting mix of people and conversation.

V) Voice over actress for movies: OK, I fudged on this one. I did commercials.

I got the job through my work as a make-up artist. While working with a fashion photographer, I answered his office phone and it was a guy trying to track down an actress who was late for a job. She wasn't there but I was.

I ended up working for the caller on and off for the next seven years. Along with commercials, he also contracted me to do a series of pseudo-sexual recordings. The scripts would be something that sounded explicit until you got to the last line like "Oooooh, it's so big. Please be gentle, I've never had anything so big in me before. Oh please, do it fast... oh, oh, oooooooh. Thank you for taking that splinter out doctor."

X) X-mas tree decorator: I once had a summer job working for a company that decorated malls and mansions for Christmas. (There's actually so much to be done, they have to begin in the summer getting things together.) It was there I enjoyed hearing America's most unusual quitting words when a man who had struggled all day with a garland finally stormed off in frustration saying "fuck it, I have to believe little elves do this."

My absolute most unusual job though, was not listed and it wasn't even phone sex. It was working for one of those old fashioned photography studios where they take sepia toned pictures of people in period costumes. I was the wardrobe person who helped people get in and out of thier costumes. When there was a long line waiting, I could strip a man of his chaps, gun belt, and tin star faster than you can say "cheesy old west gear."

I beat out the other applicant for the job because I was tall enough to reach the hats on the top shelf without needing a stool.