The age-old question: "What do you want to be when you grow up?" When you're young, such responses can seem a little far-fetched: "Space Cowboy," "Princess," or, if you're me, "Philosopher by day, astronaut by night." But as you get older, you realize that those answers aren't that far-fetched after all. The moment you hit high school, on the other hand, you'll start hearing that question more regularly. In addition, by the time you enroll in college, it is required of you to at least have a general concept of the realistic professional route that you want to take after graduation.
If you're in high school and thinking about your future career options, you might find it helpful to take a break from these weighty considerations every so often and remind yourself that, no matter what you end up doing with your life, there's always someone else who's doing something even crazier than you are. This could help lighten the mood and make the situation feel more manageable. Here is a list of 10 occupations that really exist and are performed by real individuals in different parts of the globe.
10 of the Strangest Jobs Found Anywhere in the World
1. Diver who plays golf balls
If you have ever played any kind of golf, whether it be mini-golf or professional golf, you may have experienced a situation in which your ball or someone else's ball was hit in the wrong direction and ended up in a lake or pool, where it appeared to be lost for all time. This could have happened to you or to someone else.
It seems that those golf balls have not been completely misplaced by the world. A great number of golf courses all around the globe employ divers to search the ponds and lakes next to their courses for lost golf balls and retrieve them. Divers that specialize in golf balls may retrieve anything from 2,000 to 5,000 golf balls from the water each and every day. Don't worry if you hit the water with your golf ball the next time it happens to you! Later, a skilled diver will come to the rescue and save it.
2. Gumologist
When you take a bite off of a piece of chewing gum, all you can taste is the delicious flavors that are flooding your tongue at once. It has been discovered that the production of the one-gram stick requires an entire scientific procedure. Because of this, there are professionals known as gumologists who use science and technology to create the taste explosion that causes bubbles to form in your mouth.
In order to be successful in the field of gumology, one has to have a particular level of scientific knowledge in chemistry. Some are even engineers! Depending on where a gumologist is in the process of making gum, a typical day may entail working with scientific equipment or spending hours at a time testing the gum's formulation by blowing bubbles with it.
3. Chicken Sexer
Do not be concerned; that is not what you are imagining at all.
Chickens have a habit of huddling together as they are being born in order to maintain their body temperature. However, farmers need to be able to tell male and female chicks apart, particularly given that female chicks will mature into birds that lay eggs at some point in the future. Therefore, it is often someone's responsibility to identify the gender of each chick and place them in the appropriate pen in order for them to fulfill their designated roles on the farm.
Chicken sexers need to have a thorough understanding of the anatomy of young chicks, and they often have some level of experience working in agricultural or ranching settings. If you want to be a chicken sexer, you need be careful not to fluff their feathers an excessive amount.
4. Cleaner for the IMAX Screen
Surprising amounts of grime and dust may accumulate on the massive screens used in IMAX theaters over time. When they don't like what's occurring in the movie, some viewers may throw food items like popcorn or candy at the screen, and the food items will adhere to the screen. The majority of the time, the dust that settles on these cinema screens may be rather thick.
Keeping this in mind, there are a few employees whose duty it is to wipe these displays in order to ensure that your experience of viewing a movie is as clear as possible. Because of the enormous size of the screens and the quantity of dirt that may get embedded on them, the process of cleaning each screen often takes several hours.
When you go to the movies the next time, make sure to give a quiet thank you to the screen cleaners who made it possible for you to enjoy the most recent blockbuster blockbusters.
5. Roll the Dice for the Quality Inspector
The vast majority of people are under the impression that dice may be rolled with any number appearing face up. However, this is not the case. Dice are required to have extremely certain dimensions as well as weight distributions. Even the tiniest disparity might throw off the probability, turning any game played with dice into one that is essentially rigged.
How are you going to make sure that each die you generate is absolutely flawless? In most cases, there is a Dice Quality Inspector whose responsibility it is to do expert quality control tests on the dice to guarantee that they are up to par with all of the specifications. After passing the quality control test, the dice will finally be put into packaging and made available for purchase.
6. Someone who watches Netflix continuously
Imagine spending the whole day catching up on all of your favorite programs and then being paid for it. That's more or less what takes place in this newly formed role at Netflix, which you can read more about here. Before any of Netflix's programming is made available to the general public, the streaming service has a third party examine it and assign it to the proper category. This individual is the reason why you can always find the perfect kind of material that you're searching for, such as a murder mystery or a romantic comedy.
7. Pusher on a Train
You believe there are too many people using the subway in New York City? Take a ride on one of Japan's subways, particularly at rush hour. It is possible for there to be such a high volume of people using the subways in Japan that the government has taken measures to assist with the management of crowds. These measures include the employment of staff members whose job it is to herd passengers into the subway train and ensure that every available space is occupied before the train departs.
8. Dog Food Taster
It is required that dog food be taste-tested before to being offered for sale, just as human food is taste-tested before it is put on the market. As a result of the fact that dogs are unable to vocally convey their opinions about dog food, several firms that manufacture dog food have chosen to use human taste testers in order to evaluate the flavor and texture of dog food. It's not an easy job by any means.
9. Odor Tester
Before putting deodorants, perfumes, and other items on the market, manufacturers need to ensure that using the product will result in the intended aroma. This applies to both consumer and commercial products. Therefore, businesses often conduct testing in which actual people use the items and rate how they smell. Odd jobs like the odor tester are created as a byproduct of this process. Yes, there is someone out there whose job it is to evaluate the effectiveness of odor-giving items by sniffing the breath, feet, and occasionally even the armpits of individuals.
10. The One Who Keeps the Cup (The Stanley Cup)
The Stanley Cup is a trophy that is given to the National Hockey League (NHL) club who wins the league's championship each year. The genuine Stanley Cup trophy is a huge cup that is quite valuable. There is only one trophy of this kind, so if anything were to happen to the first one, there would be no replacement. Because of the significance of the Stanley Cup, a "Keeper of the Cup" is selected each year to serve as a guardian for the trophy and follow it around on all of its excursions. Imagine you have to look after a prize or an award.