The 20 Most Bizarre Jobs Ever

One of the more unusual attractions in Memphis, Tennessee is the Peabody Hotel’s ducks, who live on the hotel’s roof and come down the elevator every day to go for a splash in the lobby fountain. The duck manager takes care of and trains these critters.

The Ritz Carlton South Beach in Miami employs a tanning butler, whose job it is to see that guests have the tanning supplies they need and to help them apply their sunscreen.

The Miami New Times says that over the years, the hotel has lost several of its tanning butlers to the world of modelling.

At the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco, there is a coin washer whose job it is to, well, launder money. According to The California Report, every coin that passes through the hotel is washed: a tradition that started in the 1930s.

The Oberoi Rajvilas in Jaipur, India employs pigeon chasers who shoo away pigeons so that things don’t get messy. In an interview published by World Hum one of these pigeon chasers said that he and a colleague take turns to chase away the pigeons for two hours at a time, nine hours a day.

Some hotels and restaurants employ a water sommelier, who is an expert on different brands and vintages of water. The Huffington Post says that Martin Riese of Ray’s & Stark Bar in Los Angeles is the only water sommelier in the USA.

Companies that manufacture chewing gum, mouthwash and toothpaste sometimes employ breath odour evaluators, who test the efficiency of a product by smelling people’s breath after they’ve used said product.

Career Search says that the key qualifications are a good sense of smell and a willingness to stick your nose into people’s mouths.

A face feeler, according to Career Search , literally feels people’s faces after they’ve used a new skincare product or razor, checking for any changes in the skin.

According to Rocket News 24, there are agencies in Japan that will apologize on your behalf. If you’re really, really sorry, they will even throw in some tears.

Don’t have time to visit the graves of your deceased loved ones? According to Yusuke Japan Blog, there are companies that will send out someone to visit and clean graves and leave flowers or incense on your behalf.

Small Business Trends says that in South Korea, there is a growing industry for people who will attend your wedding and pretend they’re part of your family. This way, last-minute cancellations won’t ruin your dream of having a big fat Korean wedding.

Professional mourners are found in several countries, including Taiwan and the UK. According to IOL, a South African mourning agency even prices its services according to ‘normal crying’, ‘crying and rolling on the ground’ and ‘crying and threatening to jump into the grave’.

There’s nothing like crawling into a warm bed at the end of a cold day. According to the Telegraph, at least one hotel chain has started employing human bed warmers, who go lie in your bed to warm it up for you before you retire for the night.

A train pusher or oshiya has the job of pushing people onto crammed Japanese trains before the doors close. However, according to Wikipedia, pushers used to work on the New York City Subway too.

In 2012, the BBC reported that a young man with a degree in music and English found a job as a human scarecrow. He sat in a field all day, rain or shine, and scared away partridges for about $450 a week.

If you thought your job was dull, imagine having to literally sit and watch paint dry all day. The Daily Star reports that a scientist at paint manufacturer Dulux does exactly that, even observing the drying paint through a microscope.

According to Career Addict, there are several possibilities for being paid to sleep. Doctors and researchers, mystery-shopping companies and hotels are just some of the employers who let people snooze on the job.

A hair boiler operates vats in which animal hair is boiled until it curls up so that it can be turned into a wig. Inside Jobs says that the salary range for this job is from $22,000 to $51,000 a year.

What nobody tells you about making adult films is that someone has to clean up afterwards. The Daily Mail reports that a British porn-set cleaner started taking pictures of the sets she had to clean up and eventually became a professional photographer.

In Mexico, a popular way to make the party just a little livelier is to receive an electric shock, known as a toque.

Professional shockers, for want of a better term, walk around with battery-operated devices that apply these shocks and according to the Daily Mail, they can make really good money.

It's not a bizarre job, but it's certainly unique.

To hold aloft that sacred vessel known as the Stanley Cup, you either need to play hockey very, very well or you need to get past the Keeper of the Cup, who is basically its bodyguard.

As the Los Angeles Times describes it, Stanley Cup keepers like Philip Pritchard ‘act as security and travel agent for the trophy’.