Obscure jobs you'd never thought about ...

[roley poley]

I once had a job putting boggly eyes in fridge magnets

 

[ColinJ]

I did a summer job after leaving school, before starting my degree course. It was at a small factory in Coventry which made extruded and moulded plastic products.

The moulded products were things like ashtrays, but I didn't work in that area. I operated an extrusion machine making things like car radiator pipes and curtain tracks.

The job paid ok but was very boring. Someone else set the machine up, and a saw automatically cut the product into strips as it emerged from the machine's extrusion die. All I had to do was load a hopper with plastic granules, move the boxes of strips when full, and keep an eye on the machine.

I dozed off on one shift and eventually was woken up by something brushing against my cheek... It was a twisted length of curtain track. Something had gone wrong and the track had got snarled up short of the saw and was twisting itself into giant lengths. There was probably 50 metres of the stuff wrapped around me and the machine! Fortunately, the foreman was elsewhere so I quickly scooped up the waste and chomped it in our waste plastic chomper before he returned and gave me a good b*ll*ck*ng...

 

[Dave7]

I go into pharma and food factories for work, and as I love chocolate the first time I went to Cadbury's at Bournville I took a deep breath and said, 'I bet you love working here with a smell like this?'

Apparently you get used to the smell, much better than working in a raw meat plant though.

After a days work, if you went to eg the shops, everyone knew you worked at Cadburys.

 

[glasgowcyclist]

After a days work, if you went to eg the shops, everyone knew you worked at Cadburys.

But how could they tell? 🤔

 

[oldwheels]

In my postman days I was at one stage a Telegram Boy, ie I cycled out to deliver telegrams. When there were no telegrams I was put into a bake room with no windows and instructed to cut the string off lead seals which sealed the incoming mail bags and got cut off to open the bags. Drove me round the bend and eventually I got put back on to normal postal deliveries as I was going to pack the job in and being a good worker they preferred to keep me.

 

[ColinJ]

In my postman days I was at one stage a Telegram Boy, ie I cycled out to deliver telegrams.

I wonder if you ever got the reaction that my mum used to give our Telegram Boy...?

(In case any forum youngsters wonder - many families in the 1960s, ours included, did not have a telephone and of course there was no email back then. If important information had to be passed in a hurry, either someone else with a phone had to pass on a message, or a telegram would be sent.)

My mum had a big extended family near you on the west coast of Scotland. At that time many of them were getting old...

Several times I saw a telegram van pull up and telegram boy get out and walk up our front garden path. My mum would leap to her feet, burst into tears and run to the door sobbing - another beloved Scottish relative must have died! She would fling open the door before it was knocked, and startled telegram boy would hand the bad news-bearing telegram to the strange bawling woman.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Rope access technician

https://www.onropes.co.uk/rope-access-technician

Often employed climbers which is how I know about this job.

 

[Profpointy]

Window cleaner on high rise buildings in one of those basket things .

View attachment 630409


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Ahem

 

[classic33]

Ahem

Only the one, dynamic, rope?

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

On the subject of dull, repetitive jobs I worked in a metalworking shop and used to get overtime on a Saturday. One day I was making hinge plate boxes for doors on MG Midgets. The morning was spent forming them on the press and the afternoon I spent spot welding them. This was when I discovered spot welders momentarily stop quartz watches when they arc. Well actually, I discovered this much later. Puzzled why it had got dark so early, I knocked off at 5pm and got back to my digs an hour later at 8pm.

Never did get paid for the 2 extra hours either

 

[winjim]

Rope access technician

https://www.onropes.co.uk/rope-access-technician

Often employed climbers which is how I know about this job.

I've got a mate who dangles off North Sea rigs for a living. He's mainly a caver rather than a climber though.

 

[Profpointy]

Only the one, dynamic, rope?

In caving we call it SRT - single rope techniques (alternatively "silly rope tricks") so there's a clue in the word "single". Two ropes simply doesn't work underground though appreciate it's the rules for "at work". As it was my own house I wasn't at work so I can please myself

I borrowed a static rope from my club the first time but used my own dynamic rope the other. Not much bounce on a short bit like that so climbing rope is fine. I'd not want to do 100m on dynamic rope. Once climbed 200m on a (rather thin) static rope and the bounce was very disconcerting indeed!

 

[Hover Fly]

On the subject of dull, repetitive jobs I worked in a metalworking shop and used to get overtime on a Saturday. One day I was making hinge plate boxes for doors on MG Midgets. The morning was spent forming them on the press and the afternoon I spent spot welding them. This was when I discovered spot welders momentarily stop quartz watches when they arc. Well actually, I discovered this much later. Puzzled why it had got dark so early, I knocked off at 5pm and got back to my digs an hour later at 8pm.

Never did get paid for the 2 extra hours either

Also play havoc with rfid passes, debit cards etc.

 

[pawl]

A Sager Makers Bottom Knocker That’s a memory from What’s My Line Remember that with Eamonn Andrews.
A sager is apparently something used to protect pottery when being fired in the kiln.