Weird career opportunities

Odor judger

Odor judges are employed in research labs: basically, they have to smell things and judge the smells. Guess what these lucky employees have to smell when it's a new deodorant that is being tested ...
Or when it comes to test analyze other odor-reducing products such as mouthwash or chewing-gums: there is always somebody who has to confirm the improvement of the stinky morning breath after using the product. Even the dog food industry needs good noses. To test the effect of an animal's diet on its teeth, nothing more effective and simple than smelling the pet's breath.
And of course farts can tell a lot about the interior "life" of a person: Gastroenterologist Michael Levitt's "assistants" tested the farts of 16 volunteers after eating pinto beans. The farts were "trapped" in a container and the odor judges had to rate each sample (of about a 100) before they were chemically analyzed. Myum!


Crime-scene cleanup

Working in Grisham's CSI team is glamorous: a lot of state-of-the-art tech-toys to play with, cool sunglasses, handsome colleagues. But once the cool guys leave, the poor boys of the cleaning service have to deal with the left-overs: not only blood, but also pieces of flesh, brain, teeth, hair or body liquids have to be removed. Wearing a disposable safety jumpsuit, they are the ones to leave no evidence of a suicide, a drive-by or a train accident.




Nun importer: In Europe, the church has a great need of young nuns to fill its convents. Once I talked to a guy who traveled to South America several times a year to recruit candidates and export them overseas. To be a pet detective or an ostrich babysitter sounds actually quite curious, as well.

Bolivian female wrestler

Bolivian indigenous women, the cholitas, are very picturesque, with their multi-layered skirts, colorful scarfs and bowler hats. But they also lead a hard life in poverty, taking care of their many children, and often sharing their lives with violent husbands.
But there are exceptions: some of these women are strong, impulsive and sometimes even aggressive (watch this video of the TV-show "Laura in America to see what I mean).
Organizers of Bolivian wrestling of El Alto (near La Paz) have introduced the innovation of fighting cholitas. Ms Choque (34, 150 pounds) or Marta (167 pounds) are some of the stars. Besides keeping the household and caring for their children and husband, they support a tough training regimen in cold gyms and a weekly hike up a 15-000-foot peak.
They can't make a living wrestling, so most of them have a second job or are supported by their husbands. But it's definitively a good extra income and it hopefully helps them control their aggressions in daily life.

• Short doc "The fighting cholitas" (2006, Mariam Jobrani)

Animal masturbator

This is actually a quite common task for vets. When it comes to breeding of big animals, reproduction is usually assisted or in vitro. That means that semen has to be collected from the males. The human technique of masturbation is not very efficient in bulls, so the alternative is to stimulate a zone similar to a woman's G point. This is done by introducing an electric probe or simply the vet's fist into the animal's rectum until it eyaculates. A more entertaining technique is to use a semen collector disguised as a cow: the bull believes he's actually copulating and introduces his penis into a hole. It's now the vet (or usually his assistant)'s turn to provide the bull with a traditional masturbation and collect the semen.




Other interesting career opportunities may be found in the food and cosmetic industry. What about becoming a dog food tester or, even better, a tampon tester? And I could think of a lot of other products that have to be tested before they leave the factory...
A very uncommon professional is the snake "milker": I've seen that once, definitively an interesting experience. For the production of antidotes, a snake's venom is extracted every few weeks. The poison is lethal (if an anti-venom is not injected immediately) and many of the biologists or vets working with these Ophidia have lost some of their fingers after being biten.


Sewage diver

To dive in shit. These brave people are in charge of fixing or cleaning anything situated inside a pit of sewage. Only the best and bravest professional divers can be hired for this job. Sewage (water-carried wastes: the shit you flush down the toilet) can be quite dense and often divers actually walk rather than swim through a completely opaque mud. They can stay under sewage for up to four hours. Of course no smells can reach them inside their astronaut-like suits, but claustrophoby can be a serious problem. Regarding the odor, the hardest job is the people who have to wash them down and clean them up after diving in liquid poo for hours.
The worst thing that can happen is the suit being torn and flooded - that would be extremely dangerous due to the numerous diseases floating in the waste soup.