Speaker 1: Guess what, mango, what's that? Will? So I was reading
Speaker 1: this article on Saddam Hussein and all of his body doubles,
Speaker 1: and supposedly he sent them out to do TV appearances
Speaker 1: or speeches, and you know, sometimes he'd even send them
Speaker 1: out to meet ambassadors from other countries. So how did
Speaker 1: people know he was using body doubles? Well, people in
Speaker 1: a rat could tell because nobody loved his close ups
Speaker 1: more than Saddam Hussein, and he'd insists that the press
Speaker 1: with zoom in on his face so that they could
Speaker 1: get his full handsomeness in the frame. But when his
Speaker 1: body doubles were giving televised speeches, it was always this
Speaker 1: super distant, wide angle shot, no close up. So I mean,
Speaker 1: it's pretty obvious after a while of that, I'm guessing.
Speaker 1: But then you've also got this first person account from
Speaker 1: one of the decoys his sons used. So his sons
Speaker 1: were using decoys to yeah, and the job sounded awful.
Speaker 1: So not only did the doubles have to hang out
Speaker 1: with these idiot psychopaths, but one of them said he
Speaker 1: was shot not once, but twenty six times on the job,
Speaker 1: all during these failed assassination attempt But apparently it was
Speaker 1: never bad enough that he couldn't be patched up and
Speaker 1: sent right back out again. That's horrible, I know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's got to be the worst job in the world.
Speaker 1: And so he's a human rights lawyer somewhere in Europe
Speaker 1: and his life is obviously improved since then. But the
Speaker 1: whole thing made me wonder, what are some of the
Speaker 1: other candidates for the world's worst job, and what are
Speaker 1: some other careers you're busy town books never told you
Speaker 1: about as a kid. And that's what today's show is
Speaker 1: all about. Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson
Speaker 1: and as always I'm joined by my good friend Man
Speaker 1: Guesh I Ticketer and the man behind the soundproof glass
Speaker 1: rest like a paper boy from the nineteen twenties is
Speaker 1: our good pal Tristan McNeil. He's always committed. Tristan. We
Speaker 1: don't need a paper We've got phones. Okay, alright, so
Speaker 1: so go I know you and I feel lucky to
Speaker 1: have this weird job that we do where we basically
Speaker 1: get to read things and then talk to each other
Speaker 1: about them. I mean, how weird is it that this
Speaker 1: is our job? Now? I know, it's the best and uh,
Speaker 1: and then we got to spend this whole week on
Speaker 1: the job just researching other people's terrible jobs is pretty great. Actually,
Speaker 1: I forgot to mention this to you. I I googled
Speaker 1: worst jobs, and one of the first things that came
Speaker 1: up was a list of Steve Jobs being terrible to
Speaker 1: other people, like like him yelling at a Whole Foods
Speaker 1: cashier for supposedly overcharging him by a quarter, or how
Speaker 1: he used to recruit talented people by telling they hadn't
Speaker 1: achieved anything in their life, so you know, maybe they
Speaker 1: should come work for him. Well, maybe we should do
Speaker 1: a worse Steve Jobs episode down the road. But uh,
Speaker 1: but let's get back to regular job. So I I
Speaker 1: was talking to my friend who's this cultural theorist, and
Speaker 1: he was talking about the way Europeans used to think
Speaker 1: about work and the way Americans still think about it,
Speaker 1: and how different those two are. What do you mean
Speaker 1: by that? So, I mean this is all getting blurred
Speaker 1: now with technology and whatever. But he was reading this
Speaker 1: Italian sociologist's book from the nineteen eighties, and the author
Speaker 1: was making this argument that in America, you're supposed to
Speaker 1: get enjoyment out of your job, Like there's this tremendous
Speaker 1: emphasis placed on doing what you love, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's that's the ideal, I guess. And and his point is,
Speaker 1: like your life revolves around your work. Your work friends
Speaker 1: are some of your closest friends, and you might hang
Speaker 1: out with them at night. You keep your cell phone
Speaker 1: by your bed in case there's a work emergency. You
Speaker 1: plan your life and your vacations around your work. And
Speaker 1: your work, in many ways, is actually your identity. It's
Speaker 1: who you are. Yeah, you know. It's the first thing
Speaker 1: people ask whenever you meet somebody. And as much as
Speaker 1: I tell myself not to do this, I can't help it.
Speaker 1: When I meet somebody, the first thing I asked them
Speaker 1: is like, so what do you do? And I guess
Speaker 1: in reality it's it's often the least interesting thing about
Speaker 1: a person exactly. But his point was that in Germany
Speaker 1: and Italy and these other places, the culture was very
Speaker 1: much like once you leave work, you leave your work
Speaker 1: there and you leave to live your passion. So whether
Speaker 1: that's going out to shows or spending your time woodworking
Speaker 1: or bling in photography or whatever. And your friends aren't
Speaker 1: necessarily your work friends, but your friends from that life.
Speaker 1: It's like the separate hidden life, and the people at
Speaker 1: work might not even know these more colorful aspects of
Speaker 1: who you are. Yeah, And you know it's interesting because
Speaker 1: if your job is something you're just doing to make
Speaker 1: good money, you know, maybe being I don't know, say,
Speaker 1: like a whales snot collector isn't such a bad thing.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's what you do to live comfortably,
Speaker 1: but it's not the reason you wake up every single morning, right,
Speaker 1: So I mean, I guess you have to like it
Speaker 1: enough to do it every day, but will it's not
Speaker 1: collecting that sounds like a job No guidance counselor has
Speaker 1: ever tried to sell me on, so I want you
Speaker 1: to tell me about it. Well, my mom was a
Speaker 1: guidance counselor and she never mentioned this one to me,
Speaker 1: So you're right about that. But it's not the sort
Speaker 1: of thing most kids grow up dreaming they want to be.
Speaker 1: But it's actually a really important job. So I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you actually do, because I'm guessing it's more intense
Speaker 1: than just holding up this like giant Kleenex in the
Speaker 1: ocean and tickling a whale under their nose. No, that's
Speaker 1: pretty much it. It is a little more involved in that.
Speaker 1: And and here's why it's even a job. So it's
Speaker 1: really hard to collect blood from a whale. Their skin
Speaker 1: is super thick and they're they're not easy to wrangle
Speaker 1: or keep still. I don't know if you've ever tried
Speaker 1: to wrangle whale before. It's pretty difficult. Sometimes scientists have
Speaker 1: used darts for their biopsies, but they can only get
Speaker 1: a few samples a day by doing something like that,
Speaker 1: and that's after a ton of effort. So I'm wondering, like,
Speaker 1: couldn't you just study the blood samples of whales that
Speaker 1: have washed ashore or like those that are in captivity. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess so, but it's not a great
Speaker 1: way to understand and monitor the wild population. So Karina
Speaker 1: Asaveta white House, she's the scientist with the Zoological Society
Speaker 1: of London, she came up with a much more effective way.
Speaker 1: You know, since she couldn't get ahold of any blood sample,
Speaker 1: she realized not was the next best thing. I never
Speaker 1: actually thought about whales not before. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you had to just I didn't even know they made it.
Speaker 1: But anyway, so so this is the crazy part. She
Speaker 1: started tying herself to a boat, leaning over whales blowholes
Speaker 1: with a Petri dish and then trying to collect the
Speaker 1: gunk whenever they sneezed it out, which sounds disgusting, but like,
Speaker 1: did that actually work? I mean sort of. So so
Speaker 1: when whale surface, they release this mucus and water and
Speaker 1: gases about thirty feet into the air from their spout,
Speaker 1: and you know, but trying to catch the stuff with
Speaker 1: bare hands and a Petri dish while being tied to
Speaker 1: a ship it was a little bit dangerous, I guess.
Speaker 1: So she came up with a different idea and and
Speaker 1: so now she flies remote controlled toy helicopters, you know,
Speaker 1: through these disgusting sneeze clouds, and then just takes the
Speaker 1: whale snot to a laugh, for bacterial and virus analysis,
Speaker 1: which actually sounds way cooler once you explain it. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's still gross, but also kind of awesome, and especially
Speaker 1: they're using toy helicopters for good part. Exactly, it does
Speaker 1: sound pretty cool when you really start to think about it.
Speaker 1: And the toy helicopters quickly morphed into using drones, and
Speaker 1: now there are a lot of whale scientists who have
Speaker 1: these snot bots to help them collect fluids, and instead
Speaker 1: of just being able to collect three or four samples,
Speaker 1: they get close to fifty on a good day, and
Speaker 1: it's really helped to paint a better understanding of whale
Speaker 1: health than the wild. Amazing. So I I really like
Speaker 1: that job, but I think we should try to make
Speaker 1: up some ground rules here. I know we told that
Speaker 1: Saddam Hussein decoy story at the top, but we've kind
Speaker 1: of agreed not to cover anything that feels too exploitative
Speaker 1: or depressing because there are obviously some truly heartbreaking jobs
Speaker 1: out there, and and this is really more about learning
Speaker 1: about curious jobs that people actually want to do. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, I know the whales not thing was
Speaker 1: pretty gross, but I think we should probably agree not
Speaker 1: to cover anything too disgusting. Likes not collecting from giant
Speaker 1: mammal splits more funny than gross to me, exactly. But
Speaker 1: I I don't want to do anything on like portable
Speaker 1: toilet cleaners or sewer divers or or even you know
Speaker 1: about the the guy who has to empty out the
Speaker 1: walk in freezer every week where Boston stashes all of
Speaker 1: their cities roadkill. All their road kill gets stored in
Speaker 1: a giant freezer. Yeah, it's a walk in freezer. I mean,
Speaker 1: the most interesting thing about the job is that someone
Speaker 1: has a business card that reads, quote, uh Final Journeys,
Speaker 1: Animal Aftercare. So they actually have this contract where they
Speaker 1: escort roadkill on their final final journey. But I think
Speaker 1: we should focus our efforts on some things that are
Speaker 1: more surprising and cork here. So but what else do
Speaker 1: you have for me in this funny gross category? I
Speaker 1: like how we agreed we weren't going to talk about
Speaker 1: the guy that stashes all the cities roadkill and then
Speaker 1: you totally talked about it breaking the rules already here.
Speaker 1: But um, let me see, I want look at my
Speaker 1: list here. I was reading about a pet food taste
Speaker 1: and I don't know, I kind of feel like my
Speaker 1: twelve year old self would be impressed with his job.
Speaker 1: So some people actually taste the pet food before it
Speaker 1: goes out, all right. So there's this great profile from
Speaker 1: the Daily Mail back in two thousand and eight about
Speaker 1: this guy named Simon Allison and he's the senior food
Speaker 1: technologist for Marx and Spencer and this is in England,
Speaker 1: and you know, no one has asked him to try
Speaker 1: the gourmet pet food. He just tries every variety they
Speaker 1: produced to make sure it's up to snuff. He was
Speaker 1: quoted as saying, no one asked me to taste it,
Speaker 1: but it is what I do. It's just the same
Speaker 1: as if I was working in the ready meals department.
Speaker 1: I love my job, and eating the product is a
Speaker 1: fundamental part. So that's a real commitment. But what kind
Speaker 1: of thing is he? Eating? All the cat and dog
Speaker 1: food that they produce, and so that they make things
Speaker 1: like camp fire jerky bars and Thanksgiving cat food with
Speaker 1: cranberries and turkey, And he claims that cat food has
Speaker 1: to have more of an odor because cats are more particular,
Speaker 1: and that a lot of the stuff he does is
Speaker 1: mostly for humans, so adding chunky vegetables and making the
Speaker 1: food look moist, and the more humans think it looks
Speaker 1: like human food, the more they'll actually pay for it.
Speaker 1: But you know, his primary concern is making sure the
Speaker 1: animals will actually like the stuff, So I can't imagine
Speaker 1: eating pet food voluntarily, which just sounds terrible to me.
Speaker 1: But does he have any tricks to his trade? Well,
Speaker 1: he says that he looks for texture, like he likes
Speaker 1: a little bit of grit, but that he always wants
Speaker 1: something that you can spread on a crusty bread. I
Speaker 1: don't understand that part, but that's you know, that's what
Speaker 1: my how my dog eats so But but he always
Speaker 1: keeps a tall glass of water handy. He says. He
Speaker 1: never swallow is the food. And it's not that he
Speaker 1: seems against it. It's more that he doesn't want to
Speaker 1: put on weight from all this taste testing, which would
Speaker 1: really be a shame if you like, put on a
Speaker 1: ton of weight for eating dog and cat food. But
Speaker 1: he always keeps gum around because there's nothing worse, in
Speaker 1: his opinion than, as he says, dog breath. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: you've got to applaud that sort of dedication. And I'm
Speaker 1: curious whether he holds the same standards for his employees,
Speaker 1: Like if they don't want to snack on puppy chow,
Speaker 1: does he think they're phoning it in? But I think
Speaker 1: that's a good amount of gross um. But how about
Speaker 1: you hit us up with one more gross one and
Speaker 1: then we'll shift gears a little. I like, how you
Speaker 1: knew I was gonna come with the gross ones that
Speaker 1: I can do that, all right, let me choose one
Speaker 1: more here. So, um, I mean this might border on
Speaker 1: two grows, but there was a pop size story on this.
Speaker 1: They did a list of the worst jobs in science
Speaker 1: and one of their top choices was flattest judge, or
Speaker 1: a job where two brave souls, as they put it,
Speaker 1: were paid by a gas ranentrologist to analyze the odor
Speaker 1: as people broke wind, which sounds straight out of like
Speaker 1: a mel Brooks movie or something. I mean, but the
Speaker 1: funny thing is the way that Minneapolis gas entrologist his
Speaker 1: name is Michael Levitt. So he collected samples and he
Speaker 1: did this by getting volunteers to eat copious quantities of
Speaker 1: pento beams. Again, I know, we said we were going
Speaker 1: to talk about gross things, but the twelve year old
Speaker 1: he just couldn't resist this. But then he used plastic
Speaker 1: tube contraptions to collect the quote, episodes of flatulence before
Speaker 1: analyzing the chemicals and subjecting the people to smells. But
Speaker 1: you know, as he defended that, there's a real purpose
Speaker 1: for this grossness. So think about mouth washed companies, so
Speaker 1: unlike those where sensitive sniffers and odor judges are really
Speaker 1: getting a sense of whether a mouthwash is effectively going
Speaker 1: to cover up bad breath here. Instead, the flattest sniffers
Speaker 1: are analyzing this scent for health reasons. And and Levitt
Speaker 1: believes you might actually be able to detect things like
Speaker 1: all sort of coldis, you know, all from these aroma notes.
Speaker 1: And as the article puts it, quote, he's dedicated his
Speaker 1: career to the study of the myriad fragrances produced by
Speaker 1: the human gut and imprudently ignore by the medical establishment.
Speaker 1: I like that phrase, myrriad fragrances, But flattest judge is
Speaker 1: definitely not a job I want. And I do think
Speaker 1: that's enough grossness. So why don't we break for a
Speaker 1: little quiz, And then I want to talk about a
Speaker 1: post that's been called the hardest job in the world,
Speaker 1: the Somalian Minister of Tourism. So back in a minute, Tomanka.
Speaker 1: Who do we have on the line today? So we've
Speaker 1: got my pal Lucas Adams. I watched Lucas intern all
Speaker 1: over the place in New York City, and today he
Speaker 1: has one of the best jobs. He's an amazing cartoonist
Speaker 1: and he's also the founding editor of the New York
Speaker 1: Review of Comics, which is the super prestigious in front
Speaker 1: of the New York Review of Books. It's awesome. But
Speaker 1: before that he was juggling tons of terrible jobs in
Speaker 1: New York City and that's what I brought him on
Speaker 1: to talk about. So Lucas, welcome to the show. So
Speaker 1: one of the funniest things I remember from when you
Speaker 1: worked on an ice cream truck was how sticky the
Speaker 1: experience was. And being sticky is the worst. Can can
Speaker 1: you talk to me about the different kinds of sticky
Speaker 1: you get on various jobs? Oh? Oh yeah, definitely. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is something I still think about. Um. And I
Speaker 1: would be scooping my arm, hair would get caked in
Speaker 1: ice cream. Uh, and like different flavors or worst chocolate
Speaker 1: was the absolute worst. Um. But yeah, you would just
Speaker 1: sort of have to like hide different customers like through
Speaker 1: the day. Uh, get kind of everything we get stuck on.
Speaker 1: It was it was really ideal. Uh. And then I
Speaker 1: a couple of other trucks that worked, and I worked
Speaker 1: on the lobster truck that was run by a TV
Speaker 1: show host daughter. Uh, and that was always like you
Speaker 1: just came out selling like a seafood restaurant like every time. Um.
Speaker 1: And then uh, and my first truck job that was
Speaker 1: on a dumpling truck, and that was like sort of
Speaker 1: the worst smell you have this like Doughey, sort of
Speaker 1: like dumpling smell. You've burned your hands when you worked
Speaker 1: the dumpling steamer. You kind of lose the feelings and
Speaker 1: the finger tips of your fingers. But because you're basically
Speaker 1: getting a steam bath all day from the dumpling steamer,
Speaker 1: it was a clear skin I've ever had in my life.
Speaker 1: Compliment like how glowing I look through the day. It
Speaker 1: was really ideal. And you've lost all your arm hair
Speaker 1: and the ice cream, so you're just really shiny arms exactly,
Speaker 1: and a real beauty routine buried in there. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I hear sometimes you you didn't have a work
Speaker 1: permit to be working these trucks. Is this is this true? Oh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was. That was my first job because I moved
Speaker 1: to New York in and you you're supposed to get
Speaker 1: a permit, and it was good faith with trucks. You're
Speaker 1: gonna like do two steps and go through it. But
Speaker 1: I put it off for a really long time, and
Speaker 1: there was always the threat that the Health inspector might
Speaker 1: come and like scare you or whatever. And then it
Speaker 1: actually happened to me where I was like, Hi, can
Speaker 1: I take your order? And a guy just like flashes
Speaker 1: a badge and I have to go. I gotta like
Speaker 1: go immediately to see my mom and just like put
Speaker 1: on my jacket and just run off the truck and
Speaker 1: had to hide out like five or six blocks away
Speaker 1: for the rest of my shop. So that was very professional.
Speaker 1: So I know, I watched you work your tail off,
Speaker 1: and I heard these horrible stories that people talking down
Speaker 1: to you and treating you miserably, But there were some
Speaker 1: positive experiences you had, right, Can you talk about some
Speaker 1: of those? Yeah, definitely. You need uh a lot of
Speaker 1: good customers to everything. But I met a ton of
Speaker 1: really great people. When Hurricane Sandy hit and when I
Speaker 1: was in the ice cream truck. New York City, UH
Speaker 1: commission a bunch of food trucks, like gave money, UH
Speaker 1: two different food trucks, and we were one of them
Speaker 1: to go out to the Rockaways at the Breezy Point,
Speaker 1: all these places that had been really hard hit because
Speaker 1: the city didn't really have any mobile food kitchens. UM,
Speaker 1: so we would be parts like next to like uh
Speaker 1: some neighborhoods that were with that power, and we'd be
Speaker 1: serving coffee and cookies, no ice cream, just cossies and cookies.
Speaker 1: But it was this really wild environment where everybody was
Speaker 1: just so excited to be there. Um I had like
Speaker 1: doctors offering to give us like free flu shots our
Speaker 1: battery day. At one point in this powered trucks from
Speaker 1: Wisconsin returned shirt battery and we like tried to give
Speaker 1: them cookies and they were like, no, save that for
Speaker 1: everybody who needs them. And everybody was just so grateful,
Speaker 1: and it was like it's still probably the best work
Speaker 1: I've ever done, just because it felt so immediate and
Speaker 1: it felt so good to be there to help, and
Speaker 1: it's really like direct the media way. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: really really cool. All right, Well, we wanted to throw
Speaker 1: a little quiz at you, Lucas, So, so Mango, what
Speaker 1: quiz are we playing today? It's called odd Jobs and
Speaker 1: it's actually a multiple choice. All right, that's right, So
Speaker 1: we're gonna describe an odd job from your and then
Speaker 1: ask Lucas what's the job title? So you're ready to play, Lucas, absolutely, alright?
Speaker 1: Question number one in British towns where there was a
Speaker 1: mill or a mine. These people were responsible for going
Speaker 1: house the house to wake workers up in the mornings.
Speaker 1: What were they called? Were they a COCKA doodlers or
Speaker 1: be knocker ups? I'm gonna go with B. Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1: So the title came from the sound they made on windows.
Speaker 1: Usually they carried a long pole so that they could
Speaker 1: tap from the street level. I kind of wish I
Speaker 1: had a knock at I guess they're called kids, So
Speaker 1: all right, question number two. This street profession consisted of
Speaker 1: shuffling a p among three thimbles and taking bets on
Speaker 1: which thimble the p was under. What were these early
Speaker 1: hustlers called a thimble riggers or B P podsters. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go with A, but I wish it was be.
Speaker 1: You're right, So thimble riggers were popular in the late
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds, and shell games date back to ancient Greece.
Speaker 1: All right, Lucas two, So far he's halfway there. Number three.
Speaker 1: This used to be the common name for a wandering
Speaker 1: egg merchant. Is that an a eggler or B an
Speaker 1: eggmund ohn B sounds more formal. Let's try that. Oh,
Speaker 1: we finally stumped him didn't we mango. So it's an
Speaker 1: eggler and you can guess how these folks got their names.
Speaker 1: Sometimes an egg it could also be a higgler or
Speaker 1: a door to door salesman, although to be clear, not
Speaker 1: all hitlers were egglers. If there's one thing we want
Speaker 1: people to take away from this episode, it's that not
Speaker 1: all higglers were egglers. Right, Okay, last question, still a
Speaker 1: chance for the big prize. Here we go, question number four.
Speaker 1: These oddly named textile mill workers had the job of
Speaker 1: wandering through the mill and changing any bobbins where they
Speaker 1: yarn or thread was spinning imperfectly. What were they called?
Speaker 1: Were they a mc fluffins or be slubbard offers? Um,
Speaker 1: let's try be Yeah, that's right, so any imperfections in
Speaker 1: the yarn were called slubs, so the doffer was responsible
Speaker 1: for fixing them. Gosh, we got higglers and nigglers and
Speaker 1: dufflers and thimble riggers. This is this is pretty great?
Speaker 1: All right? Well, I think Lucas did pretty well. How
Speaker 1: do you do, Mango? Yeah, Lucas went an amazing three
Speaker 1: for four, So we're gonna send him a copy of
Speaker 1: this important book called Poets. Ranked by Beardwight. Uh. Congrats, Lucas.
Speaker 1: For those of you listening at home, be sure to
Speaker 1: check out the New York Review of Comics. It's truly wonderful.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining us, Lucas, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to part time genius Domego. We're talking about
Speaker 1: terrible jobs today, but before we dive back into those,
Speaker 1: why do we cover some of the best job titles
Speaker 1: we've seen. When we were at Mental Flaws, I remember
Speaker 1: your job title was something like it wasn't like VP
Speaker 1: of Important Things. Yeah, so my initial title was actually
Speaker 1: product development, just because that was the job that Tom
Speaker 1: Hanks had in the movie Big, But then I changed
Speaker 1: it to sound even less like a job. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I've jotted down a list here of some other enviable
Speaker 1: job titles. One of my favorites was bacon critic, and
Speaker 1: that's actually a real job at Time Magazines Extra Crispy site.
Speaker 1: So it's a site dedicated just to breakfast, and apparently
Speaker 1: they have the critic working pretty hard. I mean that
Speaker 1: the person who filled the job has eaten thirty one
Speaker 1: animals in the span of a month, and I'm guessing
Speaker 1: those aren't full animals. But just the bacon visin. So
Speaker 1: what are some of the other great titles. Let's see,
Speaker 1: Yahoo has a head of cybersecurity that's called the Paranoid
Speaker 1: in Chief, and it makes the job sound a little
Speaker 1: bit more fun, and of course it makes sense because
Speaker 1: the entire cybersecurity division they're they're called the paranoids. So
Speaker 1: I actually have a few of these giant down as well. Um,
Speaker 1: Pizza Hut employs a Dean of pizza and I would
Speaker 1: love to have that title. And there's this company called
Speaker 1: Matrix Group, which is a digital agency, and they've got
Speaker 1: a Chief Troublemaker on staff, and that's another job title.
Speaker 1: I like a little mischief and troublemaking is always something
Speaker 1: I'm fond of, and a little bit of nonsense and
Speaker 1: there too, that also makes sense art, speaking of which,
Speaker 1: Microsoft used to have a job for the Galactic Viceroy
Speaker 1: of Research Excel. What's that mean exactly? I mean, I
Speaker 1: think it's some sort of cloud computing gig. I don't
Speaker 1: really know. And then I saw another from a pal Tune,
Speaker 1: which is a software company to help animated explainers and presentations,
Speaker 1: has a chief executive Unicorn. Well, those are definitely very
Speaker 1: dreamy job titles. But here's one that isn't a dream job.
Speaker 1: In fact, in two thousand four, the Economist magazine called
Speaker 1: it the hardest job in the world. It is the
Speaker 1: director of tourism in Somalia. Yeah, I mean, I'm definitely
Speaker 1: interested to hear what you're gonna say about the gig,
Speaker 1: but I do think it gets into tricky territory. You know,
Speaker 1: obviously Somalia has been ravaged by civil war for decades now,
Speaker 1: so you know, it's not as that we're making light
Speaker 1: of any situation there. That's true, and it is sad
Speaker 1: because the country is truly beautiful. Like Mogadishu was once
Speaker 1: referred to as the white Pearl of the Indian Ocean.
Speaker 1: The coastline is completely stunning. There's really interesting cuisine from
Speaker 1: the Italian influence that was there, like people eat pastas
Speaker 1: for lunch with all these various spices, and and from
Speaker 1: its previous life as a trading poor through all these
Speaker 1: other spices that are imported as well. They're these cave paintings,
Speaker 1: and and there's this medieval walled city that supposedly contains
Speaker 1: like ninety moss. Yeah, there's a lot of rich history,
Speaker 1: but I think there are two main types of terrible jobs.
Speaker 1: They're like the gross ones, and then they're the ones
Speaker 1: where you're just bored out of your mind because you
Speaker 1: can't accomplish anything and you have nothing to show for
Speaker 1: your work. They're kind of this like sysiphus like job. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was telling you about that that piece I read
Speaker 1: and Esquire a while back, and I think these two
Speaker 1: dudes in Hollywood, you know, from the outside, they looked
Speaker 1: pretty successful, and they have these fancy houses, drove sporty cars.
Speaker 1: They made a few hundred thousand bucks a year, definitely
Speaker 1: enough to eat and vacation well. And they were really
Speaker 1: unhappy though, because their job was to do rewrites on
Speaker 1: the fifth and sixth version of Terrible Scripts. And so
Speaker 1: they worked on the Fletch reboot or Angela's Ashes Too,
Speaker 1: or whatever horrible movie idea studio has, and they get
Speaker 1: paid good money to try to save these movies. So
Speaker 1: they work really hard. But the article said, in something
Speaker 1: like fifteen years in Hollywood, neither of them had ever
Speaker 1: had a real film credit to their names exactly. So
Speaker 1: there's like a futility in those jobs that's remarkable. And
Speaker 1: it's the same thing with this Somali tourism director. So here,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna read you a little bit from this Economist article,
Speaker 1: which is actually from two thousand four. So Abdi Jamali
Speaker 1: Osman is Somalia's Minister of Tourism. His inbox is always empty,
Speaker 1: given that his homeland has not had a single officially
Speaker 1: acknowledged tourists in fourteen years. Somalia is not without its attractions,
Speaker 1: and so it goes on to say, like while the
Speaker 1: lobster and views from hotels are exquisite, one of the hotels,
Speaker 1: the charmo, advises guests to hire at least ten armed
Speaker 1: guards to escort them from the airport. Since civil war
Speaker 1: broke out in Somalia has been divided into some two
Speaker 1: dozen warring fiefs, but Mr Jamale is undaunted. Later in
Speaker 1: the article, it says, I'm sure tourists would leave Somalia alive,
Speaker 1: and I'm hopeful they wouldn't be kidnapped. He says, at
Speaker 1: least we would try to make sure they were not kidnapped,
Speaker 1: although it can happen. I mean, I mean, he sounds
Speaker 1: so sweet and like kind of optimistic that people will
Speaker 1: actually come. Yeah, but I don't know, it's not very
Speaker 1: reassuring though. Kaef Andy shows after work every single day,
Speaker 1: and just for the record, Somali Land, which is this
Speaker 1: politically stable and a breakaway territory on the northern coast
Speaker 1: that actually does have more to see. You can go
Speaker 1: snorkeling there and see some of the art we talked
Speaker 1: about earlier, and it's pretty safe. But Somalia itself is
Speaker 1: still pretty rough. There's no US embassy, and Osmana said
Speaker 1: that while you can come for the animals, most of
Speaker 1: them have been eaten. But what's interesting is that occasionally
Speaker 1: people do come. So In fact, Time had this amazing
Speaker 1: story from two thousand and ten about this forty one
Speaker 1: year old Canadian guy. His name was Mike Spencer Brown,
Speaker 1: and he's somehow caught a plane to Mogadishu. He's one
Speaker 1: of these guys who's been to like a hundred fifty
Speaker 1: plus countries and just wanted to put Somalia on his list.
Speaker 1: But when he showed up, officials were in such disbelief
Speaker 1: that they tried four different times to put him back
Speaker 1: on them and send him home, and Brown admitted he
Speaker 1: had to shout and play tricks until the plane left
Speaker 1: without him. But his trip wasn't actually that fun, Like
Speaker 1: he couldn't actually leave his hotel room. I mean, I
Speaker 1: guess as hard as a job like tourism director there
Speaker 1: sounds like, I mean, the positive is you can only
Speaker 1: go up. I mean this this this guy had his
Speaker 1: job for fourteen years, got zero tourists every single one
Speaker 1: of those years, and then he gets one Canadian. So
Speaker 1: like I would imagine he's got to get a bonus
Speaker 1: for that, right, Yeah, I guess that's a better way
Speaker 1: to look at it. But what if I'm fascinating about
Speaker 1: Osman and some of the other people I've researched in
Speaker 1: these really futile jobs, is what pride they take in
Speaker 1: their work. Like have you ever heard of Bruce the
Speaker 1: mouse Trouse? You're talking about the boxer, right, yeah, I have,
Speaker 1: but you you should definitely talk a little bit about him. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So one of the things that's crazy to me is
Speaker 1: that there's this whole world of like professional losers out there,
Speaker 1: and sometimes they're called peluccas or tomato cans, but they're
Speaker 1: the undercard opponents who keep fighting because they still love
Speaker 1: the fight. I mean that does sound pretty terrible to
Speaker 1: maybe I mean too, but Bruce's story is particularly odd
Speaker 1: because he might be the best loser in history, both
Speaker 1: as a good sport but also as a talent. So apparently,
Speaker 1: at age sixteen, he got knocked out by a stray
Speaker 1: shot put and when he woke up he only had
Speaker 1: this slight headache, but to him it was this like
Speaker 1: total revelation that he could get in a ring and
Speaker 1: not really be worried about getting knocked out. And according
Speaker 1: to the Sports Illustrated article on him, his goal has
Speaker 1: been to become the best opponent of all time. He's
Speaker 1: lost over eighty times under his own name, fifty or
Speaker 1: sixty times under aliases. He's been knocked out three times
Speaker 1: in a week, twice in a night. And he even
Speaker 1: has these like special weighted shorts or trick trunks as
Speaker 1: he calls them, and they're made so he can box
Speaker 1: at a hundred eighty pounds even though he's a hundred
Speaker 1: fifty five pounds. And the weirdest thing is that he
Speaker 1: loves what he does. Like that's the crazy part to me.
Speaker 1: I don't understand why he wants to box in a
Speaker 1: higher way, so like he likes losing and then really
Speaker 1: just wants to get hit by an even bigger person.
Speaker 1: But if he's known for losing, why do people still
Speaker 1: put him in fights? Because he doesn't just lose, Like
Speaker 1: he goes nine or ten rounds with people and then
Speaker 1: actually gives them a really good fight. I mean, as
Speaker 1: much as I don't understand wanting to put yourself in
Speaker 1: that situation, you know, losing night after night, there is
Speaker 1: something fascinating about it, and I guess you kind of
Speaker 1: have to tip your hat to the person. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: was actually reading this article on Red Clots, who owned
Speaker 1: and coached and actually also played for the Washington Generals.
Speaker 1: So we're talking about that team that lost to the
Speaker 1: Harlem Globetrotters night after night. Yeah exactly. Did you ever
Speaker 1: go see them as a kid? I watched him on TV?
Speaker 1: Yeah it was. It was always such an entertaining show.
Speaker 1: But there's this really wonderful profile on him by Joe Poznanski,
Speaker 1: and it's fascinating. I mean, just reading the rules that
Speaker 1: the General's had for playing the Harlem Globe Trotters is
Speaker 1: pretty crazy. And you think about the makeup of the Generals,
Speaker 1: they're they're actually really good players. These are guys that
Speaker 1: all play Division one basketball and Clots himself hates losing.
Speaker 1: But here's some of the rules. So the Generals are
Speaker 1: supposed to play hard on offense and actually try to
Speaker 1: score every time down on the court. That was something
Speaker 1: I didn't know. And when the Globetrotters aren't doing a skit,
Speaker 1: which is I don't know, maybe like fort of the
Speaker 1: time or so, the Generals are supposed to play defense
Speaker 1: and really make them work for every point. But then
Speaker 1: when it's skit time, they're just supposed to stand there
Speaker 1: and act embarrassed, and and they have to let the Globetrotters,
Speaker 1: you know, like pull their pants down, stuff the ball
Speaker 1: in the back of their shirts, all the kind of
Speaker 1: nonsense that they're up to, and just stand there and
Speaker 1: act humiliated. But I mean, I guess they've signed up
Speaker 1: for the gig and and it's kind of like performing
Speaker 1: a play. Yeah, And what's interesting about the pieces that
Speaker 1: it goes into the one time Clots and his team
Speaker 1: beat the globe Trotters actually didn't know that they had
Speaker 1: ever beaten them, and this is like decades ago. But
Speaker 1: the Globetrotters were playing lazy and they didn't go into
Speaker 1: skit mode, and they kind of weren't paying attention. But
Speaker 1: Clots and his team just kept hitting these shots. And
Speaker 1: this is actually the only game the Washington Generals have
Speaker 1: ever won. And when they did, the crowd went totally silent.
Speaker 1: As he put it, was like killing Santa Claus. And
Speaker 1: the truth is, the Generals are not actually paid to
Speaker 1: lose to the Globetrotters. They're paid to be really good opponents.
Speaker 1: So when this strange victory happened in a completely dry
Speaker 1: town in the South, the team took Clots into the
Speaker 1: shower and sprayed him in orange soda instead of champagne. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure they didn't see it coming. Like who
Speaker 1: could have expected that win? I don't know. But but
Speaker 1: what I love most about the pieces that Clots really
Speaker 1: doesn't see himself as a loser. He sees, you know,
Speaker 1: quote giving your fight, you're all as winning and and
Speaker 1: for a good part of his life he was a winner.
Speaker 1: So it was just five ft seven and he led
Speaker 1: his high school team to the city championships in Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: He then went on to play at Villanova, so obviously
Speaker 1: a good basketball school, and then for the Baltimore Bullets,
Speaker 1: where he actually won a championship. This was before he
Speaker 1: started playing for the Generals, so he won an NBA championship.
Speaker 1: Well that this was proto NBA, but it was essentially that.
Speaker 1: I mean, he he was in the Guinness Book as
Speaker 1: the shortest player on record to have been on a
Speaker 1: championship basketball team. But his desk at home was apparently
Speaker 1: cluttered with notions on reframing the idea of losing. He
Speaker 1: has himself in a frame with a picture of Al Gore,
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown, and Thomas Dewey. He kept this confucious quote
Speaker 1: around him that says, uh, our greatest glory isn't falling,
Speaker 1: but in rising every time we fall. I mean, the
Speaker 1: man lost over twenty hundred games in a row, so
Speaker 1: he had to come to terms with it somehow. But
Speaker 1: the way Poznanski ends the pieces is actually kind of
Speaker 1: beautiful though. It's about the game after the epic win.
Speaker 1: So the Globe Trotters were ticked off, they'd been yelled at,
Speaker 1: and they came out to play. I mean, they just
Speaker 1: destroyed the General's in the next game, but clots His
Speaker 1: memory of the night isn't that they lost, or how
Speaker 1: many times he was pants or anything like that, but
Speaker 1: how they gave it their all how they made the
Speaker 1: Globetrotters look really great that night, and how at the
Speaker 1: end of the game, when he looked at the fans
Speaker 1: smiling and feeling like they had the best night out,
Speaker 1: his contribution to that made him feel like he'd won. Oh,
Speaker 1: I love that. So can we talk just for a
Speaker 1: second about one other aspect that can make a job terrible?
Speaker 1: What's that? Uh? Your boss? So it's no surprise that
Speaker 1: a good boss can make you want to stay in
Speaker 1: a job for longer, and a terrible boss can give
Speaker 1: you anxiety and make your life miserable. But there was
Speaker 1: this interesting study from the Harvard Business Review that found
Speaker 1: people are happier at work when their boss can do
Speaker 1: their job. So what does that mean exactly? So, if
Speaker 1: your boss is trained in your position and has this
Speaker 1: deep expertise and understanding of what you do, you're more
Speaker 1: likely to enjoy working with them and and supposedly perform better.
Speaker 1: It's a departure from this idea that you just need
Speaker 1: a great manager and delegator in the position. And apparently
Speaker 1: the results bear out not just in happiness but in results.
Speaker 1: According to the report, formula one teams do better if
Speaker 1: led by successful former racing drivers, and universities do better
Speaker 1: when led by top researchers rather than talented administrators, which
Speaker 1: is kind of fascinating. That is interesting. Yeah, I've not
Speaker 1: heard that before, all right, But so so let's talk
Speaker 1: about the actual worst job we each read about. So
Speaker 1: what would you say as yours? Well, this is only
Speaker 1: because I now get claustrophobia, which is a fun new
Speaker 1: skill of a chuired to my thirties, but being in
Speaker 1: a crowded or small space for too long kind of
Speaker 1: creased me out, which is why I've chosen isolation chamber
Speaker 1: testing at NASA for my nominee for worst job. That
Speaker 1: does sound awful. Yeah, so, according to POPSI quote, engineers
Speaker 1: responsible for life support systems signed up to spend a
Speaker 1: few months in cramped captivity to test their equipment for
Speaker 1: no additional pay. In one day test at NASA, the
Speaker 1: crew recycled their urine into drinking water thirteen times. But
Speaker 1: the true hell is other people. So apparently, like fistfights
Speaker 1: and uncomfortable encounters happen all the time, and the worst
Speaker 1: part is that whild people volunteer for this duty to
Speaker 1: beef up their resumes. According to the article, quote. None
Speaker 1: of NASA's recent chamber testers has actually made the Astronaut Corps.
Speaker 1: It does sound brutal. I I probably would put that
Speaker 1: in my top two or three worst jobs to all right,
Speaker 1: So mine comes after reading a profile on this guy,
Speaker 1: Bill hast He's a ninety seven year old guy and
Speaker 1: he is a snake milker. He's been bitten over a
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy two times by various venomous snakes and
Speaker 1: he used to put on shows at his serpentarium in Miami,
Speaker 1: and it was one of the most diverse collections of
Speaker 1: venomous snakes in the world. But the whole reason he
Speaker 1: do this is to save lives. So he was routinely
Speaker 1: flown around the world to provide anti venom for various
Speaker 1: snake bites, and he saved so many different lives. In fact,
Speaker 1: when his anti venom bank briefly closed, the number of
Speaker 1: deaths from exotic snake bites went up, and since it
Speaker 1: reopened in it's actually saved over a thousand people. You know.
Speaker 1: And while that's all very heroic, the idea of actually
Speaker 1: holding a snake and milking it for venom is something
Speaker 1: that I don't know. Strangely, I just can't get into
Speaker 1: some reason. Yeah, I mean either, but you know what
Speaker 1: does it feel to me? I do the PTG fact off?
Speaker 1: All right, And because of today's theme, we both agreed
Speaker 1: going into this one that we're going to concentrate on
Speaker 1: some terrible jobs that no longer exist. Let's do it.
Speaker 1: So here's a job I definitely don't want. Leech collector. Obviously,
Speaker 1: leeches were commonly used in medicine at one point, but
Speaker 1: the way leeches were collected was horrible. Basically, you just
Speaker 1: waded through water and let as many leeches latch onto
Speaker 1: your legs as you could. And also the job wasn't
Speaker 1: paid well, which makes the job even worse. Oh man,
Speaker 1: all right, Well, here's a dumb one whipping boy. So
Speaker 1: as a companion to a Renaissance prince, you got to
Speaker 1: play with the young royal and perhaps taste some of
Speaker 1: his food. But the real job was whenever the prince
Speaker 1: got in trouble, you'd have to supply your backside for
Speaker 1: whatever spankings or physical punishment the prince was supposed to
Speaker 1: get for all of his naughty That sounds terrible. So
Speaker 1: have you heard of a resurrectionists? Apparently in the early
Speaker 1: nineteenth century med schools had a hard time getting ahold
Speaker 1: of cadavers, so they used to pay these grave robbers
Speaker 1: to find them fresh bodies, and according to mental flaws,
Speaker 1: the quote problem became so severe that family members took
Speaker 1: to guarding the graves of the recently diseased to prevent
Speaker 1: resurrectionists from sneaking in and unearthing their dearly departed. Wow,
Speaker 1: I mean, grave robbing does seem horrible, but you know,
Speaker 1: just stealing the jewelry seems a little more innocent, right there.
Speaker 1: At least not taking the bodies. That does sound like
Speaker 1: a terrible job to getting wrong. All right, So here's
Speaker 1: another gross one. The groom of the stools. You know. So,
Speaker 1: while the name sounds repulsive, the position didn't actually involve
Speaker 1: any wiping. According to Historic UK, the groom of the
Speaker 1: stool watched the king's diet and organized the king's day
Speaker 1: around his predicted movements. But because the position was somewhat
Speaker 1: intimate and needed to be someone the king trusted, it
Speaker 1: was actually a path to power. In fact, it was
Speaker 1: a position held exclusively by nobleman and John Stewart, who
Speaker 1: was one of King George the Third's grooms went on
Speaker 1: to be Prime Minister of England. That's so crazy. So
Speaker 1: I was going to talk about a different job that
Speaker 1: no longer exists, being a Gallagher copycat act. Gallagher of
Speaker 1: the community. I'm sure we really need one more watermelon
Speaker 1: smash and comedian. Why why would we need two of these?
Speaker 1: So I was thinking the same thing, but a friendly
Speaker 1: Gallagher's younger brother, Ron Gallagher, decided to copy is act
Speaker 1: and appear on the same night in different towns, much
Speaker 1: to Gallagher's dismay. In two thousands, this court stopped him
Speaker 1: from doing comedy with fruit and a sledgehammer, ruling in
Speaker 1: favor of his older, wiser Gallagher. But I think I
Speaker 1: like your groom of the stool fact a little better.
Speaker 1: So why don't we hand you the trophy this week?
Speaker 1: All right, Well, I'll keep it safe. Thanks so much,
Speaker 1: And for all of you listeners out there. If there
Speaker 1: are any weird jobs, terrible jobs, whatever it may be
Speaker 1: that you feel like we missed today, don't forget. You
Speaker 1: can email us part time genius at how stuff works
Speaker 1: dot com. You can also hit us up on Facebook
Speaker 1: or Twitter, or you can call our seven Fact hotline checking.
Speaker 1: The fact hot Line is not a terrible job. It's
Speaker 1: one of our most fun job. You can call us there.
Speaker 1: It's one eight four four pt Genius. We look forward
Speaker 1: to hearing from you. Thanks so much for listening, Yea,
Speaker 1: thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
Speaker 1: of how stuff works, and wouldn't be possible without several
Speaker 1: brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
Speaker 1: begin to understand. Christa McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Speaker 1: Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy
Speaker 1: sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gabeluesier
Speaker 1: is our lead researcher, with support from the Research Army
Speaker 1: including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and Eve
Speaker 1: Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
Speaker 1: If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
Speaker 1: And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
Speaker 1: you could leave a good review for us. We do.
Speaker 1: We forget Jason Jason, who