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Some jobs really stink ! Some are painful,dirty, and downright depressing ! Here is a small list of jobs from history. I think I will smile when I go back to work on Monday..... Share some of your worst jobs you ever had . By far my worst job was cleaning out horse stables..
WHIPPING BOYS
During the 1600’s in England, educating the future king created an interesting problem. Since the monarch’s blood line was considered divine, teachers and caretakers couldn’t punish the young prince even if he acted like a brat. The solution was obvious: get another young boy to take the punishment instead of the future king, hence the job of Whipping Boy.
These scapegoats were usually chosen from the children of the nobility and educated along with the prince, living in the same quarters and playing together in their spare time. This meant that most of the time the prince was attached to the whipping boy and avoided doing badly so his friend wouldn’t be punished.
While there is no record attesting how well this worked in practice, we do know that some kings later rewarded their whipping boys with land and nobility roles. If nothing else, the promise that one day you might become a duke would probably keep you going through all those undeserved punishments.
DOG WHIPPER
Another career option during the 1600’s was the position of dog whipper. This was a church official whose job was to, no big surprise here, whip dogs. The reason for this wasn’t that medieval people hated puppies, in fact the problem was that people loved dogs too much and hordes of stray dogs waiting for food gathered around churches. It was the dog whipper who made sure that these dogs didn’t start barking in the middle of a sermon, and he would chase them away if they tried to attack a well dressed lady.
Part of the job benefits were a free whip, a pair of wooden thongs (useful when trying to remove stubborn dogs) and a small plot of land sometimes known as the dog acre. Some of the downsides were the packs of dogs that could become very angry when someone tried to chase them away. Luckily for everyone involved: as dog shelters became common there was no need for this job anymore.
GYMNASIARCH
An extremely popular occupation in ancient Greece was that of professional athlete. After all, Greece was the place where the Olympic Games started so it’s no wonder that many young men focused on physical training. However, all these sweaty men needed someone to clean themselves up and we’re not talking about someone to give you a sponge bath. Back in ancient times the way to clean up was by pouring oil on your body and scraping yourself clean. At the end of it all, you ended up with a gross mess of dirt, dead skin and oily mush. Sounds awesome doesn’t it? Well if you were a Gymnasiarch it was your job to deal with that.
Interesting enough, because athletes were in such high regard even this position was seen as very important and reserved for nobility. However, you did get the great bonus of carrying around a large stick and hitting young athletes over the head when they didn’t perform well enough.
URINATORES
Despite what you’d think after reading this job title, urinatores were not really dealing with urine at all (for the urine related jobs look at the end of the list). The word “urinator” is Latin for diver, which means that urinatores were divers who had two different, but equally important tasks. On one hand they were the first amphibious unit used by the Roman army whenever it was necessary to send underwater soldiers to sabotage ships. On the other hand, when there wasn’t a maritime war going on, urinatores dealt with underwater scavenging.
This was a profitable business as many ancient shipyards were filled with wrecked ships that contained merchandise and other goodies such as locked money boxes. The problems with the job were that diving in polluted waters (yes, pollution was a problem even back then) resulted in many health problems. The bonus was that you got a free air pouch in order to breathe underwater, basically giving you half the superpowers of Aquaman.
FUNERAL CLOWN
In ancient Rome, a very serious job was that of funeral clowns. Their job was to dress up as the dead person, wearing a clay mask and dance around making bad jokes. The idea behind this was that the angry spirits of the underworld would be pleased if the living made fun of the dead, turning the funeral into a joyous event. As an interesting bonus, some clowns were so respected that they got hired to mock the emperors at their funerals.
Quite often these clowns also acted in plays, or provided entertainment at weddings and other events.
TOSHER
The toshers were scavengers in the sewers under London during the Victorian era. Whole families lived close to the sewers, and could be seen removing manhole covers in the morning in order to get underground to their workplace. While we’re not sure what they could find that made it worthwhile to dig through raw sewage, an unexpected bonus of the job was that those toshers that survived were usually immune to various disease that killed many people in the ghettos, such as typhus.
Unfortunately the bad smell and the fact that all your neighbors considered you a thief didn’t make the job very appealing.
KNOCKER-UP
This peculiar job was popular in England and Ireland during the early days of the industrial revolution when people needed to be up in the morning but no one had an alarm clock. The knocker-up, also sometimes known as a “knocker-upper”, would walk around with a long stick and knock on people’s windows. For just a few pence the knocker-up would sit outside your window making a ruckus until you got up and were ready for work.
We’re curious to know, if you hit him with a rock, would he come back in 9 minutes?
FULLER
This job was very common in ancient times when wool, one of the most common materials used, had to be cleansed to eliminate oil and other impurities. In order to accomplish this, before the invention of modern chemical methods and automated machinery, cloth makers used urine. As you can probably imagine, any job where you have to regularly deal with urine is not a perfect career. However, the ammonium salts from pee assisted in cleansing and whitening the cloth so it was a necessary evil.
The job itself meant that workers had to spend long hours ankle deep in tubs of pee, mashing the cloth with their feet. Since no one wanted to be involved in this kind of work, slaves were often forced to do these jobs. Disease and bad smell were not optional, but luckily for everyone by medieval times urine was not used anymore and by the industrial era the cloth makers used machinery to do the washing.
http://www.weirdworm.com/8-strange-historic-jobs/
WHIPPING BOYS
During the 1600’s in England, educating the future king created an interesting problem. Since the monarch’s blood line was considered divine, teachers and caretakers couldn’t punish the young prince even if he acted like a brat. The solution was obvious: get another young boy to take the punishment instead of the future king, hence the job of Whipping Boy.
These scapegoats were usually chosen from the children of the nobility and educated along with the prince, living in the same quarters and playing together in their spare time. This meant that most of the time the prince was attached to the whipping boy and avoided doing badly so his friend wouldn’t be punished.
While there is no record attesting how well this worked in practice, we do know that some kings later rewarded their whipping boys with land and nobility roles. If nothing else, the promise that one day you might become a duke would probably keep you going through all those undeserved punishments.
DOG WHIPPER
Another career option during the 1600’s was the position of dog whipper. This was a church official whose job was to, no big surprise here, whip dogs. The reason for this wasn’t that medieval people hated puppies, in fact the problem was that people loved dogs too much and hordes of stray dogs waiting for food gathered around churches. It was the dog whipper who made sure that these dogs didn’t start barking in the middle of a sermon, and he would chase them away if they tried to attack a well dressed lady.
Part of the job benefits were a free whip, a pair of wooden thongs (useful when trying to remove stubborn dogs) and a small plot of land sometimes known as the dog acre. Some of the downsides were the packs of dogs that could become very angry when someone tried to chase them away. Luckily for everyone involved: as dog shelters became common there was no need for this job anymore.
GYMNASIARCH
An extremely popular occupation in ancient Greece was that of professional athlete. After all, Greece was the place where the Olympic Games started so it’s no wonder that many young men focused on physical training. However, all these sweaty men needed someone to clean themselves up and we’re not talking about someone to give you a sponge bath. Back in ancient times the way to clean up was by pouring oil on your body and scraping yourself clean. At the end of it all, you ended up with a gross mess of dirt, dead skin and oily mush. Sounds awesome doesn’t it? Well if you were a Gymnasiarch it was your job to deal with that.
Interesting enough, because athletes were in such high regard even this position was seen as very important and reserved for nobility. However, you did get the great bonus of carrying around a large stick and hitting young athletes over the head when they didn’t perform well enough.
URINATORES
Despite what you’d think after reading this job title, urinatores were not really dealing with urine at all (for the urine related jobs look at the end of the list). The word “urinator” is Latin for diver, which means that urinatores were divers who had two different, but equally important tasks. On one hand they were the first amphibious unit used by the Roman army whenever it was necessary to send underwater soldiers to sabotage ships. On the other hand, when there wasn’t a maritime war going on, urinatores dealt with underwater scavenging.
This was a profitable business as many ancient shipyards were filled with wrecked ships that contained merchandise and other goodies such as locked money boxes. The problems with the job were that diving in polluted waters (yes, pollution was a problem even back then) resulted in many health problems. The bonus was that you got a free air pouch in order to breathe underwater, basically giving you half the superpowers of Aquaman.
FUNERAL CLOWN
In ancient Rome, a very serious job was that of funeral clowns. Their job was to dress up as the dead person, wearing a clay mask and dance around making bad jokes. The idea behind this was that the angry spirits of the underworld would be pleased if the living made fun of the dead, turning the funeral into a joyous event. As an interesting bonus, some clowns were so respected that they got hired to mock the emperors at their funerals.
Quite often these clowns also acted in plays, or provided entertainment at weddings and other events.
TOSHER
The toshers were scavengers in the sewers under London during the Victorian era. Whole families lived close to the sewers, and could be seen removing manhole covers in the morning in order to get underground to their workplace. While we’re not sure what they could find that made it worthwhile to dig through raw sewage, an unexpected bonus of the job was that those toshers that survived were usually immune to various disease that killed many people in the ghettos, such as typhus.
Unfortunately the bad smell and the fact that all your neighbors considered you a thief didn’t make the job very appealing.
KNOCKER-UP
This peculiar job was popular in England and Ireland during the early days of the industrial revolution when people needed to be up in the morning but no one had an alarm clock. The knocker-up, also sometimes known as a “knocker-upper”, would walk around with a long stick and knock on people’s windows. For just a few pence the knocker-up would sit outside your window making a ruckus until you got up and were ready for work.
We’re curious to know, if you hit him with a rock, would he come back in 9 minutes?
FULLER
This job was very common in ancient times when wool, one of the most common materials used, had to be cleansed to eliminate oil and other impurities. In order to accomplish this, before the invention of modern chemical methods and automated machinery, cloth makers used urine. As you can probably imagine, any job where you have to regularly deal with urine is not a perfect career. However, the ammonium salts from pee assisted in cleansing and whitening the cloth so it was a necessary evil.
The job itself meant that workers had to spend long hours ankle deep in tubs of pee, mashing the cloth with their feet. Since no one wanted to be involved in this kind of work, slaves were often forced to do these jobs. Disease and bad smell were not optional, but luckily for everyone by medieval times urine was not used anymore and by the industrial era the cloth makers used machinery to do the washing.
http://www.weirdworm.com/8-strange-historic-jobs/
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Posted 7 y ago
Responses: 7
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Great article. My worse job was working in a grain silo in Columbus Montana. During the depression labor was cheap so they built flat floors in the silo's. When grain was being shipped you had to climb into the silo and shovel the (mostly wheat) grain into the auger. Took about an hour to an hour and a half. You would be covered in grain dust and chaff. If we filled box cars instead of grain cars you had to climb in the grain car and level the gain out as the car filled. It was a very uninteresting summer. I would go home, clean up and sneeze kernels of grain our of my nose. Sweat, hot and itchy work!
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SSG Michael Eastes
I worked at Texas A&M's experimental poultry farm for a couple of years. The job you had was very similar in nature to working in the farm's feed mill, mixing grain, fish meal, poultry by-product, etc., mostly in 100 lb. bags, to make a couple of tons of feed per batch, all in an unventilated space, in the Texas heat. Another main component of the job was shoveling chicken and turkey manure, by the multiple wagon loads. It was a huge complex, with much shoveling to be done. It toughened me up; Army basic was not too hard after that time at the farm.
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SGT Philip Roncari
SGT John McConnell - Funny in my ten months of training at Lewis didn't make DRO once, good thing we had C rats in Vietnam or I probably would have found myself back in the pits!
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SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth
Worse job I ever had, was cleaning out the birthing boxstall we had on the farm, a foot deep in straw manure, and after birth, by spring things were getting pretty ripe.
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SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth
SGT John " Mac " McConnell - weeds out those with a weak constitution, from the strong.
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