also
I got paid £200 a day to sit in the Honeymoon suite at a hotel by Marble Arch, watching TV, ordering room service and gossiping with the concierge about the latest rap stars' and sheiks' sexual activites at the hotel.

3 days. £600. I was 17. It was fab.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 18:02, Reply)

my friend
got a job at the Foreign Office through a friend. Every day for six months she arrived, sat at her desk, turned the computer on, fiddled on the internet, picked up the phone if anyone rang just to see if she was there, turned the computer off, went home. She quit in the end.

£26k a year, and to this day she has no idea what her job was.
(niceandwarmandhot vive la résistance, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:58, Reply)

food - i think
i once got payed to eat bbqed fish, this kinda slimy thing with a burnt shell, bit like an arramdilo
(Bored, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:49, Reply)

it wasnt a job, but i
got a shiny pound for licking a random sock in the university laundry room.

it had come out the other end of the dryer but was a tad linty.

then my friend (minus pound) turned it over to find a name tag. and she told him. cow.

but i got to buy things so its ok. :D
(elegans, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:45, Reply)

My current job, and the last one...
I am currently working for my local University, and for the last two weeks I have been paid to look at b3ta.com, oh - and occasionly look at a student and point him in the wrong direction.

My last job was removing 175,000 staples from peices of paper. I walked out of that job after 1 week. My friends say I was stupid to last that long!!!

Personally I would have to agree with them...
(TIMBIonline available for any passing drunk sailor, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:45, Reply)

I've
eaten and drank alot of things for money, alchohol, and other assorted nice stuff.

The best thing/bet I've done so far is drinking a concoction of Lemonade, Vodka (about a bottles worth), Custard Powder, Rice Pudding, Yoghurt, Double Cream, Wensleydale Cheese, Aspirin, Prunes and some raisins(which act as natural laxatives in a certain quantity, and is definately what I experienced.)

This was all mixed up in a 2 litre bottle.

And I had to drink it in under a quarter of an hour.

I did so.

My reward ?

A ticket to the Leeds Festival Weekend.

Nice one Matt.


Oh, and I've also eaten a selection of sachet condiments from a pub table (English & French Mustard, Mint Sauce, Horse Radish, Mayonaise, Salad Cream, you get the idea) all for a few pints of Guiness.

Needlessly to say I threw up for about two days on both of these occasions.

P.S. Apologies about length.

P.P.S. I know my spelling is shite. Get over it. Pedant.
(Deslandres, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:38, Reply)

My own mother...
Paid me a fiver to pull my own tooth out when I was, say, 9. I'd been playing with it for weeks and she was grossed out.
(Pixel, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:37, Reply)

xray turkey
One summer when at college I got a job at Epping Hospital working in the xray filing room. I had to go through all the stacks and locate files older than 10 years and pull them.

I would put the files in one pile and take the xrays to another small building where they were stored until the "Silver Nitrate Man" would come in his big van to cart 'em away. He'd extract all the yummy silver and give some of the cash back to the hospital.

I got to see what a lot of strangers insides looked like. Most fun.


Oh, I also worked as a butchers boy. Not that odd, until Christmas, when the turkey rush was on. We had a mini-production line going where we'd pluck, slice, butcher, and dress the birds. I would go back to my girlfriends house and walk right up the stairs into a waiting bath whilst she held her nose - I totally stank.

I can't look at turkeys in the same light now. Fat bastards.
(kiwanotree Meh, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:33, Reply)

Grind samples of flour
for analysis. Two grinding machines operated simultaneously, a couple of hundred samples an hour, goggles, face mask and ear defenders, and only a retard for company.

Stick labels on beer bottles. Then take them off again.

Give blow-jobs on the street.

nb. At least two of these are true.
( dr_fonz, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:32, Reply)

ive been paid to hold someones socks for them,
it wasn't very much, only 50p, but when i found out they had athletes foot, i was sick, i also gave them beats. also i was paid to tell someone how to spell fucksocks, hehe
(Banjo-Jeff I don't play a banjo, and I'm not called Jeff., Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:30, Reply)

Told a mate once
that his parents had been paying us to be his friends for the last two years, because they knew how social inadequate he was. We then said they hadnt payed us that day, so we were gonna show him our true feelings. Which of course meant ripping the piss outta him non-stop. For three days. Until they started paying again.
He believed it as well, and is now one of the most insecure people I know :)
(lifelikeandposeable, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:16, Reply)

Back when the web was young
I was once asked to look through the sites in the corporate proxy server that looked like they might be porn and see if they really were, then give the network administrator a list. It's a dirty job...
(Ravenous Bugblatter Beast This content may not be working. Please try again., Thu 30 Sep 2004, 17:03, Reply)

Thank you secondary school!
I've been paid to down packets of skittles, and I got 20p for sniffing a rubber.*

*The rubber was rumoured to have been up someone's fadge. Utter shite.
( ArthurTheRat, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:57, Reply)

strange?
currently getting paid 29000 a year to sit on my ar$e, read the paper, abuse the companys internet access and generally toss it off. Actualy, thats not what i'm being paid for but its worked for the last 5 years and there's no sign of it changing.
(Aleister Crowleys Badger Nothing to see here, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:54, Reply)

the fear
I once got paid a tenner to drink beer someone had used as bong water.

Um. That's it. I lead an exciting life
(sporky, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:35, Reply)

Doing Nothing.
After spending three years of (technically) getting paid to do nothing at university, I found myself on the dole. I finally resigned myself to the fact that 80 quid a fortnight doesn't for a happy JimBob make, so I dragged my arse to an employment agency.

The first job they gave me was a three-month contract in a womens' prison, watching some dudes build fences (presumably the 15-foot fences already surrounding the building and throughout the place weren't secure enough).

All the eight of us had to do was make sure the prisoners didn't steal any tools, which would've been impossible anyway, thanks to the existing fences. £10 an hour to stand around in the sunshine chatting. Best. Job. Ever
( <somethingfunny> hasn't said anything funny since, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:35, Reply)

pick dingleberries out of dogs' asses with a comb.
...never be a dog groomer, folks.
(MR KEARNS, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:35, Reply)

Microwave burgers you buy from garages
putting processed cheese slices on burgers trundling by on a conveyor belt. For 8 hours a day. With half an hour break. For £4.50 an hour. I lasted a day.
(Rondette, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:35, Reply)

Pretty much i get paid to sit in a cabin for 12 hrs
playing on a GBA...
(Catt What? well maybe.. yes?, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:28, Reply)

I got paid to fly to the UK to be on a video crew to tape Chinese musicians and a vocalist (also flown in from the US) performing 14th century Tang dynasty music for a documentary on an ethno-musicologist that lived in Cambridge. I got to nose about in places in the University library and various colleges that would normally be off limits "to tape b-roll".
they gave me a nice suite of rooms by the quayside and £30 a day stipend that was mainly spent on pints and buying silly stuff at boots and woolworth's.

to my knowledge the documentary was never produced.
( sosumi, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:25, Reply)

Sweeping
Horse shit. Not that strange? It was round the back of the Nottingham Arena, and no lie, there was about 2 tonne of it. Me and three friend's had to move it into a skip, with sergical cloves tapped upto our elbows. And you know what happens when bordem sets in...shite fight. Got this Scouse guy (appropriatly named Scouse) on the head with a perfect round turd.

Wait...i didnt get paid for it...wtf...
(KellieFo zomgz11!, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:22, Reply)

Collecting poo
Years ago, I was working for a pharmaceutical company developing anti-parasitic drugs for veterinary purposes. The drugs had to be tested on the appropriate parasites, which needed to be extracted from excrement. Most of this came from sheep - this involved coaxing them into a narrow stall and doing a nappy change on them, then dissolving the stools in warm water and sieving the parasitic worms out - not really unpleasant for me or the sheep apart from being slightly undignified.

Unfortunately, there was a requirement for another worm to be tested which could only be readily obtained from cats. You can't put a nappy on a cat (and I would love to see someone try) and the need for fresh and on demand shit meant extracting a cat from its luxurious living quarters and putting in a plastic dustbin, then turning a hose on it, to "persuade" it to dump. This is horrible for the cat, and not fun for me, as I got thoroughly scratched and bitten. But the best bit was that cat shit does not dissolve easily, so had to be blasted through a sieve with hot water to extract the worms. The resulting miasma of cat intestinal bacteria was measurable in the air several corridors away, and stank like only hot cat shit can do.

18 years on, I still cannot resolve the conflict of cruelty to a few cats to try and relieve millions of other domesticated animals from suffering, but I can still smell the air in the lab complex.
( godstar, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:15, Reply)

My friend and I
once got paid to critique a desk. It was while we were doing A-levels, and this woman offered us a about £10 each for an hour's work. Thing is, unless it's made of plutonium or has pictures of nuddie people stuck on it there's not much you can say about a desk. After about 3 minutes we were resorting to saying things like "Er... I really like the way you can put papers on the top without them falling on the floor." We had to keep thinking of things to say for an hour. I think we should have been paid more for the sheer imaginitiveness required.
( Olembe Refuses to write in this space, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:09, Reply)

job experience requested...
I once worked as a telemarketer and had a list that was a copy from the phone book to work from. I was selling dinner theater tickets and the job sucked. Anyway, I was working my way down the list and came to an odd name that I had to call. I rang the number and a woman answered. I said, "Hello Mrs. Death, is Mr. Death there?" and I fell out laughing, hung up the phone and walked out. I think I was making $3.25 an hour.

I also spent a week shoveling incredible amounts of pigeon poo out of a water cooling tower. 18 years later I am still incredibly sensitive to the smell of bird shiet...makes me barf.
(Hefavitzen, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 16:07, Reply)

I did a job a few years ago
at some swanky Gentleman's club in Mayfair. The place had been hired out for the day by some underwear manufacturer and I was sent there to build a catwalk, dress the walls and generally make the place look pretty. This took us about 4 hours in total. For the rest of the day I had to hang around to make sure the client was happy while 8 gorgeous models where photographed walking up and down the catwalk displaying the latest range in sexy underwear.

Oh yeah and after 7pm it was free booze and I was on a tenner an hour ;)
( @man move along, nothing to see here on, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 15:55, Reply)

Run round Soho drinking double shots of tequila!
This would be about 2001 shortly after I stoped working in IT. I was then working as a guitar technician and I had just landed a contract with a quite well know group. I got a call saying they wanted to meet me as I had been hired not by the group but by the agency. I'm guessing the wanted to see what toss pot the had been saddled with.
So, three hours later finds me in the intrepid Fox in Soho I had been chatting to the guys and gal for about an hour and was on my third bottle of Dog (Newcastle Brown Ale [I don't know - Don't ask]). This is the point where I am told that they have very little faith in the agency and would like to test me to see if I know my stuff. I'm expecting them to ask me questions, instead they give me a fifty quid note, and tell me to find a guitar shop, buy a certain set of strings and get there and back downing a double tequilla at every bar I pass on the way back. Once I get back I then have to then restring and tune the guitar(an electric in a noisy room. Almost impossible as there is no amp). On top of this I have 15 minutes to perform the whole feat!
Now I know that some of you are familiar with Soho but for those who are not soho is made up of mainly three things; strip clubs, brothels and bars. We're talking a lot of tequilla. A lot of double tequilla! Fortunately I know Soho very well (no the bars! get your mind out of the gutter. The bars and there are a lot of production compaies there [again get your mind out of the gutter. Music production!]). I make straight for the nearest shop but this still took me past a good seven or eight bars. You do the maths! I arrive back with five minutes to so and the growing desire to eat something spicy containing synthetic meat preferable with killer chilli sauce with it. I spend about the next three minutes restringing the guitar answering dubious question ranging from 'were they all doubles?' to 'I don't believe you went to all the bars!'. Being freelance and a mercenary bastard I furnished them with recepts. To be honest I would have liked to have sat down with a nice tandoori, and I did, unfortuately it was about eight hours later after a great deal more alcohol. But they were nice enough to give me some smelling salts that were quite restorative.
( riverghost servicing your mum since, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 15:50, Reply)

Yet another PhD
today, having arrived at 12pm I will leave at 4pm following an afternoon of backgammon and smoking.
(Gerald the Curious Owl, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 15:50, Reply)

smuggling explosives
Whilst working for the M.O.D. in N.I. We built replica bombs, too, and all kinds of dodgy surveillance gadgetry. I didn't get paid in cash, but could order from the hardware catalogues, and had the occasional fun very fast helicopter ride at extremely low altitude...
(kittenpusher, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 15:38, Reply)

Eating bugs
Had to ask around for this. My coworker tells me that in high school, they used to pass the hat and give the resulting cash to someone who would eat an insect. [insert snore-fest here]
(propain, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 15:31, Reply)

I got paid by the government to do bog all - and no I don't mean the dole!!
I was working on an IT project for the London Borough of Tower Hamlets for a software roll out. I'd been there for a few months and due to the project manager being unable to locate her posterior with any forms of cartography there was a two month period where there was next to no work what so ever. It got so ridiculous in the end that I would turn up for work on the Monday and be given my weeks work for all the sites I covered over the whole borough. Every week this was the same and every week I'd be told not to come back to the office until the meeting on Friday. So everyweek I'd come in on Monday, finish my weeks work by about 2pm, go home, come in on the Friday for a half hour meeting and get paid for 37'5 hours work. It was great. Occationally my boss would call me when I was home and ask me what site I was at as she wanted to see me, but I'd just say I was at the furthest one away as it took the same time to get from there to the Head office as it did my house!
( riverghost servicing your mum since, Thu 30 Sep 2004, 15:30, Reply)