What Are Considered the Worst Jobs in Science?

[1123581321]

What do you think are the worst jobs? Perhaps school consoler or rat exterminator are high up on your list of very sucky jobs? Or do you hate being the administrators of an online physics forum? What about stunt double? I would hate to be a babysitter, think of all the screaming kids. I Got the idea for this of and old Popular Science story, worst jobs in science.

Fibonacci

 

[Danger]

Around here, javelin catcher is considered to be pretty near the top of the list...

 

[BobG]

Oh, no, have you no idea what you've just done by starting this thread??! Rhinos! Barry White! Electroejaculator! Nooooooooo! (You should check the classics thread before starting a thread like this)

Anyway - how about soccer referee ... although http://www.texans8687.com/Resources/Videos/00000001.0/00000001.0.042.wmv seem to have more fun than others.

 

[Evo]

Rhino love. :!)

 

[Moonbear]

Or the guy in the circus who has to run around cleaning up after the elephants when they're on parade!

 

[Danger]

Rhino love. :!)

Like hippopotamus love, but hornier?

 

[Danger]

Anyway - how about soccer referee ... although http://www.texans8687.com/Resources/Videos/00000001.0/00000001.0.042.wmv seem to have more fun than others.

Thanks for the link. I was expecting it to be a porn site, but it was amusing anyhow.

 

[Bladibla]

teacher suck up, if that counts as job.

 

[BobG]

teacher suck up, if that counts as job.

"I want to grow up to have a brown nose." - monster.com commercial from a few years ago.

 

[hypatia]

Cub Scout camp leader...500 screaming little boys under the age 8. It was like a nighmare in the daytime.

 

[Monique]

I'd hate to stand waist deep in pigeon droppings to cure leather from animals that just have been skinned.

 

[Chronos]

Crime scene cleaning technician.

 

[Danger]

Cub Scout camp leader...500 screaming little boys under the age 8. It was like a nighmare in the daytime.

Were they screaming before you performed the dance of the 7 veils?

I'd hate to stand waist deep in pigeon droppings to cure leather from animals that just have been skinned.

You really expect us to believe that? C'mon... you know you'd love it.

 

[hypatia]

No but they were screaming AS they toppled all the port-o-pots!

the dance came later

 

[Danger]

No but they were screaming AS they toppled all the port-o-pots!

Occupied?

 

[BicycleTree]

How about subsistence farmer?

 

[Bladibla]

Around here, javelin catcher is considered to be pretty near the top of the list...

You got my vote on that.

 

[BicycleTree]

Coal miner.

 

[BicycleTree]

Or if the song is to be believed, chemical worker: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/greatbigsea/thechemicalworkerssongprocessman.html

(I like this song. It's catchy.)

 

[Danger]

Or if the song is to be believed, chemical worker:

The link just gave me the lyrics, not the song, so I have to take your word that it's catchy. This sounds a lot more like a process worker (hence the title), than a chemical one. In my area, at least, a process plant is where they would for instance pulverize and arc-smelt magnacite ore to extract magnesium. There are quality control chemists on site, but it's strictly a down-and-dirty mill job. (You oughta see the scars one of my friends has from being splashed with liquid magnesium when an electrode failed.)

 

[BicycleTree]

Wow. I recommend you get the song then. It really is catchy.

 

[Danger]

Wow. I recommend you get the song then. It really is catchy.

Well, I really love "Workin' In a Coal Mine", so who knows...?

 

[mathlete]

Anything in a morgue or funeral home... it would just be so depressing, I don't know how people can do that let alone voluntarily go into those fields.

 

[BicycleTree]

Aw cmon, funerary professions are cushy compared to mining coal. Talk about morbidity--how about knowing you're going to die of black lung disease by the time you're 50!

 

[Danger]

how about knowing you're going to die of black lung disease by the time you're 50!

Well... I'm only 49, but the way the emphysema is progressing... (it's damned near enough to make me quit smoking)

 

[Ivan Seeking]

1999 Darwin Award Winner

PADERBORN, GERMANY - Overzealous zoo-keeper Friedrich Riesfeldt fed his constipated elephant Stefan 22 doses of animal laxative and more than a bushel of berries, figs, and prunes before the plugged-up pachyderm finally let fly, and suffocated the keeper under 200 pounds of poop!

Investigators say that the ill-fated Friedrich, 46, was attempting to give the ailing elephant an olive-oil enema when the relieved beast unloaded on him like a dump truck full of mud.

“The sheer force of the elephant's unexpected defecation knocked Mr. Riesfeldt to the ground, where he struck his head on a rock and lay unconscious as the elephant continued to evacuate his bowels on top of him,” said flabbergasted Paderborn police detective Erik Dern.

“With no one there to help him, he lay under all that dung for at least an hour before a watchman came along, and during that time, the keeper suffocated. It seems to be just one of those freak accidents that happen.”

http://www.biogasworks.com/Goodies/1999%20Darwin%20Award%20Winner.htm

 

[Moonbear]

And in related news:

PRAGUE (Reuters) - A Czech tractor driver died under eight tons of manure in a bizarre accident that has baffled his employers, local media reported.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2005-03-28T160320Z_01_L27589345_RTRIDST_0_ODD-PEOPLE-CZECH-MANURE-DC.XML

 

[Danger]

I am so glad that I finished my beer before I read that, 'cause it sure as hell would have come out my nose if I'd still been drinking it.

 

[BobG]

Coal miner.

I have a brother-in-law that did that for one day. On the way down, they turned the lights out and let the elevator free-fall most of the way down (I guess something in the shaft automatically deploys the brakes before they reach the bottom?). Plus I guess being down there in a cave isn't too great an experience, either - he just couldn't shake that feeling that he'd die before getting up to the top again. He couldn't get up the nerve to go back down after that first day and had to quit.

 

[BicycleTree]

Yeah, it's awful. How about coal miners before they had unions and were basically indentured servants to the company because of debt to the company store, so they couldn't even quit?

 

[Moonbear]

I have a brother-in-law that did that for one day. On the way down, they turned the lights out and let the elevator free-fall most of the way down (I guess something in the shaft automatically deploys the brakes before they reach the bottom?). Plus I guess being down there in a cave isn't too great an experience, either - he just couldn't shake that feeling that he'd die before getting up to the top again. He couldn't get up the nerve to go back down after that first day and had to quit.

When I was in Poland many years ago, I visited a salt mine there. As we were taking the "stomach plunging" elevator ride back out, our tour guide told us they slow the elevator down for the tourists, actual workers would take a much faster ride not to waste as much time. Though, once they were down, they stayed down a while, which is how they had enough free time to carve chapels and ballrooms (beautiful!) into the mines.

 

[Norman]

One summer I worked as a disaster restoration specialist for a company here. My main job was cleaning up after sewage backups and I was on call at night (this all for $9/hour). Anyways, there are not many things worse than being called into work at 2am to try and salvage someones house from floating feces. It was horrible. On top of that, we were constantly fighting our cheap owners for the correct safety gear. We had to buy our own boots. I didn't have a respirator for the whole time I worked there, only a little dust mask. That was the worst.

 

[Norman]

When I was in Poland many years ago, I visited a salt mine there. As we were taking the "stomach plunging" elevator ride back out, our tour guide told us they slow the elevator down for the tourists, actual workers would take a much faster ride not to waste as much time. Though, once they were down, they stayed down a while, which is how they had enough free time to carve chapels and ballrooms (beautiful!) into the mines.

Was this the salt mine outside of Krakow? My fiance's brother did his masters at the Jagallonian (sp?) Institute in Krakow and for my spring break last year we went to visit him. We didn't get to the salt mine, but I really wanted to go and hear a concert there- it is said to be so wonderfully created that the music just purrs... I want a Zywiec now. I love that beer.

 

[kaos]

WW1 cannon fodder...

 

[BicycleTree]

Norman, that also sounds like an awful job... at least you were getting paid $9/hr.

kaos, yeah, I guess that would be truly awful. The most you can say is it's generally over in a couple weeks. Sitting in freezing trenches with smoke all around you and bullets and bombs flying out from the smoke and killing people around you.