Elevator Technicians Describe The Funniest Things They've Seen At The Bottom Of The Elevator Shaft
Ever wonder how often people have dropped their personal items through the gap between the elevator and the floor?
Ever wonder the kind of items that could be strewn at the bottom of an elevator shaft?
Wonder no more!
Elevator technicians share with us the things they've seen. Some of the things that forever became detached from their owners are unique, others are of the usual suspects, and others are just plain bonkers.
These are the things that were found when Redditor diegomkt asked:
"Elevator-maintenance folks, what is the weirdest thing you have found at the bottom of the elevator chamber?"
These are the shocking items.
Not Yolking
"Worked at a hotel. Guest dropped their phone down the shaft. After a few failed retrieval efforts, we called the elevator guys. They went down got the phone and also found a carton of eggs. Rotten, but not cracked. I don't even understand how that could happen accidentally."
– Hocktober
More Egg
"Did home repair to help put myself through college. Get a call that there's a non-waste water leak in an apartment in a second floor bathroom from a landlord, so me and my coworker go over. The water line on the toilet has a leak, enough has come out that we need to remove some of the ceiling in the living room to replace it. So we cut out a 4' x 4' area that meets a ceiling joist and we find an egg. One single egg balanced on the ceiling joist. We gingerly removed it and tossed it out. The ceiling had been closed up for at least the last 40 years. It was lathe and plaster, that old. That egg still haunts me."
– probablyapapa
Here, Kitty
"My dad was an elevator mechanic for about 15 years."
"He had a very dark sense of humour and would come home with some of the craziest stories. (For example, any time he was in an elevator, he would shake it a little or tap on the displays or buttons and go 'Yep. Total piece of crap. Inferior piece of crap.' and I think he mostly did it to freak people out.) One of my favourites:"
"He got a call that someone was hearing weird noises from the elevator. He got inside, rode the elevator up and sure enough, he could hear it too. For half a second he thought it was a baby crying and realized it was a cat. When he got to a certain floor, he could hear this sad meowing. It obviously wasn't in the elevator car, so he got into the shaft and found this little orange kitty! It had somehow (and I don't think he figured out or told us how) got into the elevator shaft and was sitting in a spot between the floors where it wouldn't get crushed by the elevator, but it couldn't get out."
"My dad saved it and gave it to the building manager to see if it belonged to anyone in the building."
"It was the one time he ever told us a story that involved him saving an animal instead of finding dead ones."
– aimeeerp
You might have expected these.
Late Reunion
"I once accidently lost my drivers license down the little gap in the elevator doors, just dropped it and was super unlucky as it slipped through. It turned up in my mail 10 years later! Obviously long expired, but still crazy some maintenance guy found it and bothered retuning it."
– Myjunkisonfire
Dropped Taxes
"Well over 1500 tax returns at the bottom of the ATO's north brisbane office elevator shaft."
– anon
The Magazines
"My dad has a great story about this. He supervised the mechanics, and one of them called him from a mental hospital and said 'you've got to see this'. The maintenance guy was called because the elevator wasn't quite sitting level on the ground floor; it was about half an inch too high and both patients and staff had been tripping on it. But all other floors were no problem."
"My dad arrived to find the maintenance guy cackling, looking into the bottom of the shaft. There were probably tens of thousands of magazines down there. They had to get a bunch of shovels, a small crew, and a rolling dumpster to clear it out. When it was all done, my dad decided to stay behind and pretend to read a newspaper while he sat in the lobby. After about half an hour, he sees an elderly patient holding a magazine, shuffling slowly toward the elevator. He stops in front of the doors, glances left, glances right, and quickly stoops down, slides the magazine into the gap, and shuffles away as fast as he can with a huge grin on his face. My dad could not help but laugh hysterically. This guy had probably been sliding magazines in there multiple times per day, every day, for decades. I should ask him whether he reported it or let the guy have his fun. Wouldn't surprise me if my dad went with the latter."
– nibiyabi
The Hotel Employee
"Not a technician, but do work at a large hotel. A few years ago one of our elevators stopped working. Turned out when they opened it up they found a 3-ft pile of guest folios that were never delivered to the rooms. Later when we looked on the camera we found it was a security guard that got tired of delivering them to the rooms and instead dropped them down the elevator shaft. He did this for months until he was caught."
– drdisney
These are the absolutely "nope" items.
Slither
"Pest control tech here, Snakes had gotten into the pit and were climbing up and dropping down on people as they rode the elevator. Good times.
– FeastofFamine
Getting Some
"Out team dropped a steel anal dialator down the dumbwaiter shaft by mistake. When the technician came down and grabbed it off the floor ill never forget the look on his face when I told him 'we need that up here it's got to go in someone's a** soon'... it was priceless (I am a technician for a hospital dealing with rectal surgical tools is very normal)"
– AmishApplesauce
Squat
"A couch. Not joking. It was a walk in pit that a homeless person had retrofit into a small living room."
Elema214
Luxury Apartments
"One time, we were doing a rip out at an old factory. They were gutting them and turning them into luxury apartments. The elevator we were taking out was an old freight that hadn't run in years. When we finally ran it up, we went down to inspect the pit. It smelled like a dead body had chilled there for half a century. The bottom floor wasn't lit so I shined my flashlight under the elevator and the whole floor started moving. Roaches. Nasty."
"Haven't really found anything fun though. I've cleaned out more pits than I could count too. I gave my mom a cheap ring I found. Found a pair of underwear at a hotel. Found a full packet at a courthouse of some lady's case transcribed. Oh, I was on a mod once and one of the hoistway doors had an advertisement sticker for a tennis restringing service. Which was weird because it was somewhere only an elevator guy should be able to reach. I called the number, but it was out of service. I've found some cool grafitti from the 40s. That's about it."
"I worked on escalators for a year and a half. There was a lot more in those pits. I was taking home bent up quarters every day. There was lots of shoe bits and I was always nervous of coming across used needles in certain units."
User Deleted
Arrest
"Worked security in a large department store, we routinely had to pop it open to retrieve dropped keys, wallets, and phones."
"Recovered a $2500 gold necklace covered in poop.. a would be shoplifter darted out of our jewelry department and “suitcased” the necklace while in the elevator. When he realized we were waiting for him at the exit level he went back up a floor, removed it, and dropped it down the shaft."
"We arrested him anyway, much to his surprise."
Sho0terman
So there you have it.
No reports of a missing body or anything gruesome involving a serial killer were recovered at the scene of these elevator shafts.
Still, you never know what lurks beneath your elevator. And if something alive is down there, hopefully it won't slither its way up to unsuspecting riders on their way to the work floor.
People Who Work In Strangers' Homes For A Living Share The Weirdest Thing They Ever Experienced
Some jobs require people to either enter or work in the homes of strangers.
To many of them, jobs involving visits to homes of people they don't know are better than toiling away for hours while being confined inside an office cubicle – not that there's anything wrong about that.
But there are a few who still get an unwelcome shock of their lives – even with the understanding that their particular work atmosphere can be unpredictable
Curious to hear about their experiences, Redditor jlbeekman90 asked strangers on the internet:
"People with jobs that require you to go into strangers' houses, what is the weirdest thing you've encountered?"
Not Alone
No one ever told these people they would have friendly intrusion while on the clock.
Got Goat?
"A goat in the living room. The mother came down and shooed it outside."
"human 'mother', or goat mother?? lol"
Stinky Critter
"Not me but my dad who can tell the story much better than I can. He was once repairing a furnace in the basement of one of his clients homes. Nobody was home when suddenly he heard a scurrying behind him, but when he looked nothing was there. This went on several times before he realized the noise was coming from behind a couch. Slowly, he began towards it. As he bent down, a skunk popped out from its hiding spot and met him face to face. Turns out he was a pet, but apparently it really spooked him at the time."
"Awful And Itchy"
"I'm an EMT, so I've seen lots of hoarders, human and animal waste, etc. But, the most aggravating day was when my partner and I got fleas from this dudes house. Our ambulance was swarming with fleas. Her and I were covered in fleas. We could see them jumping around there were so many. We had to mark out of service to decontaminate the truck and ourselves. It was awful and itchy."
The Zookeeper
"I work as a mobile computer repair/IT service guy. Went into a house to work on a laptop, and they happened to be my next-door neighbors. House had an animal smell (people with pets usually do not notice). But this was different. As I sat down to work on the laptop I heard a loud screech, and a pigmy marmoset jumped from a cabinet onto my head, pulling my hair violently. I then watched as an albino skunk, 3 house cats, 2 small dogs, and various large birds (a mynah, African gray, and what I think was some kind of guinea fowl) all appeared from various rooms and furnishings. All the animals were kind of friendly (there was no biting), but the sheer volume of animals in that tiny space was crazy. A few weeks later the Department of fish and wildlife and US customs raided their house. I found out later my neighbor smuggled rare animals. And had several aquariums full of rare poisonous snakes."
Basement Community
"Not me, but my SO. SO used to work for comcast as an installer and electrician many years ago. He has lots of odd/funny/alarming stories. My favorite is when he was in the basement of an old house running some wires. He couldn't find the pull for the lights so he was using a small flashlight to look around. So he's looking around and catches eyes in the dark with his flashlight. Goes back and realizes there's many eyes watching him in the dark. As soon as he realizes he gets creeped out and starts to head for the stairs. Then something starts screaming. Which makes him scream. Then the home owner comes down turns on the lights and apologizes for not telling him about the herd of goats that live in the dark basement. Apparently they are easily startled. He said there were probably a dozen of them down there."
Horror Movie Territory
People who enjoy going into scare houses during Halloween wouldn't dare experiencing the following.
Here Are My Digits
"So this was back when I was a student on a placement in community mental health services. I went out on a visit to see a man who was just recently discharged from a medium secure hospital, he had schizophrenia / psychosis. We were going in for a routine checkup."
"I knock, he opens the door, and this incredible stench just hits us in the face, and I thought I was gonna throw up right there. But alas, my supervisor urges me to go in, we walk into his house, and it just smells sooooo bad. My eyes were watering. I keep my composure, we chat to him, and I notice some black thing on his kitchen table, looks like rotting food/mould/tiny dead mouse... Idk. So after chatting, I casually ask him what that black thing is and if he needs help cleaning it up."
"Oh it's my toes"
"What. The. F'k."
"Yeah I cut them off, they didn't fit right on my foot."
"Needless to say he was immediately readmitted. He reportedly cut them off with a kitchen knife and then seared his wound with a lighter. I believe he had to have his entire foot/below knee leg amputated because it got infected."
Scare-bnb
"I used to help my dad who was a real estate appraiser. We went into this one house that was in the mountains, it was vacant. One room looked like it had black carpeting. When we looked closer, we found out the floor was covered in dead flies. The only room in the house like that."
Grisly Discovery
"A neighbor called the police after noticing the mail piling up outside of a neighbor's house, never ever a good sign. I get the check the welfare call and go with a back up car. No answer at the door so we try to look through all the 1st floor windows when my partner spots,a foot in the hallway. We forced entry and found the eldery female barely alive. She had fallen two days,earlier and had a broken hip. Fire/rescue came and got her to the hospital in time. I know not the weirdest thing finding her. We had to grab all the prescription medicine we could find to take to the hospital, it was then that we found her mummified husband sitting in the bedroom chair. Coroner said he had been there about six months."
Trash Can Alternative
"I was 20 years old working as an internet installer (just over 10 years ago). A cute girl a little older than me ordered service so while I was at her house surveying (both flirting) I told her I had to trace some lines down. It was a studio type MIL suite she was renting behind a house as she was in college."
"Started tracing lines and had to look behind her bed. It was just a mountain of used tampons, she had been shoving them under and behind her bed. The rest of the house was relatively clean."
"Also lots and lots of hoarders. There are so many hoarders."
Wasteland
"When I was a caregiver, I was absolutely flabbergasted when I walked into a home where there was dog sh*t everywhere. No pads, no newspaper, etc. Just dog shit e v e r y w h e r e, of all kinds. Dried, fresh, broken into bits, whole pieces..."
"There was a capable adult in the household who could have let the dog out. I had to bite my tongue, every time I went there and was told to pick it up, because I so badly wanted to go 'What in the absolute f'k is wrong with you??? How do you live like this when I'm NOT here???'"
Pizza Delivery
These Redditors delivered pies and came back with bizarre stories.
The Gift
"As a pizza delivery driver, I wasn't required to go into anyone's house, at least on paper. In practice though, it happens. If I were doing the same job now, I'd be much more wary of going into someone's house, but at 19, I thought I was invincible and didn't care."
"I have tons of pizza delivery stories from back then, some I've even told on Reddit before, but I've never told this one."
"There used to be this log cabin looking house right in the middle of town. It's since been demolished but it was legitimately just a very large log cabin sitting in the middle of a city. It was probably 10pm when I went out on the delivery. I looked at the address, looked at the wall map to see exactly where I was going (the days before GPS), and realized it was the log cabin. I'd always noticed it but had never visited it, nor did I know anything about it. So it was kind of exciting getting to see who actually lived in this place."
"I arrive and pull into the driveway and for the first time, I noticed it had 3 separate doors. A, B, and C."
"'I'll be damned, it's a triplex,' I thought."
"The address was for unit C, so I went to unit C and knocked on the door. As soon as it opened a wall of stink knocked me across the face. It smelled like... I don't know, a mixture of piss and unwashed crotch? A woman answered wearing nothing but a t-shirt and panties, which wasn't particularly strange for my town, but when she raised her arms, I could see her boobs hanging out the bottom of the shirt."
She turned around and said "I gotta get my pocket book, will you set it on the counter?"
"Extremely hesitant, I crossed the threshold and saw the counter right next to me. I set the pizza down. She came back out with the exact change and a copy of The Last of the Mohicans on VHS. She handed me the money and said 'Have you seen this?' and plops the video in my hands."
"'Uh, yeah, years ago,' I say."
"'Well now you own it,' she says. 'That damn movie is so good.'"
"I stare at her and the tape for a moment and I'm like 'I mean if you like the movie I don't wanna take it from you."'
"'No it's fine,' she says. 'I got like 50 copies of it.'"
"Right after she said that, I noticed her tv was on and, no sh*t, Last of the Mohicans was playing. I remember clearly it was the scene where the guy was being burned alive."
"'Okie doke, thanks,' I said, and left."
"When I got back to work, I told my manager I'd just delivered a pizza to the log cabin in town and he looks at me and says 'Did she give you a copy of Last of the Mohicans?'"
"'SHE DID!' I replied."
"Yeah I got a copy from her too."
"Not particularly scary or anything, just weird. I never had a delivery for her again."
– CDC_
The Excited Teen Customer
"Similarly, I had a young guy once open the door in nothing but some track pants and I couldn't help but notice his raging hard-on and a semi-nude old lady lying on the couch behind him."
"Pizza delivery doesn't pay enough, but it's a crazy job with limitless stories."
– CDC_
Pizza Museum
"I was an internet installer about 10 years ago, too! I actually just recently got back into the industry, but yeah..... There are a lot more hoarders out there than people typically think. And for weird stuff, too. I had a guy that had stored about 4 years worth of pizza boxes in his basement, stacked to the ceiling and piles sorted by where he ordered them from."
Many employees who deliver items or make home visits for inspection and repairs have continued doing god's work throughout the pandemic – as long as they abided by safety protocols and were healthy.
With much of the pandemic seeing an uptick in such services, these itinerant workers undoubtedly have endless anecdotes to share.
Hopefully, stories about finding corpses or severed toes inside homes were not a frequent occurrence.
Because no thank you.
The rule of thumb when eating fast food is very simple: put on the blinders, enjoy the meal, and try not to do it too often.
But what if you work in the kitchen?
In that case, there's simply no escaping a complete understanding of the several horrors that each assembled burger or french fry encounters on its way to that front counter.
For some Redditors who've worked in a fast-food kitchen, they had no choice but to swear off the stuff for good.
-Skippy_ asked, "Poeple who work at fast food chains but don't eat the food, what was the 'never gonna eat here again' moment?"
Plenty of comments centered around the grossest of the gross.
These Redditors worked enough shifts to see witness proof that Murphy's law applies to fast food joints: if a horrifying, unsafe food preparation issue can occur, it will occur.
UFOs!
"I've been a chef for an embarrassingly long amount of time and have worn many different hats within that realm. At one point I'd go to to other restaurants owned by the same owners and help them get ready for inspections."
"I've seen some scary sh**, but the most common and the one you get pegged for by the inspectors is mold in the ice machine. One was really bad and glad nobody got sick."
"Another place had two UFOs in the walk in. Unidentifiable Food Objects. You know how long something has to be in the fridge for nobody to be able to recognize what it was?"
-- Aragorn_71
Microbes on the Move
"I'm the only one who washes my hands after handling raw hamburgers" -- piku-piku
"I think the most disturbing thing about this is the amount of dudes that don't wash their hands after pi**ing."
Still Fingers
"I eat there still, but only if I make my own food, or I know who made it and it's a good coworker."
"These kids think that wearing gloves means they magically can't get stuff dirty anymore. Son, if your gloves touch nasty, your gloves are nasty now."
-- Isabel79540
Out of Sight, Out of Mind
"I worked at a local sub shop in high school. They had this mushroom/steak sub that was really popular. At the end of the shift they would cover and refrigerate the mushroom sauce."
"I never once seen the pan washed."
"They just added sauce to it when it was low, heated it and served it, then refrigerate at the end of the shift again. I would think between the never-ending heating/refrigerating and nasty pan they were breaking some codes."
-- 1980pzx
Good As Any Other
"I worked at a dishdog at a local small chain restaurant. One day the chef needed a ladle STAT but we just couldn't find any."
"Chef looks under his workbench and sees a ladle lying in the grease covered nasty floor. He announces '5 month rule!' and just chucks it in the soup."
"I laughed for a goddamn week"
Other people chose to discuss the questionable ethical motivations behind some common fast food practices. It's a business after all, and that can lead to some cut corners or scheming ploys.
The Bacon Exception
"Subway used to have a double meat option a couple years ago (it's 50% more meat now) that was $2 extra. Adding bacon to your order was $1."
"Well, a lot of subways were scamming customers out of that extra dollar If they ever got bacon added to their order."
"Instead of charging you for your sub + bacon, they would charge you as a BLT + your meat so that they could charge you that extra dollar."
"So if you ordered a tuna sub with bacon, instead of being Tuna Sub($5) + Bacon($1) it would be a BLT($5) + Tuna($2)."
"My manager would do this every. Single. Time. Someone ordered bacon. He threw a huge fit when subway altered their prices because of this scam."
-- EpicBlueDrop
Structurally Unsound
"I managed a sandwich shop in college."
"If you think you can pay teenagers minimum wage and expect them to accurately keep the dates of things that expire, wash everything properly, and generally give a fu** about anything related to food safety you are sorely mistaken."
A Daily "Everything Must Go" Sale
"Don't eat movie theater popcorn before 5pm..."
"DO NOT EAT THE POPCORN BEFORE 5PM!"
"If you do, you are most likely to be eating popcorn popped yesterday, collected into containers (my theater used plastic garbage bags), and thrown back into the popper under the heat lamps the next morning. And no new popcorn gets 'popped' until the old stuff is gone..."
"Thus, if you buy popcorn after 5pm you are more likely to be eating fresh stuff instead of the old stuff."
"On an unrelated note, popcorn butter is not butter; nobody knows what it is. All I do know is when we paid a guy $20 bucks to drink a glass of it he went into renal failure and almost lost a kidney."
-- DIES-_-IRAE
And a few took the opportunity to name drop.
But of course, this was no boastful or celebratory mentioning. This was outing a well-known corporation for its glaring lack of food safety.
Mmmmmmm
"I worked at Arby's."
"The mold covering the back wall of the fridge, the flash cooked roast beef that was still raw and instructed to be microwaved to finish cooking, and the putrid black fryer oil."
"Delectable!"
One To Rule Them All
"My brother-in-law has worked at a lot of restaurants as a cook. Basically all the chain restaurants, IHOP, chilis, etc."
"He said the nastiest one by far in terms of a disgusting kitchen was Olive Garden."
A Laundry List of Horrors
"Sonic. We were told to keep breakfast stuff (eggs, potatoes, etc.) in the hot drawers in case someone wanted breakfast at night. So they'd get like 10+ hour old soggy stuff."
"5 for $5 Tuesdays (no idea if that's a thing still), we'd literally just have like 40 patties sitting on the back of the grill at all times. Sometimes they'd be going out every 2 minutes..slow days they'd just sit for half an hour."
"If folks complained that their fries weren't "fresh" enough, they'd just get refried, resalted, and sent right back out."
"No one else adhered to the 30-second handwashing rules that were posted everywhere. We'd just "flash fry" the hot dog links for conies to warm them back up. Same with the nasty popcorn chicken that sat under heat lamps for hours during the day."
"Most fast food is garbage, but Sonic is its own brand of American fast food."
-- cavscout43
The Full Survey
"I never worked in a reatraunt but worked for sysco and got to see the inner workings of SUPER high-end restraunts to the low end fast food and everything in-between."
"As far as DQ's went, it was always hot or miss on how clean they were just depended on who the franchise owner was, every Red Robin I went to was utterly disgusting, the only consistently clean fast food joint I went to was Jimmy John's."
"I've never been in one where I thought it wasn't clean, I mean it'd get messy during rushes but as soon as a rush was over they'd clean, and everything was consistently rotated."
So Many Particles
"I'll still maow down on some McDonald's. Just don't get ice in your drink. Might want to avoid the drinks all together. The machine is rarely cleaned, where I worked"
"Extra bubbly sprite, anyone?"
-- LughCoeus1
Safety First!
"Didn't work here but I wanted to share because it was gross. One evening after a long day everyone was starving and dominos pizza was ordered."
"Under the cheese a used bandaid was found"
The Blob of Blobs
"Ok so I used to work at dominoes years ago like one of my first jobs , (this is uk so might be different elsewhere) the dough all gets delivered in one big blob in a blue bag inside a box you scoop out a certain amount until it fits in a clear tray / container once it thing is full you put it on a conveyor belt and that makes your base"
"that box only came 2/3 a year"
Frightening Hues
"Saw the color of the meat coming out of the fridge at a Wendy's."
"Didn't go back until I was hungry and desperate enough about 20 years later."
-- ectrosis
So yes, probably every fast food place out there has its own version of these stories. Tread lighthly, friends.
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Professionals Describe What A Day In Their Life Looks Like On The Job
Whenever people meet for the first time, a commonly asked question is what they do for a living.
Learning about the different jobs people have is a great conversation starter and can reveal a lot about who they are.
People outside of the entertainment industry are always fascinated about my performing career, and it is a great opportunity to clarify any misconceptions about my career in the theater being just a "nice summer job."
Likewise, it is always just as interesting to hear about the specifics of the work other people do. And most impotantly, it's a connection – one that may come in handy somday.
Curious about the lives of strangers on the internet, Redditor nottheonefosho asked:
"What is your job and what does your day in the life look like?"
Hats Off To These Workers
These jobs may not be career goals for some, but we should be thankful there are those who enjoy taking care of the things we may not be so inclined to do.
Risky Business
"I'm an armed security guard for a night club. I get paid by shift, but if you do the math I make about $35 an hour. I get to work at 9pm and usually leave around 4am. I spend 92% of my nights checking ID's, playing on my phone and searching people for weapons. 8% of my nights breaking up fights or arguments. But I spend 100% of my nights hoping I don't get jumped, hit with a glass bottle, or shot."
Unsung Hero
"I'm an undertaker and depending on the day, I bring deceased into my care from hospital mortuaries or sometimes during the day I will get called out to a private address or care home/hospice. Majority of most days I will be out on funerals, driving the hearse/limousine and bearing the coffin into the crematorium or lowering into a grave.
I will prepare and dress the deceased ready for funerals and viewings. I will also line and fit coffins and engrave nameplates among general cleaning of the funeral home and vehicles. It can be pretty full on physically as well as emotionally, but I really appreciate my job and the comfort I can help bring to some families."
Lots Of Pools To Clean
"I service swimming pools in Florida. I do 20 a day. 100 a week. I balance chemicals and make these pools pretty for my homeowners. Even after 20 years at the same company I still love my job."
Literary Rewards
Books seem to be a passion for these Redditors, who work in jobs that involve editing or handling a variety of tomes.
The Editor
"I'm a bookeditor! Some days usually start with random check-ins and meetings, most are just checking emails and working. 90% of the time I'm editing spellings, making sure stories are coherent, checking if the plot makes sense and/or editing and adding pictures to books!"
Like Christmas Every Day
"I work books in a thrift store. My day is like Christmas morning and a round of Russian roulette all at once since I never know what's going to be inside a box. 200 Harlequin romance novels? Hardcover hand painted books from the 1700s? A newspaper from the day Kennedy was shot? Human teeth? Grandma's bank paranoia cash stash? Literal cat poop? Porn mags? Who knows, not me!"
Training And Skillsets
These jobs require skill but as one Redditor said, learning new skills and getting a job in those fields can open up opportunities that can change your life for the better.
Surveying And Digging
"I'm an archaeologist. A lot of archaeologists like me work in the construction industry, rather than for a university or a museum."
"Basically, anytime someone wants to build something, the land has to get surveyed for anything that could be archaeologically significant. My company gets hired to survey the site. If we find stuff, we often get hired to dig it up. Most days are spent walking through woods and farmer fields. We check for evidence of sites, dig small test pits and make lots of maps. Sometimes we find a cool site and get to spend a few weeks fully excavating it."
Wine Cellar Designer
"I design high end wine cellars for a living. I work in a 3d modeling program all day. Most days are drawing 'small' wine cellars to hold 250-1000 bottles of wine, but every few weeks we get a request for a design to hold 10,000 bottles. We design, manufacture, and ship all over the world. They're incredibly expensive but the quality is unmatched. 10,000 bottle cellar would cost somewhere in the neighborhood of $300,000 installed. Maybe more. The job has its drawbacks like any other, but for the most part I love what I do. Before this I worked in landscaping for 10 years, started using sketchup to design my hardscape projects to help me lay it all out and accurately figure material costs. Don't be afraid to learn a new skill, it changed my life."
Things You Ride
One job requires operating a train, while the other requires maintaining a horse, of course.
Staying On Track
"Train driver."
"I arrive and pick up my schedule card for the day, I read through it and see if there are any safety notices relevant for the day. I make my way to my train either departing from the station or depot, following the schedule for stopping pattern on that trip. Breaks are put as part of the schedule, occasionally there are moments to snag a coffee here and there. There may be requirements to travel as a passenger depending on the work. Finishing up may be taking a train back to home station and stabling there/being relieved by a driver or shunting into the depot."
Animal Care
"I work in horse breeding, and it is horrible."
"I lost my job as a waitress during the pandemic and was looking for work, and thought 'hey, I rode horses for a while in high school, let's apply for this.' And the salary was better than a waitress..."
"But the work is just plain gross. Spending all day around stinky, horny-as-f'k stallions who want to f'k anything that moves (particularly if it smells like a mare), cleaning smegma out of horse penises...ugh. No fun. I'm not sure how I'm still here, except the money's good."
– nogus2
The Final Word
Every job has its drawbacks. But in challenging times, any job is better than no job – even if it entails "cleaning smegma."
Drive-Thru Workers Describe The Weirdest Thing They've Ever Seen In Someone's Car
Fast food workers encounter customers from a variety of backgrounds and situations that make each transaction unique.
But those who are positioned at a drive-thru window experience interactions that are even more oddly exclusive.
Tellers see customers inside their own environment, and therefore, get a peek into their personal lives.
To hear interesting anecdotes, Redditor Reach-n-Teach asked strangers:
"People who have worked the drive thru, what's the weirdest thing you've seen in someone's car?"
One thing is certain. You can't make this stuff up.
Please proceed to the next window and be prepared to guffaw.
Drunk Gym Teacher
"My gym teacher, drunk. He started eating the tacos at the drive through window. He was there for over 5 minutes, just eating. I saw him the next day in school, we both acted like nothing happened."
The Inflated Passenger
"Dude had a full on sex doll dressed up in his passenger seat. Sunglasses, dress and even a hat. I couldn't even tell it was fake until I asked for their order. Coworker and I looked at each other simultaneously and we both said 'was that a sex doll?' This is in a 'wealthy' area of my city as well so it was definitely a first."
Hungry Pet
"Only worked drive-through for a year but the weirdest thing I saw was an alpaca in a minivan. They asked at the window if they could order some apple slices for the alpaca. I just gave them two packs on the house."
"Private Peters"
"Had a guy consistently come through the drive thru with his pecker out. He would always order the same thing, large mellow yellow no ice, always on a sunday, and always wearing military fatigues. Then he stopped showing up for a bit, we called him private peters, as our little sign to call the cops if he showed up again. A month later we get an order for a large mellow yellow no ice, so I decide to take over the window. We convinced the car in front of him to stay in the lane and we called the cops, he got suspicious and left but they caught him and was charged."
Comfortable In Their Own Naked Skin
"I had 4 women that came through a few times. I'm 16. They're all like 45+. Not made up. Just naked and completely casual. Never acted like they were even slightly concerned they were naked at all. One of the girls there said they came through about once a week. We didn't have a nudist colony nearby that I knew of. Just these same ladies."
He Had Time
"Had a customer come through with a giant grandfather clock in the back seat. The thing was so huge it was sticking out the side window, which just so happened to be on the left side of the car. Which meant dude couldn't get close enough to the window to reach his food and had to step out, cursing the whole time."Flying Fish
"Someone threw a fish at me once. Didn't order anything, just a drive by fish attack."
– PsyPup
What's In The Egg Cartons?
"I worked at a Tim Hortons and once saw an old lady with like 50 cartons of eggs in her car, I made a joke saying 'looks like you could make your own breakfast' and she got real straight faced and said 'oh honey those aren't eggs.' Still have zero clue what else you would store in egg cartons..."
– BoltzTV
So That's What Was In Those Egg Cartons
"Golf balls. I used to steal gold balls from a golf course water hazard and the woods around the course. Sold them in egg cartons for $5"