Unusual Jobs

Join us for another lively discussion on Ricky’s Big World, where Ricky and Roxanna dive into the weirdest jobs they’ve encountered, from paper licking to professional sleepers! Plus, get exclusive behind-the-scenes looks at Pizza World and enjoy some hilarious banter between our hosts. Don’t forget to follow us for more episodes filled with laughs and unexpected stories.

Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction to Weird Jobs
0:27 - Roxanna’s Winnie the Pooh Outfit Roast
1:04 - Ricky’s Start in Odd Jobs
2:00 - The Art of Paper Licking
4:00 - Exploring Bizarre Job Roles Globally
10:25 - From Professional Mourners to Ethical Hackers
15:00 - The Life of a Chicken Wing Connoisseur
20:00 - Unusual Job: Iceberg Mover
22:01 - Underwater Pizza Delivery
25:00 - Wrapping up with Weird Job Experiences


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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Weird Jobs
• 0:27 Roxanna’s Winnie the Pooh Outfit Roast
• 1:04 Ricky’s Start in Odd Jobs
• 2:00 The Art of Paper Licking
• 4:00 Exploring Bizarre Job Roles Globally
• 10:25 From Professional Mourners to Ethical Hackers
• 15:00 The Life of a Chicken Wing Connoisseur
• 20:00 Unusual Job: Iceberg Mover
• 22:01 Underwater Pizza Delivery
• 25:00 Wrapping up with Weird Job Experiences

Transcript

Ricky: Howdy y’all! In the next episode of Ricky’s Big World, we’re going to spill all the tea. That was the first job I had at this company, and then they promoted me to paper licker.

Roxanna: I love that you got promoted and the promotion was licking paper.

Ricky: It was back in the Pizza World Caverns behind the test ovens, and in reality, next to the bathrooms it’s Ricky’s Big World.

[Music]

Ricky: All right, welcome to another episode of Ricky’s Big World where Roxanna is again getting on my freaking nerves, and she’s wearing a Winnie the Pooh, which I love Winnie the Pooh and everything about Winnie the Pooh.

Roxanna: However, you are what, 40, 50-something years old? Excuse you, and you’re walking around—

Ricky: No, first off, I’m nowhere near—

Roxanna: Okay, I’m sorry. I apologize. The way you act, you’re at 5078 to 28. Are you trying to tell people I’m grumpy?

Ricky: Yes, you’re grumpy. But my point is that your shirt is distracting. You got Winnie, and Eeyore, and everybody all over the place on a woolly—it’s fluffy.

Roxanna: Yes, a fluffy quarter zip with a big blue pocket. It’s weird.

Ricky: Okay, what were you asking earlier?

Roxanna: Well, I’m not asking you for fashion advice.

Ricky: Oh, you need it.

Roxanna: I had only a lovely black polo that goes great with any color. I have red shorts, so I am actually in a Georgia M—

Ricky: Georgia Bull. Do you own any other clothes or hats besides that one?

Roxanna: I do, but it looks like it was thrown or ran over by your mama times two.

Ricky: Okay, all of them great, great grandma greas and neck bone chicken biscuit. Was that hat white at one point?

Roxanna: It was, and it still is. It definitely is not. Can we get to the topic because I’m supposed to be doing a show here? You’re the one that wanted to come after my shirt.

Ricky: I came after the shirt because it is horrific, but it is so cool too. It’s just crazy.

Roxanna: So I don’t understand it. It’s like you want on a negative 42-degree day, you would never freeze.

Ricky: Yes, you should walk around and let us see it.

Roxanna: I’m okay, thanks for offering though.

Ricky: Okay, all right, go ahead, what you want?

Roxanna: So we’ve talked a lot about your job. We know you were in it, we know you did radio, you’re an actor, blah blah blah, all the fun stuff.

Ricky: Whatever.

Roxanna: Acting. But any other jobs like, let’s any bizarre jobs?

Ricky: We don’t call them just regular jobs; we call them experience makers. I had an attorney say that once because I was like, look at all the jobs I’ve had, looks like I’m a loser. He said no, you’re an experience maker.

Roxanna: Experience maker.

Ricky: So, I had this one job at a paper factory where I had to lick and taste the paper to make sure it was of the certain quality they needed for stamps.

Roxanna: Excuse me, your whole job was licking paper?

Ricky: Lick paper. So, you got this little roll that would come across right, the beginning roll and the end roll, and it would go around, and you stop it with this button, and then you just go out there next.

Roxanna: One and every, it’s like every five seconds?

Ricky: It was quick, and you write down a check mark, yes or no. Does it taste like—what happens after you taste it?

Roxanna: Though, you drink some water, you spit?

Ricky: You spit out. They had a spit bucket.

Roxanna: Okay, so you did about 10, and then you pause the system, drink some water, spit out. Like you never want to swallow. What happens to the ones you licked?

Ricky: They get thrown away.

Roxanna: Okay, just checking. But the item number is shown to move forward or stay behind. And this is a temp job too, so I got minimum wage, and at the time, minimum wage was $3.35 an hour. So here it is, I’m sitting there licking paper for $3.35 an hour, demeaning, but you know what, though? I was working. I wasn’t getting any government assistance, so we’re good.

Roxanna: I had no idea jobs like that existed. Like now that you’re saying that, I can’t imagine some jobs that may exist.

Ricky: Yeah, crazy. When I first started the position, I used to, because they were kind of like a publishing company, and I would have to go walk around with seven or eight other people in a circle around a square stack of paper, and you have to put a sheet of paper on everyone so that everybody had their thing so that you could build this big old book-type thing. They took the processor and then cut it into smaller books right. But that was the first job I had at this company, and then they promoted me to paper licker.

Roxanna: I love that you got promoted and the promotion was licking paper.

Ricky: It sparked a lot of questions, so I Googled the weirdest jobs.

Roxanna: Oh, what did you find?

Ricky: Paper licker wasn’t good. Some of these are crazy. Professional sleeper, yes, they actually—

Roxanna: I would love that.

Ricky: They actually have clinical trials where you get paid to sleep so they can research your brain waves. This one, a professional sleeper, a hotel in Finland hired a member of staff as a professional sleeper to test the comfort of their beds.

Roxanna: My only problem with that is, are they clean hotels? Is it the kind that got the bed bugs, or what? So I woke up itchy from mine this morning, so I don’t know. Dog food tester.

Ricky: I did eat dog food one time, but I was a child. But you know what? There are some dog foods, like if they’re the kind of dog foods like no grains and no this, this, this, and they claim it’s good enough for humans to eat, I get it.

Roxanna: I had one that tasted like a chocolate chip cookie one time. I was like, you got to be kidding me. Now, the dog food was more expensive than buying chocolate chip cookies, but it was so good.

Ricky: Professional mourner, yes, now—

Roxanna: I didn’t know they did it here in the United States, but I know in some places they do that.

Ricky: So this one says in Southeast Asia, it’s tradition to have loud funerals because it’ll assist the dead as they travel to the afterlife. So you can hire professional mourners. I have family in the Middle East, and there’s professional mourners out there crying all over the place.

Roxanna: Here’s a bizarre one, snake milker.

Ricky: I’ve seen it. You saw it on National Geographic. You take that snake and milk it because they have to have the antidote for the snake bite.

Roxanna: That’s fair, so yeah, that ain’t a job I’m doing. Ethical hacker, that now—

Ricky: Oh, an ethical hacker is a huge thing. That would make sense, though, to me. A lot of companies will actually hire an ethical hacker to go in to break the system to see if someone from the outside can break the system.

Roxanna: And so, yeah, that’s a big job, and it pays very well. They have golf ball divers, okay, and which makes sense, especially if there’s fish and other things in the pond.

Ricky: Had that long, but it is kind of weird.

Roxanna: Well, I mean, you hit the ball in the waterway, and you don’t want to just let it sit there because they’re expensive. So they have someone that usually outside company will go in there with diving suits and get all of them, clean them, and then repackage them and sell them back to the golf course.

Ricky: Yeah, makes sense. A train pusher, have you heard—

Roxanna: So these are people in Japan that are hired to help cram as many people into a train as possible.

Ricky: That wasn’t what I was thinking. I thought they were like physically pushing the train.

Roxanna: Yeah, because it would be less energy having to start up a train to go 50 feet, thanks to train pushers. They can fit twice the number of passengers into trains than you would normally, and that’s because they are literally physically pushing people into the train as the doors are closing.

Ricky: I have been to India and have seen the massive amount of people that get on the train in India. I didn’t know they did that in Japan. That’s crazy, right?

Roxanna: There, professional cuddler.

Ricky: Yeah, when I saw that, I just said no. So people are out there paying to pay people, strangers, to cuddle with them because they’re lonely or whatever reason why.

Roxanna: You got to be out of your mind. What happens if that person flips their attitude and says, “I don’t want to cuddle. I want to do more.” You know?

Ricky: Yeah, no, that would be like a dangerous profession, I think. Where’s my rape whistle? That’s right, that’s exactly what it is. Netflix tagger, there, a professional Netflix tagger.

Roxanna: Yeah, so it’s people who get paid, I guess by Netflix or somebody else, to target the appropriate genre before it’s released to the public. I figured the producers of the company would have their own in doing that, right?

Ricky: I would. I keep hitting this because I’m looking at my computer. Hey, you know what, though? That’s your thing. If she doesn’t hit the camera, and it’s shaky, shaky, then it ain’t a good show.

Roxanna: You would think, though, like with the amount of computers and technology and stuff we have, that like that information would come over when you, like, get you know what I mean. They would like, yeah, because they got programs. Probably AI probably could do that.

Ricky: I’m surprised. Which I’m not a fan of. The next one, I’m confused about, odor judge.

Roxanna: Okay, are they working for the deodorant companies?

Ricky: It requires you to smell people’s armpits, feet, or breath.

Roxanna: There you go, there’s your job when you grow up.

Ricky: He’s light as okay. This next one, I’d be down to do. I think this would be such a fun job.

Roxanna: Okay, professional water slide tester.

Ricky: You want to do that?

Roxanna: Yeah. Professional. What if it’s the 25th slide or the first slide? I don’t care. I’m so slide down it.

Ricky: Okay, all right. I think the better people to do it are fat people. See, that would be me, so I would be better at it than you.

Roxanna: No, you won’t.

Ricky: Yes, I would.

Roxanna: No, you won’t.

Ricky: Yeah, I would too.

Roxanna: No, you won’t. The proper answer to that little boy would be, “You’re not fat.” You should—why are you trying to say that? You don’t—we still a kitty’s brutally honest, remember?

Ricky: Oh, now—

Roxanna: Now I swam in 11 pools without sinking.

Ricky: You s—

Roxanna: Anyway, go ahead. No, I didn’t. That big one makes sense, but like, and I guess somebody has to do this, and it makes sense. Again, like I said, but I would not, a crime scene cleaner.

Ricky: Mhm, like, I know that has like somebody has to do it, I guess.

Roxanna: Got their people, so why not the other people?

Ricky: Yeah, I mean, we’ve talked about that before. There was a situation. Does that—do they—do they clean, okay.

Roxanna: All right. They will go in, and they will clean up after a crime or murder, suicide, or something like that.

Ricky: Yeah, oh, so see, sponsor us. I just popped y’all on.

Roxanna: In, professional line-stander.

Ricky: Huh. People will pay you to stand in line for them.

Roxanna: Oh, I would definitely pay somebody to stand in line for me. Oh, I sure would.

Ricky: Oh, professional line-stander. So you know, somebody, you know, Pizza World gets the line out the door, you can pay somebody to stand in line for you.

Roxanna: It doesn’t make no financial sense on the buyer’s side, but yeah. I mean, if you’re an employee standing there, you ain’t got nothing else to do today. Professional bridesmaid, so I guess the movies weren’t lying. You can hire people for that.

Ricky: I guess. Wow. Um, you ain’t got no friends. Fortune cookie writer.

Roxanna: Oh, I want that job. I would love to see you write. Can you write a fortune cookie for us now? Right now?

Ricky: Um, future be better when toilet paper is not—

Roxanna: Stained.

Ricky: Future be better when toilet paper not stained. So never.

Roxanna: Well, don’t go in there and wipe your butt with toilet paper already got stains on it.

Ricky: Oh, okay. Like glass houses kind of feeling.

Roxanna: Yeah, you want to do—you want to put poo on your toilet paper?

Ricky: No, absolutely not. I mean, you asked me to write something. I wrote it.

Roxanna: That’s fair. I thought you’d be better at it, I’m not going to lie. With all your southernisms, I thought you’d pull from something magical.

Ricky: I don’t know, an over-buttered biscuit creates yellow smiles. How about that?

Roxanna: There you go. Uh, and then the last one I have on this list is a professional face feeler.

Ricky: Like Freddy Krueger?

Roxanna: I guess they just like—they’re put that chemical peel on.

Ricky: Well, I mean, I can see that because you’re—if you’re an esthetician.

Roxanna: Yeah, your—why you got to come over here so grouchy like that?

Ricky: He—your wings. Can you say it nicer now? Here’s your wings.

Roxanna: He is a quick learner. Look at that. Look at them chicken wings. He—that he made chicken—

Ricky: Oh, I used to love that song, but then I got it out of my head ‘cause I didn’t like it no more.

Roxanna: What—what is this? What kind you do with boneless?

Ricky: Chicken, boneless boneless chicken of garlic Parmesan.

Roxanna: Garlic Parmesan, and it’s steaming hot, so don’t—e—can I get some ranch dressing with a fork, please? Maybe two forks in case Ro—okay, thank you, sir.

Ricky: I pulled up a second list, and this one has iceberg mover.

Roxanna: Toes, yes.

Ricky: Please. People move icebergs out of the way of shipping routes. I can see—no, I see that.

Roxanna: They have another one that’s like you remove ice from the—please have knives in this—in this. Thank you for telling us. Thank you, sir. That was so sweet. So you might—so you might not need to use a knife for any—just come up behind me, you scared the mess out of some. You might need to use the cut it up. All the—thank you, sir. I appreciate you. Thank you, sir.

Ricky: Thank you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. You’re welcome.

Roxanna: Thank you. So they have an ice—they have an ice remover person for the wings of airplanes. They do.

Ricky: Mhm, ‘cause they’ll go around too, with a machine, a vehicle, and it’ll spray this chemical on it too for the more fancy high-dollar plane. I just never thought that like icebergs would be in the way of shipping routes, like you would think they would just go around—

Roxanna: Those, the iceberg would go around them, yeah.

Ricky: Instead of like moving the—no, the boat go around the iceberg instead the other way around, you know. It’s a hot—H, it’s not too—

Roxanna: Bad. Well, I didn’t say put the whole thing—

Ricky: In. That really good. I gave you a—

Roxanna: Compliment. Thank you.

Ricky: Thank you. What you teach—shop dog surfing instructor.

Roxanna: I’ve seen it done on like TikTok stuff, but I didn’t know that was a real thing. A dog swimming—

Ricky: Instructor, surfing.

Roxanna: No, you said surfing, so they teach the dog to surf or—

Ricky: Is it like that goat yoga? No, they teach the dog to—

Roxanna: Surf. Okay, here’s one I would do in a heartbeat. This would be my dream job.

Ricky: Oh, your dream job. Is it Disney involved?

Roxanna: Professional—

Ricky: Mermaid. Do I put on my fake smile, or do I just tell you how—You don’t think that’d be fun?

Roxanna: No, grown people swimming around and fish—

Ricky: T—no, I don’t think that’s—

Roxanna: Fine. There might be sharks in there.

Ricky: That’s fair. Sharks. Ricky always talks about sharks wanting to eat—

Roxanna: Him. I’m the right—

Ricky: Shark. He says you taste like chicken. Ice rink handholder. H, an ice rink hand holder, to keep everyone safe. Ice rink attendants are hired to monitor the ice skating crowds, and in some cases, hold people’s—

Roxanna: Hands. I can, especially for the little kids.

Ricky: Okay, or maybe some other people who have no coordination like—

Roxanna: Myself. So here’s one. I don’t really get online dating ghost—

Ricky: Rider. I’ve heard of ghostwriters, but never that specific like an online dating ghostwriter. Online dating ghostwriters help users create profiles that present them in the most interesting and favorable way possible.

Roxanna: You know what? ChatGPT does—

Ricky: No—

Roxanna: Fair. Uh, you can be a professional dry paint—

Ricky: Watcher. I’m—

Roxanna: Sorry. Don’t—and that’s an old southern saying too. Don’t you know, stand around like you waiting for the paint to dry, but you actually going pay doing it. This job basically requires you to paint walls and other surfaces and observe closely what happens to the color and texture of the paint while it dries and how long that takes, which makes sense.

Ricky: Like those paint companies have to put that on the can, right? Like, how else would they figure that out?

Roxanna: But there’s a whole career path for that.

Ricky: Yeah, with a potential earning of $27 an hour.

Roxanna: What? I leave my mind. Here’s one, a paper towel—

Ricky: Sniffer. No, and it says potential earning is $52,000 a year. Yes, oh wait a minute, hold on. I licked—I licked paper for $3.35 an hour, so why—

Roxanna: Not? I would love some—

Ricky: Water. Well, water with a little spice of lemonade. Just water, just water, and a little spice of lemonade, just like a little spritz of lemon, yeah, yes sir, thank—

Roxanna: Fine. Dining chef for—

Ricky: Dogs. Okay, but I, you know what? I can see that, especially in big cities, because people love being able to take their dogs to restaurants now. I found out in Louisiana, you’re allowed to take your dog anywhere. They cannot tell you—

Roxanna: No, even restaurants. So here you go, bicycle—

Ricky: Fisher. Uh, bicycle—

Roxanna: Fisher, they fish bicycles out of the water.

Ricky: How b—get water with the people, very—

Roxanna: Strong winds, another. They’re not fishing the people out of the water. They—

Ricky: P—

Roxanna: Okay, all right. I’m about—

Ricky: It. Get this one, and I think this is funny coming from somebody who works in a pizza shop, underwater pizza—

Roxanna: Deliverer. Have you ever heard of a scuba diver pizza delivery guy?Ricky: I didn’t know that they had pizza jewels, underwater lodge, an underwater hotel in Key Largo, Florida, employs scuba divers to deliver pizza to the underwater—

Roxanna: Patrons. You’re the one that wanted to do a podcast in a pizza—

Ricky: Restaurant. No, I did—

Roxanna: Not. I like the sounds. I fought y’all on doing a podcast at all. No, I don’t, but you—it y’all said you insisted it be inside with all the noises.

Ricky: I like all the noises. No, my thing is, are there—I was looking around to see if there are any delivery drivers here right now.

Roxanna: Oh, I bet Carter would be great up—

Ricky: Oh, I’m sure. I think he’ll be great up. You going to eat another one, or am I eating all of—

Roxanna: Oh, I’ll eat another one. Um, three left. I ate—

Ricky: Chief listening officer.

Roxanna: Sir, you couldn’t do that one.

Ricky: I can’t do that one. I—I get lost. I get bored after a—

Roxanna: While, even with you. I try to listen to you, and I’m not g—what kind of like our last episode, where neither of us were listening to each other.

Ricky: I don’t talk, but—

Roxanna: That was fun. That was a good list. All right, yeah, it—it was a good list.

Ricky: Um, I—crazy. There’s more out there. Oh, yeah, I’m sure. Like, obviously—

Roxanna: Professional stamp taster wasn’t on there. I don’t think they do that anymore ’cause they probably do better with just little, little wet—

Ricky: Na. So then how do they know it tastes right?

Roxanna: The one that gets me is when you see an inspector number 42 on adult diapers. I’m like, do you know—is that—

Ricky: They—

Roxanna: Oh, maybe they pour fluid in—

Ricky: It. Maybe they—how is your bladder that full to be able to do that?

Roxanna: No, they have to be pouring liquid, right?

Ricky: Right, you put—

Roxanna: Liquid in there somehow. I don’t know, maybe it’s tinkle.

Ricky: Tinkle. That got me questioning—

Roxanna: Everything. What other weird jobs do you think are out there?

Ricky: Uh, I wonder if there is a professional quality control person for, uh, sound depthness of flatulence on chairs for—

Roxanna: Restaurants. Think about that. I mean, I remember in that one episode where I was telling you guys I was at this restaurant back south years and years back in the ‘90s, and I had some gas, and it came out well. I’m sitting in the chair just like this, and it made it sound like somebody just moved the chair ’cause the floor to echo all right, so that could have been part of a successful test.

Ricky: The inspector 22 pass. So you were—

Roxanna: The inspector. No, I’m the end. I’m the end-user.

Ricky: Oh, I see. I see. It passed the test before it made it to the restaurant. All right, so would that—that would be a great thing. That would be very interesting. So, any other jobs that you’ve done? Any other—I mean, is that the only bizarre one you’ve done, or—

Ricky: I worked for a battery company where I had to get the pit and clean the pit out and also poured molten lead that had to go into the batteries, and you would have to redirect the lead to make sure that it got into the batteries on the floor. There are some things like that, but going into the pit to clean it out, yeah, after all the hot lead I went in there and mixed in with this chemical that doesn’t allow it to solidify, and the cool fluids, that was interesting right there.

Roxanna: I mean, that was very interesting.

Ricky: So, that’s crazy. It’s crazy, yeah. So I really liked it, but it was just one of those jobs where it paid like $100,000 a year. It was crazy to do that kind of job. It just—what you just had to do is just be extremely careful to make sure that you weren’t going to—you weren’t going to do anything.

Roxanna: Yeah. What’s up, buddy? Rabbit chair.

Ricky: He’s hating on my sweater. My teeth—we’ll have to talk about that.

Roxanna: No, we don’t. I—I—what does it say? I can’t win.

Ricky: I—I will can’t win.

Roxanna: Yeah, they lost away last night.

Ricky: Cyclops. Iowa stay—

Roxanna: Cyclops. You—they say put the eye on the prize, but they can’t win it.

Ricky: So what—

Roxanna: Oh, got that one. Nothing. You done missed it. Anyway, my buddy Jeff is here. Maybe he’ll join us for the next episode.

Ricky: Yes, we’ll see. That’s the way. We only got like five minutes left.

Roxanna: Um, we’re—we’re talking about odd, weird jobs. I was telling them about some of the odd jobs I’ve had. Have you had any?

Jeff: I worked at Earl aen for a while, the nursery.

Roxanna: Yeah, I think working at a nursery is odd, though. What’s odd about that?

Jeff: I didn’t know what the hell I was doing.

Roxanna: So he was the odd one. He was the—what is it called? A cactus.

Jeff: Oh, okay. People asking me how to grow a tree, and I’m like, I don’t know, follow directions on the—T, stick it in the ground, pee on it.

Roxanna: Back to 22. Make—wait, hold on. What you making for the third—

Jeff: Episode. Surprise. He made—

Roxanna: Anyway, but he just made chicken wings. Just them chicken wings, they were— the boneless were so good.

Ricky: Well, Roxanna, Jen, I gotta tell you what, that was actually interesting when it comes to the odd jobs thing. There are more jobs that I did not know existed.

Roxanna: I agree. So that was pretty cool. So look here, that’s the—the—that look, that’s the end of this episode. Rick’s Big World going to leave the front light on and the door unlocked, but don’t bring that silliness in here, talk about, you know, you put butter oil on Shamu at the SeaWorld or nothing like that. It might be a job Jeff might want to do, but that’s not the rest of us. So don’t—don’t be doing that. So, bye.

Ricky: I mean, [Music].