There’s a lot of odd jobs out there. Someone has to do them.
We bring you: The coolest, weirdest, most interesting jobs you didn’t know existed…
1) Panda Nanny
Who doesn’t love baby pandas? They’re adorable! At the China Giant Panda Protection and Research Centre, they have a team of panda nannies whose only job responsibility is to look after (cuddle all day long) all the baby pandas. You might be sighing, thinking, “and what do I get out of such a burdensome job?” Well, on top of the $32,000 annual salary, you get all your meals and accommodation included, as well as use of an SUV for getting around.
Apparently “some basic knowledge of pandas” is also a necessity… but, that’s to be expected.
2) Scuba Diving Pizza Delivery Man
If you love scuba diving and want to make money from it, but aren’t particularly into the sciences or any good at teaching or photography, what about pizza delivery? At an underwater hotel in Florida, you can order a pizza from Papa John’s and have your pizza delivered to your underwater lodge by a scuba diving pizza delivery man. But there just to be more scuba diving employment opportunities like this in the world outside of Florida. There just has to be.
3) Water Slide Tester
Yep. This is a real job role. The First Choice travel company send out their water slide tester to various water parks around the world to simply rate the parks’ water slides. Most people would do this for free, or even pay for the experience, but you’re looking at an annual salary of £20,000 with First Choice. But they’re not the only ones to employ a water slide tester. There are so many water slides in the world… and, of course, someone has to test them!
4) Netflix Tagger
So what does a Netflix Tagger actually do? Well, for “a couple hundred dollars a week”, all you have to do is just binge watch shows and movies on Netflix and categorically tag them. Which is how Netflix is able to deliver such personalised recommendations.
5) Director of Bed Bouncing
Yes. That’s what Premier Inn call their hotel bed tester. Like a real life Princess & the Pea, Natalie from Bedfordshire (ironically, I’m not even making that up) is sensitive to lump beds, and has therefore landed herself the title of Premier Inn’s Director of Bed Bouncing. She is actually the director of a team of bouncers, I kid you not. She tests 46,000 beds across 602 Premier Inn hotels a year, travelling thousands of miles and testing each bed for comfort by taking a 20 minute power nap in each one.
“I absolutely love my job and really can’t imagine doing anything else now! I work with an excellent team of ‘bouncers’ and we work together to bounce on every part of the bed, before testing how comfortable it is to lie and sleep on. Whilst we have lots of fun bouncing on beds, we take our job very seriously as making sure every guest gets a good night’s sleep is of paramount importance to us all.”
John Lewis also employs a “specialist duvet tester”, which has got to be a close second when it comes to bed-related professions. Though similar roles also exist for various hotels across the world, according to my “research”. I suppose someone has to do it!
6) Luxury Travel Reviewer
Luxury Travel Intelligence is a members-only resource for… you guessed it; luxury travel. So you can only imagine what a luxury travel reviewer gets paid to do. Travel around the world and live like royalty, all expenses paid… It’s literally a million dollar holiday. For Free. (But I guess a luxury travel company can afford it.)
Locations include Sir Richard Branson’s private island, another private island in the Maldives, celebrity ski resorts as well as the most decadent hotels in the world. The reviewer is even allowed to bring a +1!
7) Ben and Jerry’s Flavour Guru
Taste-testing Ben and Jerry’s ice cream sounds like a dream job… The job literally consists of concocting all sorts of weird and wonderful ice cream flavour combinations, blending ice cream flavours with candy and syrup to see what works…
8) Zombie
If you’re a lover of all things zombified, this career may be for you! There are a huge number of “zombie” professions out there now, as escape rooms and scare attractions are becoming increasingly popular with each year. The role simply involves acting like a zombie and scaring people. Creeping out of dark corners and what not….
9) TV Corpse
If acting isn’t a strength of yours at all, the next best thing from being paid to be undead is being paid to just be plain dead. Well, pretending to. Many TV shows will pay anywhere up to £200 a day for you to simply lay there and play dead for TV. Lunch is included, as laying there motionless is extremely tiring and requires a lot of energy. Also, think of the celebrities that you could potentially meet!
10) Walt Disney Imagineer
In reality, the job probably isn’t as magical as it sounds. But it is for Disney so who knows. Being a Walt Disney Imagineer consists of “dreaming up your wildest ideas” and “joining forces with world-class experts to make them a reality”. The actual job role itself can be in anything from the arts to the sciences.
If you’re a dreamer and we’ve inspired you to start your own cool business, check out what else we can do for you by visiting our Business Insurance page! We can provide insurance for all sorts of trades.