Occupational Hazards
Jul 24th 2007
Karen RoseGoddess Grins
WARNING: DARK HUMOR AHEAD. If you do not like dark humor, I humbly apologize in advance. Having said that, here goes:
I have had a number of interesting jobs in my life. The most “colorful” was in college when I worked for a company hired by the DC sewer folk to study the pipes under DC and its suburb
s - some of the pipes dated back to the Lincoln administration. In other words, they were freaking old. There were two main methods of checking the pipes for cracks - one was running a video camera on a cable through the pipe. As the college-aged aide, I had the oh-so-important job of watching the tape and marking which pipes under which streets had cracks. As you can imagine, I drank a lot of caffeine that summer. Yawwwwwn.
The other way of checking out cracks at least got me out of the office. The crews would pump a colored, non-toxic gas through the pipes. If it came up through your toilet, there was a leak. My responsibility when we did this method was to pass out flyers telling residents about the test and that the gas was not toxic and whom to call should they see the gas.
Well. One of the places we left a flyer was a funeral home. It was not one of those quietly sophisticated places with pillars. It looked like a technicolor version of the Addams’ family abode. On its roof flashed a giant green neon sign with the owner’s name for all the county to see.
Well. The managers of this funeral home didn’t pay attention to our informative flyer, much to their everlasting chagrin. Grin being the operative part of that word! What I failed to mention was that this non-toxic, odorless gas was red, like brimstone and during a service for someone’s dearly departed, brimstone red gas began to seep up 
through the drains - into the chapel which was located in the funeral home’s basement!!
The family of the deceased was very displeased. I later got the impression there had been some disagreement as to the final resting place of their dearly departed - up or down? Because they had not read our informative flyer, the funeral home had no explanation for this seemingly paranormal sign from beyond the grave.
The family was mad at the funeral home, as they should have been. But because stuff flows downhill, especially in the sewer business, we college gofer aides got in trouble when the funeral director accused us of leaving no flyer. I know we put one on their door because we shook our heads over the garish blinking green neon sign. Good thing was, our boss was laughing too hard to do much more than shake his finger at us.
The next time we had to “serve” a funeral home, we went inside and put the flyer in someone’s live hands. Being a more sophisticated establishment with pillars, they had a great laugh at the expense of their garish competitor. But they didn’t let us ride a gurney down the hall (see doglady’s story from “The Big O” last Saturday). I feel cheated somehow.
So what weird jobs have you held? What funny things have happened to you on the job? Are you scarred for life?
36 Comments »
36 Responses to “Occupational Hazards”
twolilhahas on 24 Jul 2007 at 12:36 am #
Now, that’s some funny junk! LOL
I haven’t really had any funny jobs. I worked for Dell as a tech support rep at one point. That got funny at times, but not usually. It was a fun job, though. One time I had a guy call in and he was obviously watching porn in the background, so I put him on mute to ask if I had to keep talking to him because it was really disturbing hearing that woman grunting and groaning in the background. Well, mute just blocks me out, not him, and it wasn’t long before you could hear him, um, yeah…taking care of business? I was horrified and handed the phone over to a male colleague. I was sooo too young then. I would have came back on the phone laughing now, been like, “Work it, Buddy, I’ve got call times to worry about!”
Audrey on 24 Jul 2007 at 12:56 am #
I haven’t held any weird jobs - I was in accounting. But I did work for a company by the name of Big ‘O’ Inc.. Seriously.
So one day one of our customers called in and asked me if I knew what a big O really was. I just started laughing. He told me he went home one day after work wearing one of the lapel pins we had sent out, his wife and her friends were there having coffee, and just about killed themselves laughing because he didn’t know what the “other” meaning was. He was mortified.
What did we sell? Innocent drain tile and culvert pipe.
The only other even slightly weird thing was when I worked for a heating and refrigeration company, they swore like sailors. Every single time, they’d say, oops, sorry, but I worked there for several years and they still swore just as much. Polite @#$#@s!
Karen on 24 Jul 2007 at 6:21 am #
The most interesting job was working at a photo processing plant. The smell alone was horrendous, but I had to work the overnight shift. Jobs I did ranged from standing for hours sorting envelopes based on film size, sitting in a dark room loading film into a machine, and cutting negatives.
As part of the responsibility of cutting negatives, we also cut the photos. The photos came out to us in a huge roll. We cut the pictures and matched them up with the negatives and the order envelope. The pictures were sometimes hilarious, sometimes very beautiful, and sometimes very naughty. The funniest thing about the naughty pictures was that our manager was very shy. One night, a very large roll of photos contained several of these pictures. Harold needed to inspect the photos for any legal violations. While he and the operator were busy staring at the photos, the roll became unbalanced and fell off of the machine. Shy Harold was beet red when he had to roll it back up and reload it.
Karen Rose on 24 Jul 2007 at 6:23 am #
Oh God. Shudder. Ewwww. Twolilhahas - that’s awful - and totally hilarious. What possesses some people? Of course your wiser-with-age comeback is perfect. I always think of the perfect comeback too late.
Karen Rose on 24 Jul 2007 at 6:29 am #
What guy wouldn’t know what a big O was? I thought they were born with that tattooed to the inside of their eyelids! That cracks me up. Living in Cinci, we heard a lot about the “Big O” - Oscar Robertson, the basketball player. I know nothing about b-ball, but I know who he is!
The sewer guys swore like sailors too, Audrey. That was on the tapes I had to watch to mark all the cracked pipe. But when the sewer guys would go down the manholes to string cable for the camera, they’d find some amazing treasures. Three guys that summer found diamond rings that had been flushed - by accident or on purpose - down the toilet. My partner found one so valuable that when he sold it, he paid for his entire college education. I wanted to go down the manholes, but they told me that the men wouldn’t listen to me as I was “a girl.”
Still makes me twitch.
Karen - I always wondered if photo processing people looked at the pictures. Now I know it’s true. Hmmm. Imagination is working.
Erica R on 24 Jul 2007 at 6:50 am #
This story cracks me up. Hmmm, odd jobs in my past? As a teenager, I served ice cream, sold knives door to door, ran the parts & service portion of an RV lot, did “secret shopping” (QC), and worked menswear at a department store. Nothing that remotely smacks of red fumes at a funeral. In my twenties, I had respectable office jobs (some eerily similar in nature to both the movie Office Space and the TV show The Office) and nowadays I work for myself from home. I wish I’d had the foresight to call my company The Big O, Inc like the one Audrey worked for. *g
cail on 24 Jul 2007 at 7:37 am #
none of my jobs have been that interesting, although working at a soap for a while was pretty fun. got to know a bunch of the actors pretty well.
office work is sadly nowhere near as interesting as sewers, sadly. unless you’re watching ‘The Office.”
Karen Rose on 24 Jul 2007 at 7:40 am #
You sold knives. Door to door. Does anybody else see an issue with this?
Luckily I know Erica and she is physically rather slender and overall a non-violent looking young woman. But if some stranger came selling knives at my door, I’d call 911. But then I see serial killers around every corner. It works for me.
Which soap Cail? Any good dish? For a minute I thought you meant you MADE soap. All those years at P&G (Ivory Soap) coming out…
cail on 24 Jul 2007 at 7:51 am #
One Life to Live. No good dishes, but those actors are definitely as attractive up close as they are on tv. Before I left I got an autographed picture of Michael Bolton who plays John McBain. Such a cutie!!
Ellen on 24 Jul 2007 at 8:14 am #
I had a really cool job when I was 17. I got paid to count the cash at Playland in Rye, NY with my best friend. You might know this amusement park from one of Mariah Carey’s videos or possibly the movie “Big.”
Anyway, every day we would get a two hour break from the counting and would spend it either tanning ourselves (whatz sunblock?) or riding the Dragon Coaster again and again. I always wanted the front seat of the rollercoaster but on this particular day, a man and his girlfriend took it.
So there we are in the second car when that first big hill came. We throw our hands in the air and scream with open delight when all of the sudden, my best friend gets hit in the mouth with a flying toupee. Not knowing what it was, she freaked and threw it over the side of the car. The now bald man in car one was mortified and quite angry at her reaction.
Later, when we decided to top off the break with a soft ice cream, I spotted the toupee sitting majestically on a wooden park bench. Well…all I can say is the remembered visual of my friend pulling it out of her mouth and tossing it overboard was too much for me. I peed. Right there in front of everyone. Niagara Falls.
That was a great summer.
Enjoy the workday, “Gees”
Ellen
PS Karen…great dress for the interview.
Darla on 24 Jul 2007 at 9:16 am #
OMG…those are some halarious incidents! I worked an assembly job in a small warehouse putting together Spill Master vehicle cup holders. We had one young woman, very beautiful, a single mother whos name was Angel. Of course we had three of the women that worked there that had to be nasty and mean to her. Well one day an opportunity came my way to kind of teach them a lesson, and what do you think I did…I took it! Our manager had a college age son and he had friends that worked there during the summer. They had to go to the dump one day. When they came back it was lunch time. Mary and I were sitting in front of an open bay door and they drove by and threw something at us as they drove by…it happened to be a 4′ or longer black snake (he was dead). Snakes don’t bother me…never have, so they were kind of dissapointed that we didn’t react. I then picked it up and took it to the break room where the 3 mean women were having their lunch.
Darla on 24 Jul 2007 at 9:20 am #
I came to the door and said “look what the guys brought back from the dump” and held the snake up. I never laughed so hard in my life…those three were out of their seats and accross the room so fast that they left skid marks. Needless to say they choose not to be such bitches from then on. LOL
I am not usually so onrey but in this case when the opportunity came up I couldn’t pass it up. Nothing makes me madder then someone who makes someone cry because they get a kick from being mean.
cail on 24 Jul 2007 at 9:25 am #
Ellen, that’s really funny. I spent many a summer growing up at playland… grew up near there.
I like that bald men are going for the buzz cut now instead of toupees. they’re definitely not as much of a recipe for disaster as hair pieces.
Susan K on 24 Jul 2007 at 9:48 am #
I can’t remember anything really good happening at any of my jobs. I’ve had pretty boring jobs. I’ll have to think on this some more.
BTW…check out my updated wedding website. (There’s now a pic of me and my honey!) http://www.theknot.com/ourwedding/SusanKohne&TimMoody
zambonigirl on 24 Jul 2007 at 10:31 am #
Am I the only one who thinks that a family superstitious enough to believe that red gas is hellfire deserves what they get? If they had been angry at a potential practical joke, that’s one thing, but actually calling into question which direction their relative’s soul went? Little crazy if you ask me…
Ellen, you’re cracking me up! Again, if he didn’t have the foresight to put some double-sided tape on that baby, it’s not your friend’s fault! The girl he was with was probably mentally high-fiving you two.
And selling knives door-to-door? Awesome. At least you always had protection, twolilhahas…
zambonigirl on 24 Jul 2007 at 10:33 am #
Susan K! You guys look great! I have never seen that site before, it’s so cute!
Okay, I’ll stop posting now.
doglady on 24 Jul 2007 at 11:04 am #
Love your funeral home story, Karen! Too funny! Would love to patent that effect for the funerals of some people I know! I volunteered at the local zoo for years. I took animals out to schools. Rule #1 when handling snakes is - have they been fed? I was told he had been. Apparently not. In front of @80 middle school kids, a 6 ft boa nailed me in the neck! The kids loved it. The male teacher almost fainted! In a performance of Otello in Amsterdam we are in the middle of the murder scene. Otello is strangling me. I am lying on a bed, my head hanging over the side - singing, no less. He is straddling me - singing, also. Opera really makes you suspend disbelief, doesn’t it? I had floor length blond hair sewn into my real hair. The tenor is kneeling on my hair and snatching it out of the stitches. It hurts! In a pause in my singing I hissed at him “Get off my hair or I’m going to neuter you!” The look on the guy’s face was priceless!
doglady on 24 Jul 2007 at 11:10 am #
I also worked as a vet tech at an animal emergency clinic (night shift.) I saw it all!! A dog sitter came in frantic. She was sitting a champion St. Bernard while the owner was at a dog show. She took an entire ham out of the fridge to make a sandwich. Went to answer the phone. Ham vanishes and St. Bernard has strange look on his face. The x-ray revealed a ham-shaped shadow, I kid you not! This is dangerous as it can cause gastric bloat - a fatal condition in dogs. We can do surgery or we can get him to expunge the offending ham. How? We run a tube down his throat and well, lets just say neither the vet nor I ate ham sandwiches for a very long time!! Another time this bright pink Caddy comes screeching up to the door. HYSTERICAL woman is screaming “My baby, he killed my baby!” A magnificent Doberman is stretched across the back seat, not moving, not breathing. The husband is terrified. The wife is screaming. I have to drag her off the dog to get him inside. Clinically this dog is dead.
doglady on 24 Jul 2007 at 11:14 am #
Heart attack after husband was playing ball with him. He just keeled over. (The dog, not the husband.) The vet and I look at each other. This woman is beyond hysterical and threatening to kill her husband. This amazing vet tells me to get a chest spreader. He cracks this dog open, massages his heart, and Holy Crap, the heart starts up! He saved the dog AND the husband. I am still trying to get my mind around Karen’s sewer checking job. That HAS to have some novel possibilities once you get over the EWWW factor!
SuzyQ on 24 Jul 2007 at 11:31 am #
Great story Karen!
I have not had any weird jobs, but we do have fun at work. Working in the computer room, we can get away with more since it is a restricted area and nobody really sees us. Sometimes you just need to take a break from the screen. I learned how to juggle at work - Tip: Do not learn how to juggle with racquetball balls. Use beanbags instead.
Well, one day to relieve some stress, me and the guys started a nice game of catch with a “football” we made out of foam and packing tape. I totally misjudged my receiver and hit the power button of the warehouse computer system. Yup - lights out on the system. Do you know what the chances are of achieving that??? Within 30 seconds, the phones start ringing. Good thing was it only affected our warehouse, and it was after hours. Also, that system is much easier to bring up than our mainframe. We still laugh about it to this day, and we don’t play catch football anymore . . .
SuzyQ on 24 Jul 2007 at 11:38 am #
Susan K - nice picture on your website!
Karen Rose on 24 Jul 2007 at 12:00 pm #
Doglady - I was, of course, inspired by your gurney racing the other day.
Your vet did a heart massage? Wow. That must have been amazing.
The summer before the sewer job I was a vet tech’s assistant. Our vet was a bird specialist and there was a theme park down the road with a bird show. They brought in this macaw - gorgeous bird, beautiful plumage. Anyway, we had to give this macaw a shot. I held one wing, the vet tech held a wing and a claw and the vet held the claw while he tried to give the shot. All of the sudden the macaw CAWS (it sounds better when I tell this in person) and DIES. The bird had a heart attack right there on the table. We all looked at each other, stunned, and said SHOOT, only it wasn’t “shoot.” The vet said, “That was a $10,000 bird.” That was back in ‘83. We’re all standing there, holding a piece of this bird…
As for snakes. Ew. I booked appts at the vet and I made sure all the nasty snakes (= all snakes) were booked on my day off.
Karen Rose on 24 Jul 2007 at 12:08 pm #
Suzy Q - cute - what are the odds. I bet you couldn’t reproduce that again if you tried.
Ellen - you’ve made me LOL as usual. I can see your friend pulling that toupee from her mouth. Ewww.
Darla - I hope you don’t get mad at me. I don’t like snakes. Even dead ones, although the dead variety are more preferable to the snakey live variety. Ewww.
Susan - cute pic
catslady on 24 Jul 2007 at 3:07 pm #
Oh some great stories! I wish I had some but I had boring jobs like office work.
Sabrina Jeffries on 24 Jul 2007 at 3:08 pm #
I used to teach English as a Second Language to 3-year-old Vietnamese kids at a day care center as part of a government program. VERRY interesting. The kids were adorable–among other things, I made them sing kid’s songs and recite various picture books along with me. Remember, these kids were too young to read. So teaching English as a second language required some ingenuity. Puppets were my mainstay.
My favorite part was lunch with the Vietnamese teachers. They used to bring in Vietnamese po-boys (this was in New Orleans). It was weird for me, having grown up in a different Asian culture, to wrap my mind around French bread being part of the Vietnamese diet, but it was a holdover from their years of colonization by the French. I LOVED those po-boys–slices of red pork (like the pork you find in Chinese restaurants) and Vietnamese pickled veggies on good French bread. Yum!
twolilhahas on 24 Jul 2007 at 3:40 pm #
Oh, I’ve got an occupational hazard for you guys! Things they don’t tell you about motherhood, right?
So, my mom, genius that she is, gave my then 5 year old daughter a rather nice digital camera for her birthday. She did ok with it for a while, a month or so, took it with her everywhere, was good to it. Then she dropped it at my grandmother’s house. It’s a hard concrete floor, and it busted in two. I’m wondermom, though, right? So, I clicked it back together and although it didn’t fit completely back together, it worked. She was so excited that day, despite the crack in the camera. She kept it with her everywhere. So, it should have been no surprise to me that she took it with her in the bathroom. But boy was I surprised when I hear her calling, “Mooooooomm!” So, in the bathroom I go, to find her camera sitting in the toilet atop a big ol’ mushy, um, #2. She had dropped it when she tried to wipe. Keep in mind that the camera wouldn’t exactly snap back together….
twolilhahas on 24 Jul 2007 at 3:43 pm #
from before, so the camera was not only covered in poo, but rather filled with poo and toilet water. It was horrible and she was freaking out. I so would have just dropped that camera in the garbage, but when I tried she went into hysterics. My camera! My camera!!! Tears streaming, kid melting. So, yeah, there I was washing the outside and inside of this digital camera in the sink, using soap, it was so nasty. The camera never worked again, of course, but I made the effort and so she was satisfied, though sad about her present. That is so not how I envisioned motherhood, though. So not.
Ann in IL on 24 Jul 2007 at 3:44 pm #
Our company has two tech support lines. One is a 1-800 number and one is a 1-888 number. If you forget which is which, you will get a Texas based “escort and phone sex ” establishment. Whenever you hear a phone slam down and hear “what the Hell” you know someone has mis-dialed. And, of course, we have been known to give certain people the “fun” number just to rattle their cages.
Nicole Jordan on 24 Jul 2007 at 4:08 pm #
That story is so funny, Karen! And so are the rest of y’all stories.
I’ve been laughing myself silly.
NicoleJ
Lismore on 24 Jul 2007 at 4:41 pm #
Thank you for all the laughs, ladies!
I have had nothing but boring jobs. Nothing to even raise a snicker of a laugh.
Lizzie
Karen Rose on 24 Jul 2007 at 5:48 pm #
Okay - motherhood jobs takes us into a whole new realm. Motherhood jobs could give “DIRTY JOBS” Mike Rowe (who is very cute) a run for his money.
Ann - You naughty girl! Chuckling…
DebMarlowe on 24 Jul 2007 at 8:10 pm #
OMG, thought I had some funny hospital stories, but none of them beat the red hellfire gas.
Doglady, you continue to amaze me. The things you have done! I can’t wait to meet you, I know we are going to get on like a house afire!
Darla, you had to deal with snarky women AND men who throw snakes for fun? I hope your salary was huge.
Thanks for the laughs!
Kelly Ann on 24 Jul 2007 at 9:36 pm #
I have to be naughty for a moment - I wish I had been at that funeral (and I hate funerals). Do you think those people were running around screaming & begging for there own souls? Some relative had unleased hellfire & brimstone @ their own funeral, I can’t stop laughing! I have to agree that anyone who would use a funeral home that reminds you of a haunted house kind of deserves what they get! Do drive by & say - that’s the funeral home for me & my family? Your asking for satan to visit! There are some strange people out there! I can’t think of a job that I’ve had that brings about thoughts of hell & damnation! My kind of humor though. Thank you for sharing that one - too funny!
doglady on 24 Jul 2007 at 11:11 pm #
OMG Karen! I can just imagine the looks on all of your faces when the macaw croaked on you. My response would have been very similar to yours. Oh @#$%. Birds are extremely sensitive to stress and do keel over on you if they get too excited.
Deb, what can I say? I have had a very interesting life so far. I’ve been lucky in many ways. My singing career allowed me to travel, see things and experience things I never would have had the opportunity for without it. I never allowed three college degrees to make me such a snob that certain jobs were “beneath me.” Nothing is “beneath” one when one likes the little luxuries of life - like living indoors, eating on a regular basis (and all times in between,) electricity, running water and toilet paper.
Can’t wait to get this writing thing on the road. I have met some great people so far and I look forward to meeting you! Think we can find a funeral home in San Fran with a lenient gurney racing policy? Karen? How about it?
Karen Rose on 25 Jul 2007 at 12:48 am #
Doglady - I’m there! We’ll need someone to snap photos as nobody will ever believe us!
Casee on 25 Jul 2007 at 8:51 am #
OMGosh, I don’t think I can top that one. My jobs have been pretty tame compared to that. LOL