The worst kind of jobs are the jobs where you get paid to do nothing. I don’t mean getting paid not to grow a crop on your land, or paid not to fish for cod because cod are endangered…those jobs would be good because you could do anything you wanted while you were not doing the thing you were paid not to do. The “doing nothing” jobs I’m referring to are those where you have to be somewhere for your shift, and you’re paid to be present just in case something happens (but nothing ever does). Like a security guard. Or a Cheez-Willikers technician.

I sat in a factory every day watching and listening to the monotonous drone of the machine which packaged cheesies, cleverly called Cheez-Willikers. I operated the Cheez-Willikers packing equipment, which meant that I watched the fully-automated process of boxes being filled with tasty snacks from a hose in the ceiling. My only role was to push the big red “STOP” button if the packing machine broke. It rarely broke, but when it did, I performed my sacred duty. I then waited for the mechanic to fix the machine, during which time I sat in the same chair, watching the fully-automated process of……nothing. On the plus side, I never sat in that chair without an open box of Cheez-Willikers at my side. I snacked for the entire eight hours, going through two or three boxes per shift, fingers permanently stained orange. With a 20-year-old’s metabolism, no problem. If I did that today I would weigh 400 pounds.

One particularly boring night, but I don’t know how I could measure the levels of boredom, the packing line broke and the mechanic had been trying to fix it for two hours. I had always wondered where the Cheez-Willikers came from, since all I knew was the mysterious ceiling hose. So I took the stairs up to the floor above my workstation. I was surprised to see a swimming pool-sized metal box, filed with Cheez-Willikers, ten feet deep. A person could dive into this orange pool, totally submerged, and wouldn’t be able to swim or eat his way out. Homer Simpson’s dream. The pool funnelled down to a drain which fed the delivery hose in the floor below. I never discovered how or where the Cheez-Willikers were made or how they were delivered to the pool….maybe there was a larger pool on the floor above. And an even larger pool on the floor above that. And so on, reaching to cheesie heaven.

What weird jobs have you had? Write me a comment below.