Candy Butcher -- Weird Job Titles

Redactor: the Final Purge No, I can't can't think of any weird job titles right now. But give me time...

Okay, I remember the line of joke that may qualify. There was a mean fellow whose job it was to sit on the assembly line at the pickle factory, inspecting the product. If a jar passed him containing one too many baby cukes (meaning the lid wouldn't close right), it was his job to pull it out.


So his job title was cotton-pickin' gherkin-jerker...

I remember seeing in the credits of Ghostbusters II (yeah - I know), that someone was the "bathtub wrangler". I always wondered where they found a bathtub that needed wrangling and how do you wrangle a bathtub anyway?

Llama make up artist.

I know a couple of interesting ones now not used. They come from the middle ages when a peasant would only have a second name to distinguish him from a person with the same first-given-name. One was Cowan. He was a maker of dry stone walls. The second was Gillespie, who was a servant of a bishop.

AnneMarble said:

I love it when they bury jokes in the credits. For example, they'll list the Best Boy, then the Second Best Boy. They'll list the Grip, and they'll they'll list the Kung Fu Grip. They'll list the Assistant to the Producer, and then they'll list the Assistant to the Assistant to the Assistant Producer.

Click to expand...

The best ones are definitely at the end of almost any Zucker brothers movie - In one of them, they list about 10 different grips, and then the next credit is "What the hell is a grip?" followed by a credit giving the explanation of what a grip does.

Funny stuff right there.

A Sagger Maker's Bottom Knocker

No this is for real. It was a job description in the pottery business in the 18/19th century

waylander said:

A Sagger Maker's Bottom Knocker

No this is for real. It was a job description in the pottery business in the 18/19th century

Click to expand...

Or an advertisement for Jenny Craig.

Soda jerk.

Grease monkey.

Pin boy.

Hash slinger.

Your challenge: describe the above professions.

On a personal note, my mother was an OCLC Girl.

The library at California State College at San Bernardino (now a state university) was the first library in the entire Golden State to hook up to the Ohio Computer Library Center (which became the Online Computer Library Center). Mom is a competent typist but that strange contraption resembling a keyboard hooked to a TV set with its clattering Teletype printer scared her to death as she watched it being installed.

After the technicians finished the installation and left, the head librarian gathered the cataloging staff around this alien entity and described its function while Mom tried to go unnoticed in the back row. He turned, pointed straight at Mom and said "And, YOU, Frances, are going to be the very first OCLC Girl in California!"

I guess the experience left a lasting mark. While many folks her age eagerly joined the Cyber-revolution, to this day, Mom and Dad don't own a personal computer.

JoeEkaitis said:

Soda jerk.

Grease monkey.

Pin boy.

Hash slinger.

Your challenge: describe the above professions.

Click to expand...

Works the soda fountain

Auto mechanic

Sets up pins at a bowling alley

Breakfast cook

Do I win a prize?

In college I worked at a place where they called those of us in my position Twinkies.

Can you guess what I was?

Nope. I was a hostess. Get it? Hostess Twinkies?

I was not the genius who made that up. It didn't bother me that much but I felt bad for the few male hosts. I switched to being a server after a year and got to tease the next round of hosts.

- Chicken sexer = someone whom separates the baby male and female chickens.

That one came up on my high school aptitude test. No, at the time I wasn't amused.

The deckhand(s) on charter boats who bait the hooks for clients are often referred to as...what?

Why they're master baiters, of course.

I'm not touching that one...

Turkey Jerker. They extract the seed of life from male turkeys. And yes, the job is just like it sounds. Back when I worked in an office, a co-worker of mine talked about a turkey farm in Texas where she grew up, and being a turkey jerker paid very well. When the office work became dull, we discussed throwing away our low-paying dull jobs and pursue the exciting life on the farm.

plaidearthworm said:

Turkey Jerker. They extract the seed of life from male turkeys...

Click to expand...

That's really something. I didn't realize such a job existed. The things we learn on AW can't be taught anywhere else.

Now I expect someone to come along and say, "That's nothing. I used to work with bulls, and let me tell you, we called it 'Bull Hosing' for a reason!"

AnneMarble said:

So do we have any candy butchers among us?

Click to expand...

Yes, ME!!!

Actually, the name of the children's book currently under submission at nine publishers (and rejected by two others) is The Candy Butcher's Secret. In this case, the "candy butcher" is a ten year old boy who works on a Union Pacific train in 1895 selling candy and newspapers to the passengers.

Hopefully it gets published. It's a great story, IMNSHO.

allen