• From employees hired to steal dead bodies to people hired to farm digital currency for
almost no income themselves we count 15 of some of the most horrible occupations ever
seen throughout history 15 - Vomit Collector,
• A slave to the Roman Empire who was forced to hang around dining room tables waiting
for vomit to hit the floor so he can crawl around on all fours and clean it up
• It was actually a common occupation since the emperor and his guests would voluntarily
vomit to make room for more food • In fact, Julius Caesar avoided an assassination
attempt by feigning interest in visiting the toilet, only to return to his room to blow
chunks - which, of course, would need to be cleaned up by a certain slave
14 - Fuller, • A job in which sheep are sheared, their
wool carded, spun and then woven - basically, cleanse and thicken woollen cloth
• This wasn't so bad except they needed alkaline to cleanse the wool and it was expensive,
so they turned to stale urine instead - gallons of urine taken from farms and private houses,
only for the poor wool cleaner to trod through urine for over 7 hours a day, up to their
knees in stale human urine • Not something you'd want to print on your
resume 13 - Sin-Eater,
• Pretty much a terrible job no matter which way you spin it, the sin-eater was a 19th
century outcast who nobody cared about, essentially a homeless person paid to absorb the sins
of other people • They did this by waiting for a person
to die, pass food over the corpse, then have the sin-eater eat the food and thereby absorb
the sins - in return they were given scraps of money
• The sin-eaters give up any chance of a decent afterlife, are shunned by society and
usually starving to death anyway - but hey, first world problems, am I right?
12 - Gold Farmer, • A Chinese job started around 2007 in the
massively multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft, in which your job
is to amass virtual currency called gold • The gold is sold to other players in exchange
for real money, but to farm the gold is basically slave labour - work in 12 hour shifts for
the world's most measly pay: 30 cents per hour
• That's $3.60 per day, so you've already paid off your monthly Warcraft subscription
in 5 days • What a deal
11 - Knocker-Up, • This one has nothing to do with impregnating
people, which is a shame because then the occupation would actually mean something
• Instead, the knocker-up goes around tapping on your window with some bamboo in order to
wake you up in time for work • In fact, he won't STOP tapping until you
tell him to go away, but only if you give him a little bit of money - so, you're employing
someone to bother you • But at least he isn't trying to sell you
something 10 - Spit Boy,
• The lowest ranking-member of kitchen staff, a teenage hired to stand there and turn a
metal spit that roasts meat for hours • And it wasn't as easy as you might think
- the meat was packed on so extensively that you could barely turn the thing, the handle
made of iron, heat in your face all day long • Just imagine if someone hired you to stand
next to a bonfire and lift weights for 8 hours a day - try and keep your eyeballs from melting
into your beard 9 - Leech Collector,
• A job that continued until the late 19th century, to collect leeches so they can latch
onto a medical patient and withdraw small amounts of blood for therapeutic reasons
• Leech-gatherers were forced to wade through dense leech-filled areas and allow them to
latch onto their legs and suck, losing tremendous amounts of blood for measly pay
• It never occurred to them that they should maybe use a net
8 - Body Snatcher, • A man employed to dig up fresh graves
and sell off the bodies, without leaving any trace that the body was now gone so as not
to alert the grieving family • The bodies were used in the rapidly-advancing
19th century field of medicine with medical students who desperately needed fresh bodies,
but with only executed criminals allowed, they turned to this black market trade
• And then we all discovered cremation and the industry took a downward turn
7 - Subway Pusher, • A Japanese line of employment created
purely to manage the peak hour public transport traffic, when trains are filled beyond 200%
of their maximum capacity • The pushers job is to cram people in so
the doors will actually close, otherwise the train can't leave and you get massive delays
• Pushers are generally made up of part-time students, train staff or desperate bulked-up
part-time workers who like pushing people around
6 - Dog Whipper, • A lovely title for a church employee in
charge of keeping dogs from interrupting the weekly service
• In the 16th through 19th centuries, church-goers would bring along their pets but it was the
job of the dog whipper, armed with whip and wooden tongs, to eject animals if they became
disruptive • It was a valid occupation with payment
records still around in old parish account books from churches all over England
5 - Snake Milker, • This is a job still around today, to get
your venomous snake to squirt its venom into a cup to create an antivenin used to treat
snake bites • In fact, one legendary snake milker named
Bill Haast survived over 172 venomous snake bites during the whole of his 100 year career
• This is mostly due to the fact he was a snake milker, so antivenin was abundant
and the snake responsible very close by 4 - Plague Burier,
• The Black Death which swept through Europe, leaving piles and piles of bodies rotting
in people's houses • If you've watched some Monty Python, you'll
know about the old quote "Bring our yer dead", but that really is what happened - someone
was hired to go around with a cart collecting bodies to head off and bury them
• And the employees were then riddled with disease from the decomposing corpse, so not
long after they got sick and had to be dumped on another cart moved by some other unlucky
fool 3 - Groom of the Stool,
• A fancy way to describe someone hired by royalty to stand in the toilet with them
and then wipe their grotty ass-crack and clean it
• But they weren't slaves, oh no - more often than not you'll find the sons of noblemen
or personal assistants to the King very high up on social standing
• To be selected to clean the gunk off a royal anus was quite the honour, and it's
a shame we're today forced to do it ourselves like savage cave-men
2 - Tosher, • A person who used to scavenge in the sewers
of London, stripping valuable copper from the hulls of ships and stealing tradable treasures
flushed down sewers • This occupation made you smell like garbage
24/7, so you might imagine they weren't very popular when encountered
1 - French Beggar • This is barely an occupation, more of
a desperate act for homeless people to get by day-to-day
• It was pre-revolution France and beggar competition was intense, so the idea came
up to invoke as much sympathy from donators as possible
• The worst of which involved something called denatsate, in which the mouth is cut
open ear-to-ear in a joker's grin - gums and nose removed, a disfigured face pleading with
you for coins • Puts things into perspective next time
you complain about your 9/5 job