|
King Alfonso XIII of Spain employed an
Anthem Man whose sole duty was to tell the tone-deaf king when
the national anthem was being played so that he would know
when to stand.
If you cannot find a tuneless monarch
to act as your employer, the railways offer an assortment
of attractive posts. In Japan, Railway Pushers are employed
whose job it is to squeeze people into rush-hour trains
so that the doors will close. Another technological
advance that led to the creation of jobs on the railways was the
invention of bubble gum in 1928. New York's Grand Central Station
employed a professional gum remover whose average daily harvest
was 7 lbs of the sticky menace.
Escalators have provided another
source of rewarding careers. When the first such moving
staircase was installed at Harrod's Department Store in
London, in 1898, attendants were posted at the top of the
escalator with instructions to administer brandy and
smelling salts to those passengers overcome by the experience. In
1911 Earls Court underground station installed its first escalators
and employed a man with a wooden leg to walk up and down to prove
how safe they were and to dispel the fear other passengers might
have for these devices.
In 1982, twelve people at Thatcham in
Berkshire were employed to sniff the air outside their homes
to estimate the smell from the nearby sewage works. This
trend towards specialisation is not a recent phenomenon.
In medieval Japanese armies certain troops had the
specific job of counting the number of decapitated heads after
each battle. The Amsterdam police have a similarly specialised
task-force called the "grachtenvissers," whose sole duty is to
cope with motorists who have driven into canals.
In France, the Quatorzes earned
their living by being the fourteenth at dinner parties,
thereby avoiding the bad luck that would surely strike
if they had not come. In America, Miss Edith King turned
a deadly sin to her professional advantage. Miss King
was employed by the US War Department in 1905 with the task of
rounding up deserters. She collected $50 for each captive.
Flirtation was her only weapon, but sufficient to lead
500 into court. She must have been a charming and cheerful lady.
from: Hartson & Dawson,
"The Ultimate Irrelevant Encyclopedia," 1985, London, 271 pp.
|
