10 worst jobs in history

[JustHatched 12,123]

1. Leech collector – Until the late 19th century, leeches were in high demand for medicinal bloodletting – the withdrawal of very small amounts of blood from a patient as therapy. Despite the demand, leech-gatherers were poorly paid. Worse still, they often collected the leeches by letting them latch on to their own legs – a practice through which they could lose dangerous amounts of blood.

 

2. Snake milker – While we’re on dangerous jobs, here’s one that still exists today. Snakes have long been milked for their venom, which is then used to create antivenin to treat snake bites. One renowned milker, Bill Haast, survived 172 venomous snake bites during his long career and lived to 100.

3. Whipping boy – How does the role of ‘companion to a Renaissance prince’ strike your fancy? That may sound like a cushy number, but the prince’s playmate was also his whipping boy – the stand-in who’d take the physical punishment meted out whenever the prince was naughty.

4. Fuller – Fulling, a manufacturing process to cleanse and thicken woollen cloth, was a job so bad that it was left to slaves in Roman times. That’s because it involved wading in urine – a powerful cleaning fluid, thanks to its high levels of ammonia. The fuller’s lot was much improved in the Middle Ages when fuller’s earth replaced urine as the cleanser of choice.

5. Resurrectionist – This rather fancy name for ‘body snatcher’ did nothing to redeem the job. In order to supply corpses to medical schools, resurrectionists dragged them from the grave – and some even turned to murder to keep up with demand.

6. Tosher – In Victorian London, there was no shortage of bad jobs. The city’s toshers, for instance, stank of the sewers, because that’s where they spent their days scavenging for tradable treasures.

7. Mudlark – Another tribe of 19th-century scavengers, the mudlarks would pick over the debris on the banks of the Thames at low tide – back in the day when the river was foul with raw sewage, not to mention the odd dead body.

8. Chimney sweep – Children were still being sent up chimneys to clear out ash and dust in the late 1870s. They risked injury, accidental death and ‘Chimney Sweep’s Cancer’, too.

9. Sin eater – Through a contemporary lens, this bygone job doesn’t sound too bad: the sin-eater helped cleanse dying people’s souls by taking on their sins in rituals involving eating and drinking at their bedsides. Surely there’s high job satisfaction there, with a little ale and bread thrown in. But, in his day, the sin-eater was “abhorred by the superstitious villagers as a thing unclean”.

10. Gong farmer – The neighbours weren’t so keen on the gong farmer in Tudor times, either. These night-workers, who did the essential job of clearing human excrement from England’s cesspits and privies, were restricted to living in certain areas. The fumes were a known job hazard, too.

[LimeGreenLegend 4,275]

Sounds alright to me.

[Squirrel 5,180]

5 hours ago, Hatch said:

4. Fuller – Fulling, a manufacturing process to cleanse and thicken woollen cloth, was a job so bad that it was left to slaves in Roman times. That’s because it involved wading in urine – a powerful cleaning fluid, thanks to its high levels of ammonia. The fuller’s lot was much improved in the Middle Ages when fuller’s earth replaced urine as the cleanser of choice.

5. Resurrectionist – This rather fancy name for ‘body snatcher’ did nothing to redeem the job. In order to supply corpses to medical schools, resurrectionists dragged them from the grave – and some even turned to murder to keep up with demand.

 

Just a couple of things to add to that, for the Fuller, it's a very similar process in Tanneries which still goes on today to produce leather. A lot of modern firms using industrial grade ammonia but if you go out to North Africa to see the traditional Tanneries then boy do they stink!

For more details on grave robbers check out Burke and Hare, its a film based on two notorious guys in Edinburgh when medical knowledge was big business, interesting stuff.

As for another job which does sound bad but actually turned out ok was a post called "The Groom of the Stool" This was usually given to someone in the upper class of society who wished to advance their political career. Their job was to wipe the monarchs arse. Because they were with the King during his most personal moments they were trusted with a lot of things and after their period as the Groom they usually ended up with a large amount of influence over the court.

[zmurko 7,622]

Reminded me of a show that Tony Robinson (aka Baldrick from Blackadder) used to do, think it was actually called The Worst Jobs in History.

[MrBump360 482]

why is my job not on there? j/k :-)

[LN-MLB 2,583]

The worst job I ever had was working in an inbound call center.  I wasn't there very long, but it was the most stressful and depressing job I had ever gotten myself into.

Very low pay; every conversation you have is recorded (and sometimes analyzed); everyone who calls is either furious or just down right ignorant; management watches you like a hawk, and if you have to take a moment to calm down or even run to the restroom, that time is deducted from your allotted break time; you can easily lose your job if you have longer hold times or fail to meet some of the often over-the-top metrics; everything changes on a daily or weekly basis and it's often not communicated to everyone properly; and the list goes on and on.

Granted, there are definitely far worse and even hazardous jobs out there, but NEVER take a call center job unless it's the last available option.