If you don’t already hate your current job, the chances are you’ve worked a job in the past that you couldn’t wait to see the back of. A truly crummy job can make you feel like your dreams are being brutally crushed day-by-day but it could definitely be worse. Here are some of the most horribly tedious, gross and downright bizarre jobs you’ll be glad no longer exist!
Treadwheel Crane Operator
The job of a crane operator isn’t easy, but in centuries past it was downright terrifying. The ancestor of the modern crane, known as the Treadwheel Crane, may look like a giant hamster wheel on first glance, but it used sheer manpower to help build some of the most impressive buildings in Ancient Rome and Medieval Europe.
After being developed by the ever-innovative Romans, its first recorded use was in 230 BC, and the design stood the test of time right up until the late 19th century! But how did it work exactly? The wheel itself had a 4-5 meter diameter so a person or persons, usually slaves, could power the machine simply by walking inside it. Attached to a pulley, the crane’s rope turned onto a spindle as the wheel moved to lift the load. If the load needed to be lowered again, the wheel could just be moved in the opposite direction.
Seems simple enough, but there’s no denying that operating one of these things made for one of the worst jobs in history. It goes without saying that health and safety standards weren’t quite up to scratch in the Middle Ages. The cranes were built by trial and error, meaning that they were quite rickety and prone to collapsing and killing those operating them. Braking while inside the contraption was also a problem because it relied on the strength of the person inside being able to stop the wheel from turning as quickly as possible. To make matters worse, the job was often given to blind people because they wouldn’t be terrified by the sight of a sheer drop below them when working at great heights.
So, Next time you’re having a bad day at work, just think you could be running inside a poorly-constructed human hamster wheel on top of a building!
Sin Eater
If you’ve ever pondered how great it would be to be thought of as a martyr, then we might have just the job for you: the village sin eater! Perks of the job involve despicably low pay, social rejection and eternal damnation!
Simply put, the village sin eater was a spiritual healer who operated in England, Scotland and Wales from the 1600s to the early 1900s. It might not sound too bad, but the ritual the sin eater performed was a particularly morbid one: he had to absorb the sins of a dying person. How was this done, exactly? Well, a piece of sin-soaked bread would be passed over the chest of said person and then eaten by the ‘sin eater’. Usually, this ceremony was performed under the watchful eyes of the family, who prayed and drank a flagon of ale while he went about his business.
The logic behind the whole thing was that the bread would soak up all the sins that a person had committed during their life, allowing them a greater chance of getting into heaven. But by swallowing the bread, the Sin Eater was not only absolving the person of their sins but also literally absorbing them. This meant that he became more and more damned with every gig he took. Being gradually weighed down by other people’s sins probably wouldn’t make you the most fun to be around either, so it makes sense that sin eaters were also social outcasts who were hated and feared by others. As if all that doesn’t sound bad enough, Sin Eaters would exchange their own eternal torment for a ludicrously small sum of money: about half a shilling per job, which is the equivalent of a couple of dollars by today’s standards. At least you got a free meal on the job!
Rat Catcher
Rats aren’t the most popular animals around. But these vermin were so common in Victorian London that an entire profession existed just to try and control them.
Sanitary conditions during this period were pretty dire: filth and disease were commonplace, and the city was blighted by several cholera epidemics. This was only made worse by rats that could spread such diseases throughout London’s sewers and into its factories and homes. For this reason, rat catching became a booming business.
Rat catchers didn’t use any fancy contraptions; in fact, they caught the rodents with their hands! To attract vermin, rat catches would rub a mixture of sweet-smelling oils on their hands, usually aniseed and thyme, before rummaging around in haystacks. Unsurprisingly, most rats didn’t take to well to being manhandled and would often bite their captors, infecting many rat-catchers. Usually, business-savvy rodent trappers wouldn’t do away with their bounty immediately after catching them. In fact, rodents were pretty saleable items at the time. Once they had been captured, the rats would often be kept alive and sold to publicans who would then make them fight with dogs for entertainment in rat pits. Somehow, pitting a small rodent against an angry rottweiler doesn’t really seem like the fairest fight to me.
One famous rat catcher named
Jack Black worked as Queen Victoria’s personal rat catcher and caught all sorts of rats, including unusual-colored ones. He then bred them and sold them on to upper-class women who kept them in squirrel cages as pets! If a rat catcher were to dispose of their catch, it would often be a public affair. They would appear at local markets to sell their own home-made poisons and would prove just how effective that poison was by taking a rat from its cage and killing it in front of a crowd. Usually, this so-called “special poison” was just good old arsenic mixed with things like toasted cheese, bacon or fried liver.
Groom Of The Stool
In Medieval England, servants assisted monarchs with virtually everything, and I mean everything. During the reign of Henry VIII, a particularly strange role was invented to monitor and assist the king whenever the opportunity arose to spend some quality time on the porcelain throne. These valued servants were known as the ‘Groom of the Stool’ and would make themselves available whenever nature called.
Surprisingly, the word stool doesn’t exactly mean what you might expect in this context. Instead, it was a reference to a portable commode which would have been carried around at all times along with anything else king might need while doing his business, like water, towels and a wash bowl. Thanks to the duties of the trusty Groom of the Stool, whenever the king or queen felt the urgent need to “go” they had all the facilities they needed, no matter the time or place.
Although the job may sound totally demeaning, not to mention scoring maximum points for gross-factor, it was actually a very coveted position that was usually filled by the sons of noblemen. The Groom of the Stool spent so much time with the king that he was privy to the confessions of monarchs at their most vulnerable. As a result, the Groom of the Stool would often be rewarded with land and titles among other privileges. Henry VIIIs personal servant, Hugh Denys, even became a trusted fiscal policy advisor! Of course, there were some obvious drawbacks to the role. In the grand tradition of the Divine Right, which placed kings on the level of gods, for centuries it was thought improper for a king to wipe his own backside.
Although there are no specific historical records to suggest the Groom of the Stool personally cleansed the kings posterior, it’s certainly not out of the realm of possibility. In fact, we can be sure that they at least helped the monarch to undress. As time went on, the job slowly began to veer away from its traditional role until King Edward VII did away with it entirely in 1901, let us all be thankful for that!
Armpit Hair Plucker
Thanks to constantly changing beauty standards, the grooming industry has always been in high demand. In ancient Rome, hairdressers, also known as an ornatrix, were perpetually busy as the women fussed over their up-dos, which came to resemble great towers studded with jewels.
The ornatrix was a valued servant who took great care in their work: sometimes, she would be tasked to remove superfluous hair, including eyebrows, and would even tear out her mistresses grey hairs one by one. But it wasn’t just the women in ancient Rome who were having their hair painstakingly plucked.
In one of his letters, Seneca the Younger, Stoic philosopher and tutor to the Emperor Nero, suggested that to not pluck ones armpit hair was to be unreasonably negligent in one’s personal care. It might seem a bit extreme to you and me, but when you consider just how hot Rome gets in the summer, those Roman baths could only do so much to disguise the overpowering stench of sweaty pits.
But a Roman man also had to be careful not to over-do it when it came to grooming. In fact, Seneca strongly criticized men who depilated their legs by implying that such an act was vain and effeminate. For example, Julius Caesar was frowned upon when it became known that, in addition to his meticulous grooming routine, he would have his body hair plucked. While there was certainly more flexibility for men in the way of hair removal, plucked armpits were definitely favored and even encouraged. There’s even record of Seneca complaining about the screams of bathers having the hair under their armpits plucked out by armpit pluckers! They do say beauty is pain, after all!
Tosher
We know a lot about some of the menial jobs performed in Victorian London thanks to journalist Henry Mayhew, who penned a huge encyclopedia called London Labor and the London Poor which documented his travels through many of the capital’s slums.
The vast majority of Victorian Londoners had been driven to these stinking slums thanks to a combination of low wages, appalling housing, a fast-rising population and miserable health care which had resulted in a major class divide in the city. During his excursions, Mayhew encountered many so-called scavengers who would scavenge the city’s streets, sewers and riverbanks for any odds and ends they could sell on. Among these was one profession that aroused more fascination and disgust than any other:
the “Toshers”.
These were men who made their living by forcing entry into London’s sewers at low tide and wading through them, sometimes for miles, collecting miscellaneous scraps washed down from the streets above. They would use fishing nets to seek out bits of metal, fragments of rope, silver cutlery and, if they were lucky, old coins that had been swept into the gutters.
Toshers made a surprisingly decent living: according to Mayhew’s informants, around 6 shillings a day, which placed them among the top earners of London’s working class during the Victorian era! But the job wasn’t easy. Firstly, it’s safe to assume that they also encountered some far more unpleasant things in their search. Plus, the overwhelming stench became almost unbearable and the bite of a sewer rat could be fatal. What’s more, after 1840 it was made illegal to enter the sewer network without express permission and a reward was offered to anyone who informed on such activities, so the work of a tosher became even more dangerous as it was often done at night by lantern light. Sounds like the worst scavenger hunt of all time!
Match Girl
Matchstick making might sound like a pretty simple job, but the consequences of working around the materials required to make them made it an absolutely terrible one. During the British industrial revolution, matchsticks were made in factories by young women and girls aged 4-16 years old. The so-called Match Girls would work 12-16 hours a day in horrendous conditions for very little pay. But that was far from the worst thing about the job.
The process involved repeatedly dipping the wooden matchsticks into a phosphorous solution in a poorly-ventilated factory. In some ways, phosphorus is an essential part of life. When combined with oxygen to make phosphates, it holds our DNA together, makes our bones strong and carries out fundamental chemical reactions within our cells. But too much exposure to phosphorous can be deadly. There was even a name for such consequences: ‘phossy jaw’. Simply put, phossy jaw is a physical ailment that causes the jawbone to rot. Worse still, the disease was known to spread to the brain and would certainly prove fatal unless the jaw was removed, and even then, survival wasn’t guaranteed.
Even those who were lucky enough to survive phossy jaw were left permanently disfigured. Beside the gruesome fate that phossy jaw often bought, working with white phosphorus had some truly bizarre side effects. Workers often puked fluorescent vomit and had bluish-looking breath! Uproar surrounding the dangers of the job inspired 1,400 women and girls to go out and strike, bringing about much-needed reforms regarding workplace health and safety. Although the first cases of phossy jaw were reported in the 1850s, white phosphorous continued to be used until the early 20th century. In 1910, Britain finally banned the use of white phosphorous and it was replaced with the much safer red phosphorous that you can still find on the side of match-boxes today!
Court Dwarf
At one point in history, dwarfs were nothing but social outcasts. In fact, true-life dwarfs didn’t even appear in recorded history until they started getting employed as court dwarfs.
The court dwarf fulfilled a similar role to the jester: his main job was to entertain the royal court. It’s safe to assume most of the entertainment came from playing up to his diminutive stature for comedic effect, because anyone remotely ‘different’ was considered a spectacle back then.
This practice actually dates right back to ancient Egypt and Rome when dwarfs were traded as a valuable commodities and given as gifts, which is, of course, all kinds of problematic. The custom then spilled over to Medieval Europe, where the role of the court dwarf was a demeaning but socially useful position, much like the Groom of the Stool. The wife of Charles I, Queen Henrietta Maria, was particularly fond of the court dwarfs. Her first miniature companion was Jeffrey Hudson, a butchers boy who reached a peak height of 3feet 9inches and went on to fight in the English Civil War!
Aside from their entertainment value, the court dwarf had another important purpose: he would often be positioned next to the king or queen to make them look taller, especially during public appearances and ceremonies. Talk about some old school Medieval cat-fishing!
Vomit Collector
If there’s one thing the Romans are known for, besides their remarkable feats of engineering, it’s feasting. Everyone knows how extravagant and decadent Roman banquets could be. There were multiple courses, bucketloads of wine to consume and the feasting often lasted all night. But how did those greedy Roman’s go on eating so long without being full?
One theory states that the ancient Romans had dedicated rooms simply for regurgitating food. Thankfully, that’s just a myth, but it’s not too far from the equally unappealing truth. In fact, it was a common practice to vomit in order to consume more at the feast. We know that to be true because the philosopher Seneca once said of the Romans “they vomit so that they may eat and so that they may vomit”. According to an Academic Sceptic named Cicero, Julius Caesar even escaped an assassination attempt because he felt like vomiting after dinner. Instead of going to the latrine, a primitive toilet facility, where his assassin was waiting, he decided to vomit in his bedroom and thus narrowly avoided being bumped off in particularly humiliating circumstances.
But most Romans didn’t even bother to leave the table to throw up. Sometimes they had special bowls lying around for this purpose, but other times they would just bend over at the table and puke all over the floor. Of course, they didn’t intend to clean it up themselves: that was the job of the vomit collector. These unfortunate slaves would crawl around on all fours under the dining table to mop up the mess, or, if they were lucky enough, could also catch the vomit in buckets. To make things worse, slaves were not usually permitted to leave the room without permission from their master, so getting a bit of fresh air to stop themselves from puking too was totally out of the question!
Pure Finder
If you thought the Groom of the Stool had a crappy job, just wait until you hear about the life of the Pure Finder. These unfortunate souls could often be found trailing people walking their dogs, because the pure they were looking for was actually dog poop.
You might be thinking: who in their right mind would want to buy that? Well, leather became very popular in the late 1800s, and it might surprise you to learn that dog poop was used as a softener of sorts. In fact, its cleansing effect is why it was ironically known as pure. When the job was first introduced in the 1830s, there weren’t many pure finders working on the streets and the lack of competition meant someone could actually make a fairly decent living collecting dog droppings. But by the time the late 1800s rolled around, more people had embarked on this particularly smelly career path, which in turn lowered the price paid for the product.
By then, there were only about 30 tanneries in operation in London and far too many people had taken up pure finding for it to be as lucrative as it used to be. Eventually, the supply of pure finders outgrew demand for the poop as new solutions for leather softening emerged and the job became obsolete. So, if you see someone stealthily collecting freshly-laid dog poop these days the chances are they’re either doing their bit for the environment, or they have some seriously strange hobbies!
Wool Fuller
Long before there was such a thing as fabric softener, there was a much more peculiar way of making cloth feel nicer to the touch. After you have made a garment out of wool, and you’ve carded and spun and weaved, you’re still not done, it still has to be fulled. That’s when the so-called wool fuller would come in.
The cloth that resulted from regular processes was coarse, had a wide mesh and was easily frayed. In order to bleach, clean and soften the cloth, you needed ammonium. Unsurprisingly, though, that ingredient wasn’t particularly abundant in ancient Europe. But there was another source that worked just as well: stale urine. A fuller’s job was to place freshly-woven lengths of wool cloth into a tub, pour in stale urine, and then stomp on it with his or her feet for hours at a time.
The ammonium salts that can be found in the urine helped soften and cleanse the cloth, while also brightening white clothing. Urine was even taxed by the Romans because of how often it was used for fulling purposes! The job of a wool fuller was especially important in Medieval England as wool became an incredibly lucrative business. While the English wouldn’t make the wool clothing themselves, they exported it to other countries where the demand for English wool was very high. As if the job wasn’t already unsavory enough, the urine that was used often came from multiple people because many gallons were needed for the process. Apologies for breaking it to you, but if your family name is Fuller, your ancestors probably made a living stomping in buckets of strangers pee!
Gong Farmer
If you wanna hear about a job that really stinks, look no further than the Gong Farmer. Until the development of modern plumbing, the gong farmer filled an important role within communities in Tudor England. To give you a clue, the word “gong” comes from the old English word “gang” meaning “to go”.
Many cities had installed public privies, however in the Tudor Era running water and sewage systems had been neglected since ancient Roman times. Because that waste couldn’t be flushed away, privies had large cesspit where it collected. It was only a matter of time until the cesspit was filled, when that happened, it was time to call the gong farmer.
The gong farmer was the poor soul who had to deal with cleaning out privies, outhouses and cesspits. They would shovel out the contents and transport the so called “night soil” outside the city or town boundary or to official dumps for disposal.
Gong farmers were only permitted to work between 9pm and 5am so that the sight and smell of carloads of human excrement wouldn’t be noticed by the public. Beside the unsociable working hours, gong farmers also endured backbreaking labor and were exiled to live on the edge of cities. Worse still, some would even die from asphyxiation after enduring the sheer stench for too long.
Thankfully, gong farming as a profession slowly started to disappear throughout the 19th century thanks to better sanitization processes and the construction of underground sewer systems, not to mention the revolutionary invention of the early toilet or ‘water closet’. Let’s all be thankful for modern plumbing! If you were amazed at the worst jobs in History, you might want to read about the
worst medieval jobs. Thanks for reading!
