Experts in scent, equine dentists, and many other unusual professions you may not know about exist across various fields.
Here are some lesser-known professions
1. Human Test Subjects
If you lack extensive medical knowledge and are not an outstanding student in medical school but still harbor a dream of contributing to the healthcare industry, this job may be perfect for you. As long as you have good health, you have the opportunity to become a human test subject for medical research centers.
The requirements for this job include being in good health and free from any diseases or allergies. If you are passionate about the role, you could become well-known at medical centers and evolve into a professional clinical trial participant, earning up to $50,000 a year.
2. Sleep Technologist
In hospitals utilizing advanced technology, there is always a technician monitoring and recording data during patients’ sleep cycles. They are essentially paid to watch you sleep.
Certainly, their presence while you sleep serves a legitimate purpose. Their job is to record various parameters related to your sleep using a device called polysomnography.
This information is then sent to sleep scientists for further analysis to aid their research.
3. Equine Dentist
Being a dentist for humans is not unusual, but being a dentist specifically for horses is entirely different.
In many countries, this profession is promising, with an annual salary of around $50,000. However, to pursue this career, you need to hold two degrees: one in veterinary medicine and another in dentistry.
In fact, this quirky job has a long history, dating back to around 600 BC in China. At that time, horses were a common means of transportation across most civilizations, making their dental care highly significant.
Today, equine dentists perform tasks such as extracting teeth, examining, and cleaning the mouths of horses as required by their owners.
4. Blood Collection Physician
Similar to hospitals calling for blood donations, individuals in this profession collect and encourage people to donate blood to assist patients in need, contribute to hospitals, or support medical research.
However, they are not limited to a fixed location and can travel anywhere while performing their job, as long as they have the proper passport.
The average income for this job is $40,000 a year. The only requirement is a basic understanding of hematology and a lack of fear of blood.
5. Spacecraft Odor Specialist
This profession requires not only profound biochemical knowledge but also an excellent sense of smell. The job entails smelling various items aboard spacecraft.
According to George Aldrich, a sniffing expert in the field, this job appears simple at first glance but is actually quite complex. Individuals like him must smell a wide range of astronaut gear to determine their chemical components.
Then, he and his colleagues are tasked with analyzing to ensure that when these items are sent into space, their substances do not change and pose a risk to the astronauts or the spacecraft.
6. Flavor Tester
If you thought only MasterChef judges like Gordon Ramsay or Joe Bastianich were flavor masters, you are mistaken. If they competed against flavor testers in medicine, they might not come out victorious.
This is because, compared to tasting natural food flavors, flavor testers work with artificial flavors that are exponentially more challenging.
Their daily tasks involve tasting, synthesizing, and analyzing artificial flavors to add to medications to make them less bitter and more palatable for consumers. In the U.S., these professionals can earn up to $54,000 a year.
7. Professional Pusher
Japan is known for its hardworking culture, where punctuality is paramount, making tardiness unacceptable. As a result, people often push and shove their way into subways to reach work on time, leading to the emergence of the professional pusher occupation. These individuals aim to cram as many people as possible into subway cars.
8. Professional Sleeper
Can you imagine a job where you simply sleep and get paid? Such a profession exists. These individuals are hired by scientists to assist in treating sleep disorders. Among all the professions on Earth, this might be the most comfortable one.
9. Armpit Smeller
Thinking about a faint smell of body odor can be frightening. However, some people around the world earn a living by… smelling other people’s armpits to test the quality of deodorants. We should thank these individuals, as they help ensure we have a smell-free environment.
10. Electric Shock Provider
In Mexico, some people carry a wooden box capable of generating electricity, standing in areas with many bars and pubs known as “Toques.” These Toques provide electric shock services to young individuals who are slightly intoxicated. Depending on their need, some seek a jolt to regain sobriety, while others use it to enhance their experience, indulging in festivities until dawn. Regardless of the reason, money exchanged for a shock is the deal.
11. The Toilet Paper Tester
Toilet paper manufacturers always aim to ensure that their products do not emit an unpleasant odor, both before and after use, to maintain air quality. To achieve this, they require a team of “scent testers.” But the question remains: how can they check if the paper has no odor… after use?
12. The Chicken Sexer
This is an incredibly challenging job, as we can only definitively identify whether chickens are male or female when they reach maturity. However, there are experts who can determine the sex of chicks when they are still just a few fluffy yellow balls of fluff.
13. The License Plate Coverer
In an effort to reduce traffic congestion, the Iranian government implemented a peculiar policy, allowing vehicles with even-numbered plates to circulate on even days and odd-numbered plates on odd days. To circumvent the law, some clever Iranians came up with the idea of hiring someone to follow their car to cover the license plate, preventing cameras on the road from capturing their images. Thus, another strange profession was born.
14. The Pet Food Taster
These individuals are tasked with testing pet food products before they hit the market, assessing flavor, color, and texture. However, what guarantees that the taste preferences of humans align with those of pets?
15. The Ostrich Caregiver
Ostriches are active and quite aggressive animals. Therefore, it is necessary to have someone supervise them from a young age to prevent these long-legged, hefty birds from getting into fights.
