Working Life - amusing job descriptions - Brief Article

Training & Development, Dec, 2000 by Haidee E. Allerton

What a Croc!

There's a shortage of alligator wrestlers. And that's not a crock!

Hence, newspaper ads have been seeking candidates for the Seminole Okalee Indian Village and Museum in Hollywood, Florida. It was the Seminole Indians who turned gator wrestling into an art when they once hunted them for food. They had to learn how to hold the powerful beasts still while cutting their throats.

The required skill for the job is to be able to trap a gator's snout under one's chin, ever mindful of the 3,000 pounds of pressure of the open jaws. Recently, one wrestler received a fractured jaw and stitches; another lost half a finger.

Though the job benefits include health insurance, so far the ads have gotten few bites.

Vacancy to Fill

Amazon.com's CEO Jeff Bezos likes as this question of applicants for executive positions: How many gas stations are there in the United States?

Bezos says it shows how people think. If the question were put to him, he says he'd guess 186,666--based on that there were two gas stations in the small Texas town of 3,000 where he spent summers as a boy, figuring that there's a station for every 1,500 people and that the U.S. population is 280 million people. Divide by 1,500.

How close is he? There are 175,000 gas stations in the United States, according to the American Petroleum Institute.

Not a bad guess.

Source the Washington Post

New Job Title

Professor of airline food.

The International Flight Catering Association has donated $750,000 to sponsor the professorship at the University of Surrey, England. It will focus on a study of airline catering, a $15 billion a year industry employing 100,000 people worldwide.

Course modules include How to Suck All of the Flavor Out and What Is It: Fish or Fowl?

(Oh, just a little Working Life humor.)

Source USA Today

More Than Fairports

It might not be so bad to be stranded at some U.S. airports.

For instance,

* LAX: Los Angeles airport offers pet services only a five-minute ride away.

* ORD: You can get a pedicure at Chicago O'Hare.

* ATL: There's a piano player at Altanta Hartsfield, and he takes requests.

* MIA: Delayed flight? Get in a round of golf near Miami International.

* DFW: Enjoy free samples of Texas wines at Dallas/Fort Worth.

Detroit Metropolitan has family restrooms with Disney-decorated, toddler toilets.

You can rent movies at Minneapolis/St. Paul and bring them back following your return flight.

San Francisco's new $2.5 billion terminal set to open early next year will have spinoffs of 15 of the best local restaurants--should that professor of airline food thing not kick in.

To check out airports www.quick.aid, www.expedia.com

An Important Lesson

A woman attending nursing school was given a pop quiz by her professor one day.

She easily answered all of the questions until she came to the last one: What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?

The nursing student didn't know. She'd seen the woman and could describe her, but she had to leave the answer blank.

Another student asked the professor whether not knowing the answer to the last question would count against the grade.

"Absolutely," said the professor, pointing out that in their careers, they'd meet many people, all of whom they should consider significant and who deserve their attention.

The cleaning woman's name? It was Dorothy.

From the Internet