Posted on 04/12/2009 3:15:15 PM PDT by JoeProBono
Imperial, California - For people who dream of traveling off the beaten career path, there are many special-and specialized-jobs that may ignite a creative spark. Consider these unique options:
• Mystery shopper. Mystery shoppers are hired to pose as everyday people in order to assess the quality of the company or service they are examining. Mystery shoppers attend events, shop in stores, ask questions, file complaints and talk with employees, all under the guise of being a regular, everyday person-then report back with an evaluation of their experience.
• Foley artist. On a film crew, the foley artist is the person who creates many of the natural, everyday sound effects-most of which are added during postproduction to dialogue and real effects that were picked up by the microphones on set. Many foley artists take pride in devising their own sound effects, often using simple, commonly found materials.
• Fingerprint examiner. In addition to recovering latent fingerprints from evidence and associated debris (think "CSI"), these specialists examine, identify and evaluate latent fingerprint evidence utilizing physical, chemical, microscopic, photographic, computer database, comparative and classification techniques.
• Ice cream taster. The person who lands this dream job ends up providing the final word on what new ice cream flavors are scooped up in the freezer aisle each year. For example, John Harrison, the "Official Taster" for Dreyer's/Edy's Grand Ice Cream, has dipped his golden spoon into more than 200 million gallons of America's favorite frozen snack during his sweet career.
Harrison, who works to make sure the company's ice cream meets the highest quality standard, is also credited with the cool creation of Cookies 'N Cream. It's one of the most popular ice cream flavors he has developed so far.
In 1997, Harrison received the Master Taster of the Year award from the American Tasting Institute. Today, his taste buds are considered such a cool asset that they are insured for $1 million.
Harrison does admit, however, that there are some drawbacks to the job. Similar to wine tasting, he rarely swallows the ice cream-he takes a cool spoonful, swirls it around his mouth, covering all taste buds, smacks his lips to aerate the product, brings the aroma back through his nose, then unceremoniously spits it out.
To learn Harrison's tasting technique and find out more about the coolest job in the world, visit www.icecream.com.
As an ice cream taster, John Harrison gets to sample plenty of America's favorite snack.
Women’s hip boot salesman and fitter.
Another growing category is "mystery voter." Contact ACORN for details.
• Foley artist
I work as an LPN in a nursing home. I’m a foley artist...a foley catheter artist!
Mystery shopping is one of the most common fronts used by scam artists.
The scmamers promise to enroll you in their program if you pay an initial fee, they send you to a store local to you to pay with your own money, they then send you a check that is bogus or cancelled before it was sent out.
Be wary of this scam, it happens ALOT, there are more mystery shopping job scam operations than there are legitimate mystery shopping companies. I’m sure the scammed will be ramped up during this recession.
The Mystery Drinker
OMG that’s hysterical!
Mystery shopping pays as little as $5-6 per shop. To make any meaningful amount of money, a shopper needs to do dozens of shops per week, maybe even a dozen per day. Factor in the cost of gas and the fact that many shops require a purchase of some sort, it’s just not worth it.
OTOH, if you don’t really need the money, it’s a fun way to observe employees through an objective lens. Best shop I ever did: Red Door Spa! I had $200 of other people’s money to spend on a facial and sea weed wrap! Worst: pretending I had 50K to deposit and invest at a local bank. Or maybe it was the time I had to shop seven different Subways in a row on the same day. :O)
I used to receive a spam e-mail about every day offering mystery shopper jobs. I never actually opened one of them as it was an obvious scam.
Despite that, I am sure there is a real use for genuine mystery shoppers. I suspect they don’t recruit through e-mail tho.
Oh Sooo True!
Nevertheless
Another job, but one with only occasional openings, is Mystery President. You don't need a resume or school transcripts, although a fanciful narcissistic "autobiography" is helpful.
I found about, through reading “THe Obsolete Employee” this place called “ELANCE.com”
You sign up, build a profile, and then bid on projects that are posted and get paid through paypal or an escrow account.
It has all sorts of stuff and I’m targeting the writing/translation section.
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