20 people reveal unorthodox jobs that most of us don't know actually exist

Editor's note: This article was originally published on November 22, 2021. It has since been updated.

When thinking of potential career paths, most people typically think about the most popular choices: doctor, engineer, teacher, lawyer, police officer, etc. However, the thought of going down the beaten path can be extremely off-putting for some who'd rather march to the sound of their own drum. Fortunately, there are plenty of high-paying, interesting, and seemingly bizarre jobs that don't involve much—or any—boring office time. Sounds too good to be true? That's what I thought until I came across a couple of Reddit threads where netizens revealed the jobs they've had that most people don't know are real.

Here are 20 of the most interesting answers:

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"I'm a prop shopper for a popular tv show. Basically, I show up to work, the designer will tell me that the show needs a specific prop for the taping and it's my job to go buy or rent it. It's a fun job because they ask you to get ridiculous stuff sometimes and it's a challenge to find it." — 77Columbus

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"Not recently but a few years ago my job was to timestamp Netflix videos for the 'Skip Intro' button. It was the single best job ever until they stopped allowing remote work for what I was doing. I would wake up, log in to a special page and have a list of videos/series, etc to timestamp. I was paid for 8 hours of work a day when most days I could breeze through my daily workload in 2-3 hours.
For about a year I was free to do whatever the hell I wanted, just wake up do a few hours' work, then be done. Then they introduced this feature called 'Work Ahead.' Basically, I could do 2 days of work in about 5-6 sometimes 7 hours, and have the next day off and still get paid. S**t was gravy and the best job ever. On the plus side when I was let go, my account, [which] I still use, is fully upgraded and I don't have a payment due until December 31st, 3000 lol. I'll be leaving my Netflix account to my kids and their kids." — TexasCplL 

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"I work as a stand-in bridesmaid. Basically, if a bridesmaid decides not to arrive at a wedding you can hire a stand-in bridesmaid. Stand-in bridesmaids do everything a normal bridesmaid does except you pay them and they usually do it better since it's their job. It's a lot of fun going to a wedding as a stand-in bridesmaid, even if I don’t know anyone there. A wedding I attended had an open bar and the real bridesmaid bailed LAST SECOND. The people there were really great, and the bride just told everyone that I was the one who encouraged her to start dating her (now) husband. Me and the bride ended up actually becoming great friends and we are still in contact to this day." — Vivian-Valerie

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"I get paid to be a living mannequin. No, not a model that poses in pictures, gets her make-up done, and gets put in magazines. I'm a completely different type of model. I work behind the scenes, in the warehouse- designers for huge chain stores will use my frame to show off their looks to the CEO of the company who approves or rejects the looks. Clothing on a mannequin looks totally different on a real person." — julieannluna

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"When certain, highly expensive pieces of jewelry are sold to buyers in different countries (say a $300,000 watch, for example), often times the company selling the watch will send someone to wear it on the plane over to said buyer country since to import it would cost them a lot in taxes, but to pay for someone to wear it as their own watch costs significantly less." — speakingofsegues

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"Trucking companies employ people whose job it is to recover abandoned trucks and cargo. Apparently, truckers will just be like 'f**k it' and leave their trucks and trailers on the side of a road. These companies pay pretty well and you are on call 24/7. But they fly you all over the country to retrieve their stuff and pay well. Sounds kinda neat really." — Smitesfan

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"Car sitter. Finding a park is hard and parking lots are expensive. So you hire guys to sit in your illegally parked car and drive away when the cops/metermaids come around." — nixalo 

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