Odd jobs

Ash Portrait Artist

*Ash Portrait Artist

A Missouri painter is offering clients one-of-a kind artwork made from the remains of their relatives or pets.

Adam Brown, 32, produces the art using cremated remnants sent in by relatives and mixing them with paint pigment to create a "lasting memory" composition.

"Having ashes in an urn on a mantle somewhere is a good way to constantly remind yourself that person died, but when you use them in an artwork it's a good way to remember someone lived," Brown said.

"Out of respect, I still wear gloves when handling the ashes -- and whatever is left over, I am careful to return," Brown said. "I only need about four to six ounces, depending on the canvas."

The paintings range in size and price from $300 to $700, depending on the use of color.

Gum Buster

As a Gum Buster, you clean gum off of city sidewalks, stadium seats, school hallways, and the underside of school desks. You share the name “Gum Buster” with the machine you use. It’s a small gum-removing machine that uses a combination of detergent, steam, and a small bit of water to “bust” gum spots off of surfaces. At the end of the spraying wand is a small brush that you use to remove the really tough spots that won’t budge with just water.

*Gum Buster

Though old chewing gum is pretty gross stuff, cleaning it isn’t that awful. For one thing, when it gets pried up, the gum releases its flavor so you spend your days in a bubblegum-smelling cloud of scent. Also, the gum you remove is dried up and pretty harmless, so you don’t have to worry about constantly prying sticky stuff off the bottom of your shoes or anywhere else.

*Dog Surfing Instructor

Dog surfing instructor

The job is all for the active animal lovers among you. You take the money of the rich and the overpaid and you teach their canines how to balance on plastic in the middle of the ocean. Slightly odd, but it would certainly provide you a chance to be at beautiful locations, and a chance to work with man's best friend… on a surfboard.

"Dogs are better and fast learners than humans. Four legs versus two!” - Teevan McManus, a local surfer and dog surfing coach

So what should you know for the job? Well obvious requirement is of course surfing. You should be a experienced surfer. Also you should be friendly to dogs, since you are teaching them, they should like you too. Just have fun in the water.

Odor judge

*Odor Judge

Odor judges perform odor tests to rate the effectiveness of hygiene products like soaps and bodywashes, deodorant, and mouthwashes. Depending on what products are being studied, judges smell subjects' armpits, feet, or breath and rate their odors on a scale of one to 10.

During one odor tester's 15-year career she sniffed approximately 5,600 feet and an indeterminate number of armpits, for which she won the Guiness World Record for most feet and armpits sniffed.

*Bed Warmer

Bed warmer

No-one really likes getting in a cold bed, so one Russian woman charges men to get between their chilly sheets and get them all cosy. And she says she leaves behind what she calls a positive energy to ensure a good night's sleep.

Viktoria Ivachyova, 21, says she is a human bed-warmer for hire. She charges £65 per night or £1,350 per month to lay in strangers’ beds for an hour to ensure they are nice and warm when they turn in.

Now Viktoria is putting together a team of female bed warmers to keep up with demand.

She tells clients they can be in the room while she warms their bed, but there is to be no physical contact between them.

To enforce these rules, she carries a panic button to call for a security team in case anyone decides they want more than they paid for.

After booking a slot, she arrives before their bedtime, puts on her pyjamas and lays on their bed for an hour. The client is allowed to talk to her during this time, if they want to.

*Professional mourner

Professional mourner

Professional mourners - people paid to attend funerals and pretend to be friends and family of the deceased -- are not only real, but common. Or they are in places like China; it's only just now starting to take off in Western countries. And we don't mean that they kind of stand by the graveside to fill out the crowd -- they assume fake identities and fool the rest of the mourners into thinking they're one of the bereaved.

"People like me get hired to play the part of mourners at funerals and wakes for any number of reasons. Maybe the family is worried about embarrassingly low attendance, or they want to make their deceased parent seem more important (or at least, popular). The only thing sadder than a funeral is a funeral that nobody shows up to, so the decision is generally coming from a good place." - Owen Vaughan, a professional mourner in London.

Oshiya (Pusher)

A pusher is a worker who pushes people onto the train at a railway station during the morning and evening rush hours. In the capital city Tokyo, nearly 40 million passengers ride the rail every day, heavily outweighing other modes of transport like buses and private cars. Of these, 22% or 8.7 million take the subway.

*Oshiya

The Tokyo subway network is a transportation marvel. On most lines, trains come every 5 minutes apart, on average, and during peak times, they tend to run every 2-3 minutes. That’s about 24 trains per hour going in one direction. Despite so many trains, the subway is extremely overcrowded, especially during rush hour. This page from the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport has data (from 2007) detailing the level of congestion at different stations of Tokyo’s subway. As you can see, nearly all of them run at over capacity with a few running at 200% over rated capacity.

In order to fit twice the number of passengers into a subway carriage, the stations employ uniformed staff known as oshiya or “pusher”, whose goal is to cram as many people as possible into the subway tram. These white glove-wearing personal actually pushes people into the train, so the doors can be shut. This is so surreal, it has to be seen to be believed.