Odd Jobs: Portraits of Unusual Occupations

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Summary: Yikes!! People Really Do These Things For A Living!
Review: Funny and fascinating stuff. I bought four copies and two of them are intended for my twin teen granddaughters with the idea that it is funny and serious all at the same time. It will certainly open their career choices to "outside the box" occupations.

Yes, these are really funny things to read about. The sweetly proud faces tell of the pride of these holders of unusual jobs. I actually visited a packaging operation where ladies were testing condoms on steel "devices" and I was delighted to see a similar job shown in Ms. Schiff's hilarious book.

One reviewer myopically advised school librarians to not buy this book because it was for adults. That's pretty strange advice to this reader who was exposed to the French Impressionists and the wonders of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and other highly "adult" topics when I was a boy. This early appreciation for the unusual things in our world provided me with the freedom to choose from a bigger buffet of options. I used to sample a number of unusual occupations with pride instead of embarrassment. The beauty of Ms. Schiff's book is that it's both really funny and eye-opening at the same time. What could be a better occupation carousel of the unusual for a students wondering what they might want to be in life?

Buy it for your teenagers. It's a perfectly charming and meaty gift for all ages.

C. H.
Current author and former Ford plant 2nd shift "emblem slammer." (My job was to just snap the Ford Emblem under the hood ornament of every car leaving the Edgewater Assembly Plant.)

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Summary: Love this unique book!
Review: I received this book as a gift recently and my friends and I have shared so many laughs from the interesting conversation it always seems to spark. I keep it on my coffee table, but I sure would recommend that any doctor's office/waiting room/classroom should not be without it. I love to read about people and this is definitely a great find as Ms.Rica Schiff's portraits and odd job bios paint a colorful picture of the occupational choices we have in our lives. I already plan to stuff stockings with this book at Christmas this year. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

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Summary: Alternative careers
Review: I think this excellent book is appropriate for any reader teenager or beyond. At a time when jobs are scarce and people are searching for new employment, 'Odd Jobs' allows the reader, whether young or old, to become aware of a vast array of jobs that are inventive and alternative.
One must be resourcful during this ecomony. Odd Jobs is done with a sense of humor and captured the teenage market by having been selected by a panel of young librarians at the New York Public Library for their Teenage List 2003.

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Summary: The perfect Holiday stocking stuffer!
Review: Odd jobs--portraits of unusual occupations is the perfect gift! It's a little jewel of a book, filled with wonderful photos and amusing profiles. Everything in this book about work--works!

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Summary: Not for school children
Review: School librarians, please look over this book before purchase. We sent it back. This is geared to adult humor. It is not a vocational guidance book.

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Summary: Well? Somebody's Gotta Do it!
Review: This funny little ditty will make you feel better about your current job. If you collect the unusual books add this to your collection. You'll be chuckling to at least some of the outrageous and for real really odd jobs that exist, like-armpit sniffer, duck walker and doggy breath wiffer. It comes with humorous photos and delirious profiles. This would be a guaranteed conversation piece on any occasion.

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Summary: And you think *your* job was bad!
Review: While waiting for my wife to browse quilting books at Powell's book store, I wandered down an aisle and breezed through an entertaining book that caught my eye... Odd Jobs: Portraits Of Unusual Occupations by Nancy Rica Schiff.

Schiff came across a person with an unusual job one day... the official timekeeper at a horse race track. She then started wondering about other "unusual" jobs that people have, and set out to find those jobs and photograph the people who do them. The result is this book. It's not large, only 152 pages. The format is a set of opposite pages for each job. The description of the job and person is on the left, along with a picture of the job and person on the right. And we're talking some really unusual jobs... How about a condom tester held by a lady who is definitely old enough to be your grandmother? A person who milks venom from snakes. A mortuary beautician who prepares bodies for their "final viewing". Dog walker, bull inseminator, tampon tester... all things that need to be done, but you probably don't really think about (or *want* to think about) the people or skills it takes to do them.

So if you're feeling that your job is horrible and you'd like to do something different, take 15 minutes or so and glance through this book. You'll either come back with some new employment possibilities or figure out that your job isn't so bad after all!