All language subtitles for The UnBelievable with Dan Aykroyd s02e09 Odd Jobs.eng

[bright electronic music]

- Looking for that dream job?

How about getting paid big bucks

to smell armpits?

- Pick up your arms.

- The cosmetics
manufacturers are testing

upwards of 10
different formulas.

- The sniffers will smell
up to 60 armpits per hour.

- Or clocking in every
day to eat like an animal?

- Pet food companies are
doing whatever they can

to get an edge in the market,

and one of the most
important tools that they use

to gain that edge are
human pet food tasters.

[bright music]

- What about a gig
competing for treasures

with a pack of huge killer rats?

- [Mitch] It's a
very dangerous job.

Some of them just vanished

in the hundreds of
miles of tunnels.

- These are the jobs
so dirty and so odd,

they can only be
called "Unbelievable."

[bright electronic music]

In the 19th century,
Merry Olde England

is more like filthy old England,

and thanks to the practice of
burning coal fires everywhere,

its capital, London, is
known as the big smoke.

What odd job could
combat all that grime?

One who's only prerequisite
is being a small child.

[tense energetic music]

- The job of chimney sweep

has been mythologized over time.

It's not that of Mary Poppins,

of a dancing and
singing middle-aged man.

- This job is anything but that.

[tense music]

- It's dangerous, it's
dark, it's deadly,

and it's not a job that
Dick Van Dyke's Bert

is ever going to get.

This is a job for children.

- [Dan] But how
do children end up

in this perilous profession?

- It all goes back
to the Great Fire

of London, England in 1666,

which totally guts the city.

Because of this, building
codes are changed

and chimneys have to be built
narrower than ever before.

Also, new regulations
requiring them

to be free of obstruction
are introduced.

- For the next 200 years,

the job of chimney sweep

is employed solely by children.

By 1841, there is
nearly 5,000 of them

working in this trade.

- [Dan] Where does one find
all these hardworking kids?

- The master sweeps
buy young children

between the ages of three
and 10 from orphanages

and give them the title
Chimney Sweep Apprentice.

- The term apprentice
really sounds like

it's gonna lead to
something bigger.

It doesn't.

These are indentured
servants essentially,

treated harshly
and forced to work

every day of the year
except Christmas.

The boys are shoved into
the chimney from the bottom,

and then from there they're
forced to clamber up inside,

using these brushing
and scraping tools

to knock all the soot out

from the lining of the chimney,

and they climb back down,
collect the soot pile,

and then the master
sweep sells that

to farmers for fertilizer.

- [Dan] Sounds like
a simple enough gig,

but a quick glance
at London's skyline

in the mid-1800s
reveals a daunting task.

- So some of these chimneys

are quite high, up to 60 feet.

They're not just straight,

they're built at angles,

and because the openings

are only between
nine to 14 inches,

it's widely suspected that
the master chimney sweeps

are malnourishing the kids

so that they can remain smaller

and fit better
inside the chimneys.

- [Dan] Unfortunately, hunger

is not the worst
occupational hazard.

- The chimney sweeps suffer
a lot of health problems

as a result of the
abnormal positions

and cramped quarters in
which they're working.

These can range
from deformed ankles

or deformed joints,
twisted spines.

Oftentimes, they'll
have pulmonary problems

because of the soot,

and they can even
go on to have cancer

as a result of some
of the materials

that they're breathing in.

- [Dan] Not surprisingly,
these dangers

give some chimney
sweeps cold feet.

- If a child is reluctant
to go into a chimney,

the master sweep will hold
a torch to their feet.

If you'll want to
know where the phrase,

"to light a fire under
someone" comes from, that's it.

- [Dan] Fortunately, towards
the end of the 19th century,

the chimney sweep boy
becomes a thing of the past,

but not before one
particularly tragic accident.

- In 1875, a chimney sweep
named George Brewster

climbs into a chimney

inside the Fulbourn Hospital
in Cambridge, England.

- George is 12 years
old, which as we know

is already pushing
it in terms of size

compared to the other
chimney boys in town.

Shortly after entering the
chimney, George gets stuck.

There's a desperate
rescue attempt.

The chimney is broken into,

walls are knocked down,

but unfortunately,
George is not saved.

- George's tragic death

does have a silver
lining, though.

It lights a fire, but this time,

under lawmakers' feet.

- In September of 1875,

a bill is pushed
through Parliament,

which puts an end
to the practice,

and George Brewster is
the last chimney sweep

to ever die on the job.

- While spending your days

working in a soot-covered
chimney isn't easy,

there are filthier
ways to make coin

in Victorian London.

[mellow soothing music]

- In this period,
the River Thames

is so polluted and so
nasty that Parliament

has to hang sheets soaked in
chlorine over their windows

so that they can conduct
business without the stench.

That same summer,
ground is broken

on an 1,100-mile sewer
system in the city.

- With progress
comes new problems.

People discover that they
are dropping valuables

down the drain
from time to time.

- Copper, silver, gold coins,

jewelry, other valuables.

- [Dan] This opens a
whole new job opportunity

for anyone willing
to take on the task,

they become known as Toshers.

- A tosher, or sewer
hunter, makes a living

trawling through
Victoria-era sewers.

They literally dig
around in the wastewater

searching for anything valuable
that might have been lost.

- Men will go down with
a lantern and a pan,

much like you
would pan for gold.

- London is a
thousand-year-old city,

and so sometimes they
even find medieval

and even Roman
coins in the sewers.

[intriguing music]

- Being a tosher is not
the most upstanding job

because it's illegal for people

to go down into these sewers.

Because of this,

they don't wanna be identified
by their real names,

and so they take on
unusual monikers,

often based on something
about their appearance.

Long Tom, Lanky Bill, One-Eyed
George, Short-Arm Jack.

[tense music]

- [Dan] These aliases may
protect them from the law,

but not from other perils.

- Toshers go out in groups

because it's a
very dangerous job.

[suspenseful music]

Some of them are overcome
by noxious fumes.

Some of them collapse and drown.

Some of them step
into sludge holes,

and some of them just vanish,
getting lost somewhere

in the hundreds of
miles of tunnels.

- But that's not the worst part.

The worst thing that they face

are the giant sewer rats

- Toshers can
actually get overtaken

by swarms of
man-eating sewer rats.

[ominous music]
[rats squeaking]

Now, experts today tell us

that rats very
rarely attack humans,

but we have records
from toshers themselves

who speak very vividly
of rats attacking men.

- [Dan] With
downsides like these,

why take on the gig?

- Toshers could make up
to six shillings a day.

That's about $200 today,

making them some
of the top earners

among Victorian
working-class people.

It's a surprisingly
egalitarian work.

At the end of each shift,
toshers will gather

everything that
they've collected

and divide the spoils equally.

[tense music]

- But if you're looking
for a more noble way

to earn a living, here's one job

that is considered
very respectable.

[light dramatic music]

- In the history of jobs

that revolve around
scatological employment,

the Groom of the Stool
is an elevated position.

- Why?

Because the Groom of the Stool

accompanies the monarch
to their privy chamber

and monitors their fecal output.

[light dramatic music]

Back in the Elizabethan
and Tudor eras,

the analysis of
the colors of stool

is critical into
diagnosing the health

of both the king, and
therefore, the state.

- Among other duties of
the Groom of the Stool

is to wipe the royal bottom

and supply whatever
his majesty needs

whilst using the chamber pot.

- Despite the apparent
unpleasantness

of a job like this,
this is actually

one of the most
prestigious positions

a young man in the
court could have.

- This job is very sought after

because it's a lot
of one-on-one time

with the most powerful
person in the nation.

- These people filled
their entire lives

with ceremony, with
pomp and circumstance,

all of which has
dozens, if not hundreds,

of courtiers with them
for all of those moments.

So if you want to bend
the ear of the monarch,

you have picked the right job.

- [Dan] During
the Tudor Dynasty,

the position is so coveted,

it's literally to die for.

- [Larissa] Henry VIII has a
very trusted bottom-tender,

Sir Henry Norris, who is
his Groom of the Stool.

- The king shares all of
his secrets with Norris,

but Norris does not share
his secrets with the king.

- It's alleged Henry Norris
has a romantic affair

with Queen Anne Boleyn.

- Henry Norris is put
on trial for adultery,

which is treason, and
ultimately in 1536,

he's executed,
just as the queen.

- [Dan] This act of betrayal

doesn't soil the
career for everyone.

A century later in the 1640s,

the king still relies
on his right hand man

to perform his duties.

- King Charles I
becomes extremely close

with his Groom of the Stool,

William Seymour, 2nd
Duke of Somerset.

King Charles trusts
Seymour so much

that he makes him
royal commander

during the First Civil War.

- During that time,
parliamentarians,

led by Oliver Cromwell,
deemed the king a tyrant.

And in the course of this war,

Charles is actually
tried for treason.

- William Seymour is so loyal

that he remains
alongside King Charles

following his captivity

and right up until
the king's execution.

[ominous music]

- The Groom of the Stool

remains a coveted position
in court until 1901,

just a few years longer
than I would've anticipated.

- There are some jobs out there

that call for the
keenest of senses,

but only one that
requires knowing

the taste preferences
of man's best friend.

[intriguing music]

- During the
Industrial Revolution

and with the rise of the middle
class in the 19th century,

families start to
keep animals as pets.

- Initially, these pets are fed

with table scraps
and leftover food,

but as we humans want better,
more consistent diets,

we want the same
thing for our pets.

[light dramatic music]

In 1860, an English
businessman named James Spratt

comes up with the
idea to industrialize

the feeding of pets.

He creates the first dog food.

- [Dan] From there, dog food
companies begin popping up

around the country
and the world,

now fetching around $58
billion in sales a year.

- Today, pet food
companies are doing

whatever they can to get
an edge in the market,

and one of the most
important tools that they use

to gain that edge are
human pet food tasters.

- [Lab Tech] Help
yourself to some product.

- Humans have around
9,000 taste buds,

but dogs only have
one sixth of that,

but their sense of smell

is a million times
stronger than ours.

So to make something
appealing to a dog,

you have to make sure it smells

really, really great to them.

- [Dan] Contrary
to popular belief,

dogs won't eat almost anything,

something some pet food
tasters must keep in mind.

- These pet food
tasters have to strike

a very, very delicate balance

because on one hand, they
need to make the food

as appealing as
possible to the pet,

but they can't make
the food too repulsive

to humans that are
buying the food.

[percussive music]

- This experience
is really high end.

These tasters are in labs.

There's proper silverware.

They're doing tasting notes,

they're doing smelling notes.

It's not unlike a
sommelier tasting wine.

- You're evaluating
the initial smell,

the different notes and flavors.

What is the chew?

What is the mouth feel?

What is the viscosity?

What's the aftertaste
after you swallow it?

Whatever goes into it,

to make it as
perfect as possible,

and nutritionally complete.

- [Dan] So how much does a
human earn eating dog food?

- These jobs are
highly sought after,

and at one of the big pet
food companies like Purina,

you might have a starting
salary in the 30,000s range,

but if you prove yourself
and move into management,

you're looking at
more like six figures.

- If you think taste
testing pet food is odd,

try sticking your nose in
another strange business,

one dominated by a man
named Barrie Drewitt.

- Raise your right arm, please.

Left arm.

- Barrie is in a very
specific line of work.

Companies all over the world

hire him and people like him

to test out the latest products

that combat sweat and body odor.

- Lift up your arms.

- And see if
they're doing enough

to tamp down those nasty
smells that are created

when the sweat mixes
with the armpit bacteria.

- The cosmetics
manufacturers are testing

upwards of 10 different formulas

with slight variations,

applying it to a paid subject.

That's when Barrie comes in.

Barrie is there, nose deep,

armpit after
armpit after armpit,

to test each variation
of the deodorant.

- The sniffers will smell
up to 60 armpits per hour,

to determine which version
is the most effective,

and that's the version of
that particular product

that the company will
actually sell to consumers.

- You might be asking, how much

are we gonna make
a year on this?

Well, if you are
the ace, the top,

the ne plus ultra of armpit
sniffing like Barrie Drewitt,

you could be making
$15 million a year.

[energetic music]

- If getting paid
to sniff armpits

isn't weird enough for you,

there's an even
stranger job opportunity

in farming.

[taut energetic music]

- The United States generates

over 100 billion eggs a year

from 370 million chickens.

These highly efficient
chicken farms

house over a
million birds each,

and they use technology
for everything

where it comes to the eggs,

collecting, cleaning,
sorting, grading,

but the most essential element
in this well-oiled machine

cannot be done by technology.

[taut percussive music]

- For most of human history,
farmers must wait weeks

to differentiate male
chicks from female chicks.

This is truly important

because only the females
will go on to lay eggs,

and laying eggs is big business.

- [Dan] This crucial position
in the poultry industry

has a job title you
don't see every day,

Chicken Sexer.

- Sexing a chicken is
exactly what it sounds like.

It's determining whether it's
a male or a female chicken,

and it takes human
eyes to determine that.

It's a very, very important
job to have on a farm.

- [Dan] One very
significant biological fact

makes this job
much more difficult

than you might imagine.

- Male chickens
don't have penises,

so even if you turn
one over and look,

there's not much to see.

- [Dan] What baby
boy chickens have

is a very small bump

on a vent called the cloaca.

That is, if you can find it.

- To sex a chick, you
must flip it over,

squeeze it gently
to invert the vent,

and then look really hard

to find the bump

because it's tiny.

[taut music]

- [Dan] Chicken
sexing is so hard

that there's even
a Japanese school

devoted to teaching it.

- The Zen-Nippon
Chicken Sexing School.

It's in Nagoya in central Japan.

This place is the Harvard
of chicken sexing.

It offers an intensive
two-year course.

Experienced
professionals can sex

up to 1,000 chickens an hour.

That's one every three seconds

and they get it correct
98% of the time.

[taut music]
[chick chirps]

- With so much at stake,

it's no surprise
that chicken sexers

often earn the highest
salaries on poultry farms.

- Some farms raise
chickens, others raise cows.

But working on one
farm in Tennessee means

tending to something
a little more unusual.

[suspenseful music]

- Just a few miles from
downtown Knoxville, Tennessee,

there's a densely
wooded plot of land

surrounded by razor wire,

and inside the gates

sits a very, very
strange facility.

This is the University
of Tennessee's

anthropological
research facility,

better known as the Body Farm.

[suspenseful music]

- [Dan] The facility
is started in 1981

by a forensic anthropologist
named Bill Bass.

- He realizes that the rate

at which human bodies decompose

can be a revealing
clue at crime scenes.

So he somehow convinces
the dean of the university

that he must have a place

where he can lay out human
bodies and watch them rot.

- [Dan] This macabre process
actually helps investigators

determine vital information
about decomposition.

- What happens to the body
if we have it outside?

What happens if
we have it inside?

Is it different if they're
clothed, if they're naked,

if we submerge them in water,

if we bury them in concrete?

How do these factors
affect decomposition?

- As I can attest to as
an expert witness myself,

you're always getting
asked questions

in trials in courts
by police officers.

We found this body.

We don't know how long
they've been there.

It can make a lot of changes
from a criminal standpoint

who might be the
real perpetrator.

- We're finding that bodies

lose about five pounds a day

in the rapid decay stage.

- As a crime scene
investigator of 25 years,

there are things that I know

because of the
work that they do.

[suspenseful music]

- Death ultimately
comes to us all,

but if you're lucky
enough to plan for it,

consider hiring someone
with this very odd job.

[tense music]

- There's a funeral
home in Dallas

called the Golden
Gate Funeral Home

where they actually offer
a bootcamp-style training

for you to learn how to
be a professional mourner.

- Don't give up, don't give up.

Keep going.
[mourner wailing]

- And basically stand
in as friends or family

in the crowd and weep
during a funeral.

[mysterious music]

- A professional mourner's job

is not just show up and cry.

There is research done.

You have to get into the
books of someone's life,

learn who their loved ones
are, what their hobbies were,

so when you're
confronted by someone

who may be a closer
acquaintance or family member,

you can at least be
conversational with them

per the deceased's life.

[mysterious music]

- You have to be
able to really show

that you are so horrified
by the loss of this person

that you make everyone else
in the room feel the same way.

- [Dan] With such
complex prerequisites

for professional mourning,

one can now understand
the necessity

for bootcamp-style training

that the Golden Gate
Funeral Home offers.

- Now you have to be
able to really sell it.

When the day comes,
only the best

gets the gig of being
a rented mourner.

- [Dan] Surprisingly, this
odd job has been around

a lot longer than
you might think.

[tense music]

- In ancient Egypt, for example,

funerals are frequently
public affairs

and mourners who don't
even know the deceased,

they're crying,
they're gesticulating,

they're expressing grief,
they're beating their breasts,

they're smearing
themselves with dirt.

They are enacting a whole drama

to herald the holy passage

from one life into another.

[ominous music]

- This job does have a title.

It's called Moirologist,

and only women are allowed

to be professional mourners.

- Men are deemed
unfit for the job

because they're
supposed to be strong

and leaders of the family,

and are not supposed to show
any kind of raw emotion,

but it's socially acceptable
for women to express grief.

- [Dan] And these paid
mourners are doing more

than simply showing deep grief.

They are actually playing
a very important role.

- They're portraying
the goddesses

and sisters, Isis and Nephthys.

Nephthys is the goddess
of the death experience,

and Isis is the goddess
of the birth experience,

thus symbolizing the
totality of life.

- For a mourner to impersonate
one of these two goddesses,

they have to wear a plain
tunic with a short wig,

and on their arm, the name of
Isis and Nephthys tattooed.

- And they carry
with them bread,

libations, jars of water,

to accompany the deceased
to the other world.

We know this is true
because it's written

on sarcophagi in funerary
scrolls and made reference to

in texts like the
Book of the Dead.

- At the end of the
mourning ritual,

the women portraying the
goddesses recite a poem

that symbolizes the loss and
grieving of the goddesses,

and safely ushers the dead

into their transition
to the afterlife.

[somber music]

- If this job sounds attractive,

funeral homes are
always on the lookout

for new mourners
to fill their pews.

Be sure to mention
wailing in agony

under special skills
on your resume.

- Raising livestock is
a difficult, dirty job,

but not all herds are the same.

One man in Iowa is harvesting
something purely unusual.

[man calling deer]

[taut music]

- There are millions
of deer hunters

across the United States,

and it is a ritual
to use the urine

of whitetail does in heat

to attract bucks
into their sights.

[taut music]
[gun fires]

- This is big business.

The whitetail deer lure industry

is raking in over
$100 million a year.

- [Dan] But high-quality doe
urine does not grow on trees,

and one man has made a
career out of collecting it.

- Sam Collora is from
Mount Pleasant, Iowa

and an avid deer hunter.

In the late 1980s, he's
working at a factory

as a day job, but he
has a little side gig

as a taxidermist.

- [Dan] How does one
go from factory worker

and part-time taxidermist

to deer urine collector?

Completely by accident.

- Most of Sam's clients
are deer hunters.

They bring in their kill

and Sam wants to create

a very lifelike
taxidermy model,

but he has problems getting
the positioning just right.

He finds it's not enough
to look at photographs.

He needs the real thing.

- His wife gets
him three live deer

that he can observe
and use as life models

for his taxidermy business.

- But the deer
models begin to mate

and pretty soon, the family

has a growing herd
of deer on its hands.

- [Dan] One day, Sam takes off

from his taxidermy business

to go hunting himself.

Instead of buying pre-packaged
deer urine as bait,

he sees he has a free
and endless supply

right outside his door.

- Sam takes the
homemade urine with him

and it works like gangbusters,
[gun firing]

and he realizes he
may be onto something.

[suspenseful music]

In 1991, Sam quits his day job

and opens up his own business,

selling this magical
deer urine, full time.

- Sam sets up his own shop,

he brands it as Mrs.
Doe Pee's Buck Lure,

and people come
from miles around

because it is the best
lure they could find.

- Sam spends hours
tracking doe on his farm,

determining which are in heat,

and then corralling
them to an enormous barn

with a grated floor,

gathering their urine
for eager customers.

- Sam isn't the only player
in the deer urine market.

There are giant operators

with 5,000-square-
foot collecting areas

that pump out
gallons of deer urine

and they can sell to wholesalers

for over 100 dollars a gallon.

But Sam insists that his product

is the best because
it's 100% pure,

no modifications,
no preservatives,

no chemical additives.

Sam has the Lamborghini
of deer urine.

It's the best you can get.

[taut music]

- There's no doubt
that Sam's hands

get dirty earning his paycheck,

but there are probably
no hands dirtier

than those of New York
City's night soil men.

[intriguing music]

- By the middle 1840s,

New York City has a population

of around a half million people.

- The concentration of people
in here is just maddening.

It is the most populous
city in the United States

and far and away the dirtiest.

- They don't have
modern sewer systems,

and so there are these
cesspools of human waste,

10 feet wide, 20 feet deep.

It's estimated
that in 1844 alone,

Manhattanites will produce

800,000 cubic feet of excrement.

[taut music]
[urine spritzing]

- [Dan] To avoid sewage overflow

and the endless disease
that comes with it,

the cesspools must
be emptied often.

- So, New York creates
a brand new job.

Teams of very strong
men are dispatched

to eliminate and
mitigate and move around

this human waste and cart it
to the outskirts of the city.

It's hard work, but
it's honest work.

- [Dan] Even so, no
one wants to see it.

As a result, these
four-man crews work

between the hours of
midnight and 4:30 a.m.

- Because human
excrement is collected

under the cover of night,
it is dubbed night soil.

Therefore, they give the men

who collect it and dispose of it

the illustrious title
of Night Soil Men.

A night soil team is
made up of a hole man,

a rope man and two tub men.

- The hole man goes
down into the cesspool,

scrapes the
excrement into a tub.

The rope man lifts it up

and the two tub men
dump it into the cart.

- [Dan] For such
an important job,

at times it can
be pretty crappy.

- There is not only the danger

of succumbing to
the fumes, disease,

and perils of being
in these cesspools.

- Their late night work leaves
them vulnerable to hoodlums

who occasionally stone the
men or shoot their horses.

[gun firing]

- [Dan] Sometimes,
dodging gunshots

is the least of their worries.

[taut music]

- Night soil men often
catch burglars in the act

or are burgled themselves,

and dead bodies are regularly
found in the cesspools

and are often victims of murder.

[tense music]

- Where else am I
going to dump a body

if I were committing a
crime in 1840s New York?

I'm dumping it straight in there

for the night soil men
to find it eventually.

[tense music]

- Fortunately, by the 1890s,

after years of construction,

New York and Brooklyn
have 844 miles of sewers,

and so the demand for night
soil men has become obsolete.

[tense music]

- Haven't had a
vacation in a while?

How about going somewhere
warm with sandy beaches?

No problem.

Just book it on your phone.

Online booking

has revolutionized
the travel industry,

but as new forms of
transportation emerge,

so do new and strange jobs.

[intriguing music]
[plane engine whirring]

- There was a time when
arranging and booking travel

looked far different
than it does today.

You had to use a travel agent.

[phone ringing]

You had to visit their office

where they gave you
brochures and printouts

describing these
exotic destinations,

and this agent would
call up the airline,

the hotel, the
rental car company.

They would hold your hand
through the whole process.

- Now, being a travel agent
is completely obsolete,

like say, wagon
wheel repair person.

They just don't exist.

- But there is one destination

where the only way to do
it is through an agent.

[suspenseful music]

[rocket roaring]

- [Dan] That destination,

the vast expanse of deep space.

- When I was a kid, the only way

to get to space was with NASA.

You had to be an astronaut.

But today,

who knew all it takes
is a whole lot of money.

[crowd cheering]

- Four, three, two, one.

[bottle thuds] Whoa!

- Today there's lots of
options for space travel.

You have Virgin Galactic's
suborbital thrill ride.

There's the World
View Explorer capsule,

which takes you a 100,000
feet above Earth's surface.

- Companies are planning
even more adventures,

like orbiting hotels
where you can spend

a month or more floating
serenely above the Earth.

- [Dan] Thinking of
switching careers?

There are certainly a
lot of responsibilities

involved in being a
space travel agent.

- One of the first jobs
of a space travel agent

is to warn you there is an FAA,

federally mandated warning,

that space travel is
kind of dangerous,

and you need to know
this and acknowledge it

before you even
start your journey.

- In particular,
travelers have to be

made aware of the risk of death.

- Here's the thing,

going to space is
far more rigorous

than just going on
a normal vacation.

You need to be
between the height

of five feet to six
feet, four inches tall.

You need to weigh between
110 and 220 pounds,

plus, you have to have
so much testing done

to make sure, you know,
your cardiovascular health

is where it needs to be.

Your stamina work with
G-forces and zero gravity.

All of those things
have to be done,

and it takes a space
agent to make sure of it.

[tense music]

- One would imagine traveling
to space is demanding,

but sometimes, even
a simple commute

requires a little extra effort.

[tense music]

- The Japanese rail network
is known around the world

for its superiority
and its punctuality.

[tense music]

Shinjuku Station sees
3.6 million people

every single day from
that one station.

- That is more in one station

than the entire New York
City subway system per day.

This is a very busy place.

[train roaring past]

Shinjuku Station is so busy

that to fill these
trains to capacity,

they employ Oshiya,
train pushers,

specialized staff
there to, not usher,

but physically push people

into overcrowded train cars

to ensure the doors can close

and the train can move on

and another one can come

and the process can
repeat every two minutes.

- [Dan] To ensure
maximum efficiency,

the oshiya's job is to fill
the train to 180% capacity.

That's like putting nine
people in a four-door sedan.

- This job is really essential.

If they don't get the people
onto the trains in time

and the trains are delayed,

the whole system
kind of breaks down

and it's total chaos.

[tense music]

- Unbelievably, the
art of train pushing,

it actually has its
roots in New York City

when the subway opens in 1904.

[taut energetic music]

- Before automated doors,

there were the equivalent
of train pushers.

- Because at the time, the
subways are privatized,

there's a financial incentive

to get as many people onto
the trains as possible.

So by 1918, you start
to see subway pushers

shoving people onto the train

along the very popular
new line on 42nd Street.

- [Dan] Due to the forceful
nature of the work,

subway attendants earn
an unofficial job title.

- The New York Times names

these subway pushers,
sardine packers.

By the 1920s, the advent
of automatic doors

and automatic
turnstiles start to

kind of phase out the
need for subway pushers.

But subway pushers
still exist today

in countries like
Germany and China,

but nobody is as pushy
as subway pushers

in Shinjuku Station in Tokyo.

- The job of subway pusher
remains highly coveted,

and as long as
there are train cars

that need over-stuffing,
there's work to be done.

- Ah, the side hustle,
a relatively new term,

which basically means picking up

an extra gig or two
to supplement income.

There are a
multitude of options.

Drive for a ride-share
company, deliver food,

or do the one thing
most people hate.

[suspenseful music]

- It's 2012 and Robert
Samuels is down on his luck.

He has just been
let go from his job

at the At&T store on
the Upper East Side.

Calculating the thing that
we New Yorkers always do

is how much longer can
I survive in this city,

he sort of wanders aimlessly

until he comes across
the Apple store,

and he sees person after person
after person waiting online.

- He notices that the iPhone 5

is about to come out,
and something clicks.

- He starts to wonder,

would people be willing
to pay someone else

to wait in line for them?

Could he be that person?

- [Dan] With his rent due
and expenses mounting,

Robert realizes he
just can't stand around

doing nothing, unless
he's paid for it.

- Robert posts an
ad on Craigslist

offering to wait in line
for the new iPhone 5,

and someone takes
him up on his offer.

- He ends up waiting 14
hours in line overnight,

and at the last minute,
someone comes in

and they trade spots, they get
their iPhone, he gets paid.

Robert gets $325 for his efforts

and he creates a company,

the Same Ole Line Dudes.

- We've waited in line for
Cronuts, for sample sales,

Saturday Night Live
standby lines, concerts,

popular bars,
brunches, passports.

I've been in line now
47 hours, 42 minutes.

- It's not just Robert.

He's got a whole cadre
of dudes and dudettes

from the Same Ole Line
Dudes to wait online for you

for whatever it may
be, concert tickets,

technology, brunch appointments,

the best seats on Broadway.

- For 25 bucks an hour,

they will wait
through heat waves,

sleet, rain, and even snow.

[tense music]

And Robert is so
dedicated to his job

that he even waited in
line for Hamilton tickets

for two weeks.

He was paid $8,400.

That's $600 a day, times
14, just to wait in line

for someone else
to see Hamilton.

- If I were gonna
wait in line for days,

I'd make sure I have the
pizza guy on speed dial.

They'll deliver
just about anywhere,

including some place
completely unexpected.

[taut music]

- In Key Largo, Florida,

there's an amazing little place

called Jules' Undersea Lodge,

and it is, in fact, a hotel room

30 feet down in the water.

[taut music]

It is the world's
only underwater hotel

and the only way to reach it
is to throw on scuba gear,

swim down the 30 feet

and pop in to this
sort of open space

where you'd climb out, take
off all your scuba gear,

and then there you are
in your lovely hotel room

under the water.

- Your room at
Jules' Undersea Lodge

has everything you could want.

It has a great
view, books to read,

television with hotel
cable, stocked fridge.

- [Dan] You might ask yourself,

does an underwater
hotel have room service?

Well, the answer's yes,

but only one man can deliver.

- Rob Doyle is Key Largo's

resident underwater
pizza delivery guy.

- The strange job
of delivering pizza

to an undersea hotel has
some interesting challenges.

- You know, moisture
is the enemy of pizza,

so cardboard pizza boxes

just can't be the
delivery mechanism.

You've gotta come
up with some kind

of waterproof
pizza delivery box.

- He places the pizza

into this airtight
waterproof case

to keep it warm and dry.

Then he seals it up and
dives into the water.

But of course, the
case is buoyant

so it wants to
float, so he ties on

this 40-pound weight
so that it will sink

and he can bring
it to the hotel.

- Luckily, no pizzas
have been lost at sea,

and there've been no soggy
pies that have been delivered.

But sometimes, the toppings
can shift a bit on the top.

- Due to how long it takes
to put on scuba gear,

there's no 30-minutes-
or-less guarantee.

Even still, I think he
deserves that 20% tip.

There are many ways to
bring home the bacon,

whether it's dining on
dog chow, crying on cue,

or staring at the backsides
of chickens all day.

Fascinating and amazingly odd,

these jobs are
truly "Unbelievable."

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