Back in the grim days of The Great Recession, companies large and small laid off workers while discouraging new hires with a wealth of “no hiring” signs.

Train In Vain

Historic Pullman, a former company town dating from the 1880s, is today one of Chicago’s 77 defined community areas. Though the South Side district has been a National Historic Landmark Site since 1969, renovation and rehabilitation of its buildings – including the former Pullman Clock Tower and Administration Building (now the Pullman National Monument Visitor Center) above – is an ongoing process, one that requires laborers… sometimes.

Construction work is typically one of the go-to manual labor options when times are tough. We’re assuming such jobs in the Pullman Historic District were snapped up quickly during late-2007 to mid-2009, when the above photos by Flickr members Bart Heird, crowbert, and Lynn Josse were taken.

Just Say No-No

They thought “no hiring” was so nice, they had to say it twice! Well, not really, but you can’t blame English-speakers for just seeing the “NOT HIRING – NO” part and tuning out “Se contrata a nadie” (“Nobody is hired”). Flickr member Indiana Public Media/WFIU captured the above sign posted in front of a construction project in April of 2009.

Peak Helplessness

“NO HELP WANTED”, reads the sign posted at Summit Industries in September of 2007, to which Flickr member and photographer bluefishtuesday replied, “especially not yours” and “recession, much?” Times were tough all over back in The Great Recession but Chicago seems to have been hit especially hard – this photo was snapped on W Lawrence Ave in the Far North Side.

Take Your Talents Elsewhere

More construction, this time in Miami, FL where workers hopeful of employment were greeted by “NOT HIRING” and “No nececitamos trabatatores” (“We do not need workers”). Times must have been tough indeed: the company couldn’t even afford a pre-printed no-hiring sign… and you can bet somebody was charged for the orange spray paint. Flickr member R. Maas captured the above labor-unfriendly scene in March of 2009.

Pay-Away Plan

How to save money when hiring staff, Exhibit #42… brought to you by The Brick, a chain of Canadian furniture and home appliance stores. In 2007, Flickr member Alex Indigo snapped this sign that appears to tell prospective hires they won’t receive any financial compensation ’til 2009. We don’t know how many workers this store ended up hiring but we wouldn’t be surprised if at least one was fired.

Garage Banned

“Too many people looking for work. Don’t bother asking here,” stated Flickr member Kyle Harr about Ron’s Garage in Pewamo, MI. The eponymous “Ron” must have had unemployed workers pestering him day and night for a job, any job, even the thankless task of hanging “NOT HIRING” signs on multiple windows to deter job-seekers approaching from any direction.

Speaking of signs of negativity, note that Ron’s also posts “NO PARKING”, “NO SOLICITING”, “Authorized STUDEBAKER Service” and “Approved PACKARD Service” signs. That might help to explain why the garage apparently conducts NO BUSINESS and thus, needs no staff.

OW My Bank Balance

Flickr member Pak Gwei snapped this trio of fence-mounted signs in Washington D.C.’s Franklin McPherson Square back in March of 2007, mere weeks before the Subprime Mortgage Crisis sparked what would turn out to be the worst global economic contraction since the 1930s. Hope may always spring eternal but in the spring of ’07, the stage was being set for an epic fall. Note to the anonymous wiseguy who made an “adjustment” to the handmade “No Hiring” sign: much pain is about to ensue; you should have erased the “N” after adding the “W”.

This eclectic selection of “We’re Hiring” signs illustrate some of the unusual ways companies offer jobs in a booming economy with low unemployment.

“We’re still hiring humans”, declares this billboard ad for Carnegie Robotics in “The City of Bridges” (presumably Pittsburgh, PA), and that’s good news, right? Right?? Indeed, there’s something more than a little sinister about this pitch and the image of a vaguely Bender-ish robot doesn’t help. At least they didn’t give him a goatee. Flickr member Nick Amoscato snapped a couple shots of the jumbo hiring ad in June of 2018.

Hirers Gonna Hire

OK, maybe you could write off this hiring banner for Sears as a “vintage” photo but according to Flickr member and photographer Random Retail, the image dates from 2013 and was taken at a newly closed Sears store in Pennsdale, PA. Like Sears hasn’t trolled its remaining workers enough; does it really have to jerk the chains of potential employees as well?

Proofreader Wanted

Now we know why there’s no “I” in “team”… it’s found a new home on this bizarre hiring ad. While one might excuse a typo on a hand-written sign, this appears to be a manufactured or at least, a bulk-printed piece. That means there must be many more out there, barring any flashes of comprehension by the staff members charged with deploying them. Normally we’d mask some or all of the phone number to avoid embarrassing the proprietor but in this case, Flickr member Domenico Bettinelli‘s image has been posted for almost 12 years. Also, they deserve to be shamed.

Eat Mor Pengwin

Is this a hiring billboard or a lost cat, er, penguin poster? Why not both? “Tux” the penguin is the official brand character of the Linux brand so, umm, where is he… and what’s with that ‘gator’s evil, lip-smackin’ grin? Who designed this ad anyway, Admiral Ackbar? Flickr member Michael Coghlan snapped the fearsome hiring billboard in Austin, TX (wherever you are) in January of 2012.

Hiring In Plain Site

Yes, “site”, as in a plain site situated in plain sight. Bet it looks even plainer on the inside due to the apparent lack of windows, not to mention a door. Wouldn’t the latter make the whole “inquire within” thing somewhat of a challenge, to say the least? Maybe they’re interviewing pole vaulters. Flickr member joepopp captured this enigmatic example of hiring-inside-the-box back in March of 2007.

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Worker Be 10 Were Hiring Signs Of The Times

The automation of many of our jobs – even those that have long seemed safe – is fully inevitable at this point. One study predicts that about 38 percent of American jobs will be at high risk of automation by the early 2030s, which is not that far away. We’re asked to trust that future work could be ‘liberating,’ but considering the way corporations tend to operate, it’s not hard to see why the masses are terrified that robots will soon leave us unemployed and unable to provide for ourselves and our families.

But at the recent World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in January 2018, experts imagined the kinds of jobs that will be around – and now we have visualizations of what they could look like. In fact, those experts stated that 65% of children in school today will have jobs that don’t currently exist.

In a scene that definitely looks straight out of a sci-fi movie, a worker sits in a glass pod high over a city, overseeing a 3D printer in the midst of building a superstructure. A ‘landfill recycler’ salvages existing materials from landfills to be integrated into new products while sitting atop something that looks like a gigantic vacuum hose. On serene turquoise waters, a ‘blockchain banking engineer’ fine-tunes a floating machine that will give people in remote locations access to secure banking.

It might be a robot operating on this woman in a rural setting, but he’s got the holographic head of the real surgeon who’s carrying out the procedure from thousands of miles away. A ‘public technology ethicist’ evaluates new technology before it goes live to determine its benefits to the public. And finally, the operator of a 3D scanning machine captures entire historically significant buildings to ensure that even if they’re demolished, they’re preserved in perpetuity.

These illustrations were produced by AKQA London together with Salt and Pepper Creative Studio based on the World Economic Forum panelists’ predictions. Concept artist Florian de Gesincourt created the first sketches, and London retouching studio Happy Finish colored and perfected them. The series was produced in a mere 120 hours in the midst of the forum so attendees could see them. They’re a pretty good reminder that the future is closer than we think.

Wouldn’t it be great to be able to hand out business cards that proclaim you a ‘professional sleeper’, or fortune cookie writer? Of course, for every curiously awesome job, there’s a foul, wretched one – like vomit collector at an amusement park or waste-burning toilet attendant on a ship. To get any of these 13 weird gigs, you either have to be really lucky – or really desperate.

Vomit Collector

(image via: The Daily Star)

Inevitably, some people who can’t handle the twists and turns of rollercoasters end up losing their lunches. But have you ever thought about the person who has to clean it all up? Meet Rhys Owen, the official vomit collector at Thorpe Park, a theme park in England. The park needed a dedicated ‘chunder-cleaner’, as they so charmingly put it in Britain, for a particularly stomach-churning ride.

“Although being responsible for cleaning up peoples’ puke is a bit gross, I am up for taking on the chunder challenge,” says Owen. “I absolutely love rollercoasters and the perk of being able to ride them for free makes the sick collection worth it – I may have to invest in a nose peg though!”

Armpit Sniffer

(image via: Merlin Silk)

Store shelves are packed with all kinds of deodorant – and some work better than others. But who determines whether a deodorant is actually effective? Since test subjects can’t necessarily be trusted to evaluate their own bodily odors, odor testers have to step in and sniff for themselves.  It’s a dirty job, but someone’s gotta do it.

Turd Burner

(image via: Discovery.com)

Dumping human waste into the sea isn’t a great way of dealing with it, but seafarers can’t always just wait until they’re back on land to go. That’s where Turd Burners come in. These workers maintain and operate special toilets that burn waste so it’s converted into harmless, germ-free, odorless ashes. But they’ve got to use their nose to tell if something’s wrong with the toilet – if there’s a bad smell, something’s wrong. ‘Turd burning’ is just one of the many dirty jobs that The Discovery Channel’s Mike Rowe has had to take on.

Pet Food Taster

(image via: The Daily Mail)

Few people have ever sniffed a can of wet dog or cat food and thought, ‘yum’. But Simon Allison tastes pet food for a living – and likes it. The senior food technologist for Marks & Spencer in the UK won’t allow anything that doesn’t pass his taste-test to go on store shelves.

“You have to chew it a bit. I have trained my palate to look for materials that we will not allow in the recipe, such as tripe – pet owners react badly to the smell of tripe.I’m looking for a paté texture, almost to the point where you could spread it on crusty bread. It has a very slightly gritty texture but overall it should be smooth – and studded with peas and carrots.”

His favorite? Organic luxury dinner with vegetables for cats.

Dung Archaeologist

(image via: NPR.org)

Studying the remnants of ancient human history has a certain romanticism to it, but not everything left behind by our forefathers is pretty. Take feces, for instance. Pathoecologists like Karl Reinhard, the world’s foremost expert in ancient feces analysis, spend their days sifting through piles of dung in search of clues about our ancestors’ lives, diets and environments.

“Most obviously, if you know what people were excreting, you can get a pretty good idea of what they were eating,” says Reinhard. “If you find thorny-headed worms, you know they were eating insects. If you see roundworms, you know there was meat. It’s all part of establishing the relationships between human behavior and environment and the diseases they had. We didn’t end up with all the diseases we have around now by chance. They evolved with us, and we want to know how that happened.”

Professional Whistler

(image via: StevetheWhistler.com)

Steve Herbst gets paid to whistle. “I’d like to be the go-to guy for whoever is looking for a whistler,” Herbst – an advertising VP who hasn’t given up his day job yet – told the NY Post. As a child, Herbst’s parents brought him to dinner parties to entertain guests, and he has since performed at Carnegie Hall and on television. “I don’t think it’s a stretch to say I can hold my own with a symphony orchestra,” he says.

Ski Slope Illustrator

(image via: Fortune Magazine)

While there are many illustrators making admirable earnings doing what they love, few have so specific a subject as James Niehues. Commissioned by ski resorts to make super-accurate renderings, Niehues now sells his originals through an art broker and hopes to move on to national parks.

“When I receive a commission, I’ll go on location and fly the area. I photograph closeups and sections of the mountain as well as an overall view. Then I work with topographic maps and make a sketch that shows all the shadows, trees, and buildings. I try to give every area an individual look or feel.”

Golf Ball Diver

(image via: IlovetoGolf.com)

For all the balls they accidentally knock into the water, few golfers wade in and try to retrieve them. That’s what golf ball divers are for. Golf equipment stores selling ‘gently used’ golf balls often pay several independent golf ball divers to gather as many of the errant balls as they can, usually for about 6 cents each. Some estimates put golf ball divers’ salaries at over $100,000 a year, but it can be a dangerous job – a 75-year-old man died while diving for golf balls, 27 years after his son perished the same way.

Professional Sleeper

(image via: NewYorkology)

Many of us sleep on the job – but if we got caught, we’d be heading to the unemployment line. But there are some people who actually get paid to snooze. This type of job typically involves participating in sleep research projects at hospitals and universities, but there are even stranger ways to be a professional sleeper. The New Museum of Contemporary Art put out want ads in January 2009 seeking women willing to come in, take a sleeping pill and zonk out during the museum’s opening hours. The women who got the jobs then became living museum exhibitions titled after their own names, such as ‘This is Kate’, pictured above.

Worm Picker

(image via: goosmurf)

They come out at night, wearing miner’s hats with headlamps and cans strapped around their ankles. Seeking out wet spots with lots of worms coming up to surface, they grab the slimy little creatures and put them in the cans. Good-quality worms fetch up to $18 per can. Professional worm picking may be a weird job, but it can be more dangerous than it sounds – especially when competing worm pickers get territorial. In Canada in 1993, rival worm-picking groups got in a violent fight that involved steel pipes and setting a van on fire – all over the most lowly of invertebrates.

Fortune Cookie Writer

(image via: Robert Couse-Baker)

Donald Lau used to find inspiration everywhere, writing gems like “”Beware of odors from unfamiliar sources” after a memorably stinky ride on the subway. But these days, the VP of Long Island City’s Wonton Food, Inc. is recycling fortunes. In 1995, after 11 years of jotting down any insightful thought that came to him, Lau gave up on trying to be original. Such jobs are few and far between, but Lau finally put out a want ad for a new fortune writer in 2005.

Dice Inspector

(image via: Thunderchild)

Even the smallest imperfection in a dice can skew the odds, causing it to land on a particular side more often than the others. Hence, the need for dice inspectors – people who carefully examine dice for blemishes, incorrect proportions and angles that are even the slightest bit off. Such quality control inspectors are found in practically every industry, so there are strange ‘inspectors’ of all sorts.

Snake Milker

(image via: The Age)

Snake venom is powerful stuff – just as it can be extremely harmful to people and animals if we’re bitten, it can also heal. Not only is it needed for antivenin, but it is also being applied in medical research for pharmaceuticals that may help stroke victims, or treat malignant tumors. Snake milkers stretch a thin membrane over a glass or plastic receptacle, induce the snake to bite through the membrane and apply pressure to the snake’s venom glands to collect the venom. Another method involves electrical stimulation.