From passion to Medium publication

I’ve always had an interest in unusual ways to earn a living.

When I was a child, about 8 or 9 years old, I read about a career in A&R for record labels and KNEW that was my chosen line of work. Until I changed my mind and wanted to become a comedy writer at age 11. And a news journalist at age 12. And a sex therapist at age 13 (?!), a research psychologist at age 14 and 15, back to a (relatively boring) news journalist again through age 18…and then I got the entrepreneurial bug. While I went to college for first journalism and then radio broadcasting and started my radio career, my mind was churning through idea after idea for businesses I could start.

I remember that running a costume shop was a big one. I also dreamed of doing dog massage, being a baby sign language teacher, an auctioneer, a voice-over actor, an audio/vocal coach, a book publisher, a copy editor, a book cover graphic artist, a consignment store owner, a web designer, and a real estate agent.

And, interestingly enough, I did all of those, except for three. (I never performed dog massage, sold real estate, or owned a consignment store.)

Along the way to becoming a professional technical writer, instructional designer, and eventually freelance copywriter, and trying on/discarding various hobby businesses along the way, I realized that I really, really like learning about alternative ways to use one’s talents and skills to make money.

I started collecting interesting stories of people who do work that very few others do — sometimes, these people are literally the only person in America who does what they earn a living doing. Usually, it’s because of a very specific set of skills, interests, talents, and experience that allowed them to create a unique job that couldn’t be done by just anyone else.

These are their stories. I focus on people in the United States (and occasionally throughout North America) because I’ve found that there are jobs in other cultures and other parts of the world that seem unusual, exotic, or even outright bizarre to our culture, but that are commonplace and even boring to their practitioners. (For just one example, the cobradors, or debt shamers, of South America — people who wear formal clothing and stand outside the homes and workplaces of people who owe money to a company, who employs the debt shamer to ‘encourage’ the debtor to pay up quicker. Or the dabbawalas in India who deliver towers of lunch tins to businesses and then pick the empties up afterwards, schlepping them back to the restaurants for cleaning and refilling the next day.)

If you (or someone you know) has a unique skill or job that you’d like me to profile here, or you’ve read of someone who does, please get in touch! And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy these unusually talented people and their creative ways of making money.