Endless Thread - Snacktime: Odd Jobs

Episode Date: September 10, 2020

Do people say, "That's a thing??," when you tell them what you do for a living? Then you probably have an odd job. This week, Endless Thread tips its hat to you as we discuss the odd jobs of Redditors. 

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Are you a pumpkin spice latte kind of gal? No, I'm not. You know what? That's why I love you. Yeah. And thank God. Why? What have you found out about the pumpkin spice latte?

No, I mean, I just, you know what? I shouldn't cast dispersions. Pumpkins are nice. It's okay. You know? I worked as a barista for a while and I made a lot of those. I don't need to see one or smell one ever again. Fair.

Yeah, I guess I'm just thinking about, look, it's not fall yet. Is it fall? I don't know. No, no, it is not. I'm just thinking about fall snacks. Yeah. Because we're going into fall and we're having a snap time where we talk about random things from Reddit that we like

that are maybe not, you know, full, full endless threat episodes, but things that are worthy of us talking about. Do you have a false snack? I mean, who among us doesn't love an apple cider donut? I love an apple cider donut. If we can all agree to get rid of pumpkin spice lattes and replace every single one in existence with a cider donut, then I think we're improving the world.

I'd say so. All right, what is the theme of our snack time this week? Odd jobs. Oh, I like that. It just felt right. That's a good song. I like that song. It's a tribute to one of the odd jobs that I would like to have someday, which is Jingle Writer. Do you have an odd job you aspire to?

I don't know if this would qualify as an odd job. I mean, odd isn't strange, maybe, or unique. I would like to be the person who operates the giant crane magnet that moves scrap metal like onto the barge from the scrap metal yard? Why? I don't know. I don't know. There's just something very satisfying about it.

You're using a massive magnet and there's something about that that's cool to me. Yeah. Well, I can't judge. My list of odd jobs, desired odd jobs is long and strange. So if you want to move scrap metal around, go for it. Do you have an odd job story for me from Reddit? I feel like I have a smattering of little stories, little snack-sized stories that I've found. But you just have so many questions for these people.

And you'll never really know unless you like spend a day in their shoes. Or maybe I should say in their lack of shoes. Because one woman posted an AMA, I think about three months ago, saying that she works in a nudist resort. Whoa. As a fitness instructor. Oh, no. She says I'm 28.

I've been working there for six years now, and I've still not gotten around to telling anybody I know that this is what I do. They all think I work in a gym. Part of my job is running aerobics and yoga classes, as well as various small events, while being contractually required to strip completely naked for my entire shift. Whoa. Someone commented, do staff have uniforms?

She writes back, staff uniform is whatever you were born with. That's what I got told my first interview. Wow. Yeah. I want to know if she's doing squats. Like, is she doing squats? I'm sure she's doing squats. Aerobics of any kind, yeah.

Or yoga? There's a lot of squat-like positions in yoga. Well, you know, respect. for those, respect for those who can do it. And then one that kind of just made me smile is another person from that thread said, I compose music and sound design effects for slots, meaning slot machines. I live in Vegas,

but still few people outside of the slot industry know my job exists. And someone asked how they even found that job, and they said they grew up in Vegas, they went to college for music, they just popped on Indeed after they graduated, and there were some jobs. postings for slot machine music composers.

This is amazing to me. Yeah. Because I grew up near two casinos. I swear to you, and you will understand this as a fellow musician, when you go through one of those like slot machine floors, I swear to you, everything is in C major. They basically pick the happiest, they pick the happiest sounding key. And they're just, they're just,

Damanon C major, all those slot machines, I swear to you. It could be. I mean, I don't know where I would begin per se, and I know this person, they say that they write some music based on Game of Thrones, Batman, Britney Spears. So they already have some... Oh, they're for the themed slot machines. Yeah, but that's not all that they do. But I don't know exactly where I would start. You know, I've never attempted to compose slot machine music,

and yet you just, you know that classic sound when you hear it. I mean, you start in C major. That's where you start. You start with the white keys. That's where you start. Boop, boop, boop, boop. I'd start with some beep-pity boops, some boop-by-boops. Yes.

Okay. And some bring dings. Mm, yeah. I know that I'm making this seem. I'm really oversimplifying his actual profession. that he pours his heart and soul into. So I mean, no disrespect. I'm just showing my ignorance when it comes to composing for the slot machine.

And I feel like I would want to ask him, like I'd probably consult an addiction psychologist or just someone who knows about what sounds, this sounds evil now. But what sounds. That dopamine release. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I'd want to find out what sounds kind of a. encourage people to play the game more.

The siren song. Yeah. But this does just make me sound evil. So I'm going to... Well, speaking of evil. Okay. Speaking of evil, I have an odd job story for you, but it's kind of meta and it involves video games, which I know you're a huge gamer.

Oh, you know me. I'm gaming all the time. When we come back, a different kind of odd job. At Radio Lab, we love that. nothing more than nerding out about science. Neuroscience, chemistry. But, but we do also like to get into other kinds of stories, stories about policing or politics, country music, hockey, sex, of bugs. Regardless of whether we're looking at science or not science, we bring a rigorous curiosity to get you the answers. And hopefully make you see the world anew. Radio Lab, Adventures on the

Edge of what we think we know. Wherever you get your podcast. There is something powerful about the sound of the human voice. Beautifully produced audio has the unique power to connect and inspire. Tell your organization's story with a custom podcast from City Space Productions, the Creative Studio from WBUR's Business Partnerships team. Become a thought leader. Recruit new talent. Reach new audiences.

Whatever your goal, we can help. Discover how the magic is made at WBUR.org slash creative studio. Okay, Amory, you've heard of video games. I've heard of them. But you're not a huge gamer, we can say, right? I just, yeah, I never, I've played like three games, video games in my life, maybe. Okay, okay. So do you, let me ask you this, what's your James Bond situation?

Like, are you watching James Bond movies? How do you feel about James Bond? I've only seen the Sean Connery ones. So this is, there's a movie that came out in 1964 called Goldfinger. Oh, yeah, Goldfinger. Is that how it goes? Yeah. That's right.

And so there's a character in that movie named Oz. A job. Do you have any recollection of A job who that character is? No. They're kind of all blurring together. Is Goldfinger the one where someone gets painted totally gold, right? They die from being painted gold? I believe that's right.

Okay. That's all I remember. Odd Job is like he's like a kind of like a villainous, I think he's like a limo driver technically. Okay. He is a man of not great stature. so, you know, familiar to the Amory Seversons of the world. He's at eye level. I appreciate it. And he has, he wears a top hat that is also a weapon if you throw it.

It's like a slicing weapon. Jumping now from that movie to a video game that was, for me, huge, huge video game. And for a lot of people, I think it was a very high-selling, you know, grossing video. game called Golden Eye, 007. Okay. It's a very early example of the kind of video games where you would choose characters and fight each other, like people, like friends could get together and kind of like choose different characters from James Bond movies slash the James Bond movie, GoldenEye,

and fight each other in these like different arenas, right, that were connected to some of the movies. And there's this character that you can pick that is odd job that is like very short, where's a tuxedo top hat situation, kind of like a limo driver would. And I sent you a GIF. I sent you a Reddit post that I want you to look at. Okay. Because this character was kind of notorious as a pick in this video game.

because the character was short, they were harder to shoot. Okay. Okay. Are you seeing this GIF that I sent you, that I chatted you? Yeah. There's like a kid busting forward saying bad form. Bad form. And the title is, when I was a kid playing 007 and my little brother chose odd job.

So there was this whole thing where like among my group of friends, you could not pick odd job. That was like one of the only rules among our friend group in playing this game because Ajaab was so difficult to hit that it was basically like cheating to pick Ajaub as a character because you were immediately more difficult to take down than other people in the game. So now I'm going to take you now to a post that is two years old that says GoldenEye devs have confirmed that playing as A job was, quote, kind of cheating. Did you ever ban any other character's items, classes, et cetera,

from your multiplayer gaming sessions like many of us did with Odd Job? So it wasn't just my group of friends. This is like a very, you know, this is a popular post. And this was a big deal, like people got into fights over this of whether or not you could choose Odd Job as your character when you were playing this game against other people. And there's an article linked to linked in this from Mel Magazine, if you've heard of that.

And it's an oral history of Golden I-O-7 on the N-64, so Nintendo 64. And the developers of the game do indeed admit that Odd Job as a character was like mathematically more difficult to shoot than these other characters that, at least in theory, you're sort of operating on an even playing field. But if you're Odd Job, you're cheating. Did Odd Job have a weakness? like, okay, he was harder to hit because he's small, but was there something else that you could do against him? That's a really excellent question, and I salute you as somebody who is not a video gamer to ask this question. What I will say is that our impression, and I don't think that this has been confirmed, but our impression, among my friend group at least, was that there is, you know, there is, you know,

there is like, most people go around sort of shooting at each other in this game, but there is a sort of melee attack when you can either slap somebody, you can sort of like karate chop them, or you can, you know, attack them with a knife. And in this game, there was a sense that if you were doing that, like if you were trying to attack Ajab with your hands, he was easier to take down because you would have a direct hit on his head more easily. Okay.

So I know you and probably all of our listeners are fascinated by this story. But I just, I did, I did want to shout out that Ajob, the character, you know, for those of you who like me always thought that A job was an unfair character to pick, it has now been confirmed that that is the case, that he was a harder character to kill. And personally, I feel vindicated. So there's that. Good. I'm happy for you.

And I want people out there to know that if you prefer to just be naked all day, you can make money doing that. You know? In many different ways. Many different ways. So there's a job out there. for everyone, for each and every one of us. And we just have to go find what makes our heart sing.

Here's to odd jobs. That's it for this week. If you work an odd job, we're going to start a thread in our subreddit about this. Tell us what you do. We want to know all about it. And we'll be back next week with another full meal-sized episode. See you then.