Dive into the sewage and study the armpits: the most terrible professions

“If you study poorly, you will become a janitor.” For a long time, this phrase has been a popular horror story with parents and teachers. But times are changing. Try to guess which job today is most often called the most terrible and unprestigious?

He is a retailer and security guard. It’s all about the high intensity of work and the lack of real career prospects.

However, if you look into the past, it is not difficult to see that working at the checkout or as a security guard is not so bad. About the most terrible professions in the history of mankind tells program “Unknown History” with Boris Ryzhov on REN TV.

Sewage cleaners working with bare hands

American kids want to be bloggers, and Chinese kids want to be astronauts. These are the results of an international survey in which 3,000 schoolchildren from the UK, the US and China took part. In China, the second most popular profession is the profession of a teacher, and the third is a musician. In the US and Britain, the teaching profession is also in second place. And on the third – the career of a professional athlete.

But if every second would like to become a blogger in the modern world, then no one dreams of this profession. It is called the most terrible in the world. In Calcutta, India, unfortunate hard workers dive into sewers and clear blockages with their bare hands. They don’t have uniforms or equipment. Nobody follows the safety rules either.

Surish Magara has been working as a cleaner since 1987. He always says a little prayer before going down the sewer.

“Anything can happen, I can suffocate or drown in sewage. But God protects me. I’m still alive,” he shared

To protect themselves at least somehow, the workers carry out a simple test – they lower a lit candle into the hatch. If it goes out, it means that there is no oxygen there, and it is unsafe to descend. But the effectiveness of this method is low. After all, carbon dioxide can accumulate at the bottom of the well.

“I was in the well getting ready to do my job when I suddenly felt unwell. I started to choke. I looked up –other workers shouted for me to get up immediately. I gathered my strength, got to the surface and immediately lost consciousness. I’m lucky to survive.” said sewer cleaner Sitaram Majalkar.

Food tasters for rulers

But if sewer cleaners have any chance of surviving, members of this profession almost never lived to old age. We’re talking about food tasters. Such a person was necessary for every ruler. They had only one duty – to try all the dishes served on the table of the monarch, to make sure that they were not poisoned.

“This profession, on the one hand, seems to be pleasant: eating food from powerful tables is wonderful, but it was associated with an immediate risk to life. Although, of course, history knows repeated precedents when such people settled very well on life”, – said the historian, publicist Stanislav Lavrov.

Perhaps, the taster of the Roman emperor Claudius, Halotus, did his job the worst. In the 54th year, the ruler died, poisoned by poison. Emperor Nero ascended the throne. And the first thing he did was to promote Halotus in office and reward him with a large sum. Many historians are sure that the taster fulfilled Nero’s order. But he managed not only to stay alive, but also to become one of the richest people in the Roman Empire by old age.

Pet Food Tasters

Tasting food prepared for the first persons of the state can even be pleasant. What about animal feed? In 1860, the Englishman James Spratt prepared the first crackers for dogs – from vegetables, beef blood, wheat and beets. He had to evaluate the taste of the delicacy himself.

But later, when Spratt’s know-how became popular and the food began to be produced on an industrial scale, companies needed professional tasters.

“It tastes good! Peas and carrots are felt. If I put this in the filling of the pie, I assure you, you would not understand the catch,” – said the girl.

Becoming a pet food taster is not easy. Diploma in dietetics, developed taste buds and the absence of health problems – this is the minimum required for a successful career. Tasters do not complain about their work, because they receive a decent remuneration – in the West, this is an average of 50 to 100 thousand dollars a year.

Deodorant testers to sniff underarms

Deodorant testers earn even more. At first glance, this profession may seem unattractive. In one working day, such specialists sometimes have to sniff the armpits of hundreds of people. To do this, use special funnels, they are brought to the armpits of the subjects, and the aroma is inhaled.

“Don’t be shy, honey. Imagine that you are a fairy and you have to help this guy smell good. It’s okay, I’ve been smelling my armpits for 22 years,” – said the man.

However, the testers are quite satisfied with their work. It pays well and brings great benefits to society. Just imagine that you were on the subway at rush hour, where all the passengers did not use deodorants.

“Many people think that I’m some kind of fetishist, but no. I’ll tell you more: some people smell really terrible. But over the past 12 months I’ve earned two million dollars. Large cosmetic companies are willing to pay well for quality expertise,” Barry Dewitt, technical director of the Princeton Institute for Consumer Research, said.

For such a salary, you can suffer some inconvenience.

Whipping boys – why was their role prestigious?

The inhabitants of medieval Europe reasoned in exactly the same way, giving their sons to the palaces of monarchs, where they played the role of whipping boys. To receive such an opportunity was considered incredible luck. Although the lives of these children could not always be envied.

“When royal power was deified in medieval Europe, the pupils-princes, of course, were endowed with the same divine status by birthright, and this entailed some educational problem, since their educators could not punish them. A rather exotic means was invented , from the point of view of psychology, a means. That is, with these heirs, their boy friends were made, and they were punished for the guilty princes, ” – said the historian Lavrov.

Teachers beat innocent children, sparing no rods. And the princes drew conclusions about their behavior. Or they ignored what was happening, here it’s already how lucky. But the whipping boys received the best education, ate from the royal table, and often became good friends for the heir to the throne.

Different versions of historical events, amazing episodes of history, little-known facts and interesting theories – study all this and much more in the Unknown History program with Boris Ryzhov on REN TV.