Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Interesting jobs

Interesting job #1:My long-lost buddy Rand, who moved from Chicago to NYC and got a job delivering blue-chip artwork to buyers for auction houses. When I asked him about how the company was insured, he said there was none; the stuff being transported was irreplaceable, and they simply drove around in unmarked white vans, going to bazillion dollar brownstones and condos delivering paintings and such. Fascinating.Interesting job #2:A member of the New Zealand Armed Forces, whose job in the '70s and '80s was humping around in New Guinea and the Pacific Islands looking for abandoned ordnance from World War II. He described one case of talking to some locals, who directed him to some remote spot, where he found an entire airstrip which had been left 'as-is' since 1945, with aircraft still in crates. The US had simply bailed out and left it. He found all kinds of stuff like that. What a cool job.