FEELING miserable about sweating in an office in July? Cheer yourself up by reflecting on the differences between these jobs and yours.
Roofer
You’re well out of this. On a roof you’re nearer the sun so it’s bound to be even hotter than at ground level. Sure, there are perks like wolf-whistling passing women and making lewd comments, but the success rate for actual relationships is probably low. Yes, being baked alive on a dangerous roof makes your inadequate office desk fan look like unimaginable luxury. Enjoy.
Chef
Professional kitchens are full of big metal boxes specifically designed to get up to 300 degrees, and you can’t open the windows because flies and wasps will get in. Suddenly reclining on a chair in a badly air-conditioned office doesn’t seem too bad. Chefs aren’t even allowed to sweat in case it drips on customers’ food. Could this perhaps be a new career direction for Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor? He should hand his CV in at Pizza Express.
Landscape gardener
Paving slabs weigh a f**king ton, as, surprisingly, do wheelbarrows full of topsoil. But that won’t stop people insisting they want their new patio down before their barbecue garden party at the weekend. There’s also shitloads more wasps’ nests when it’s hot, which you’ll discover when you’re cutting hedges. The only real danger of working in a hot office is brain damage from people repeatedly saying ‘Hot, isn’t it?’
Steam train boilerman
What an idyllic life, pootling through the Severn Valley in a cute heritage steam train. But not so much if you’re the unlucky f**ker shovelling coal onto a raging fire. And when you do finally stop at a rural station, you’ll be inundated with snotty-nosed little bastards and their parents wanting to take pictures with you. That has never happened to someone whose job is using spreadsheets.
Ice cream man
Sounds perfect, being surrounded by frozen sweet treats. But those freezer units pump out heat into the tiny metal box you’re encased in, while outside waits a baying horde of tiny bastards thrusting sweaty coins at you. Worse, your income is entirely dependent on the weather. Even the most miserable corporate drone doesn’t get their pay cut by 60 per cent because it was cold on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Although your company would like to try that.
Blast furnace worker
Anywhere hot enough to melt pig iron, copper and lead isn’t an ideal place to work in the summer. Frankly just the thought of it makes you feel a bit dizzy and relieved you passed your GCSEs. Your office may be deeply unpleasant and stuffy, but you’re pretty sure it’s not 1,300C.
