Most Useless Job in the Universe

When I worked for the phone company, one of my jobs was testing other vendors’ equipment. The purpose was to help our customers decide what equipment was most compatible with our ISDN service.

Unfortunately, vendors were upgrading their ISDN products so rapidly that the equipment I was testing was literally obsolete before the tests results were written up – every time. My job, for all practical purposes, was testing equipment that no one could purchase no matter how hard they tried. It was the most useless job in the universe.

Or so I thought.

Yesterday I was thinking about President Bush’s Secret Service detail. Their job is to protect the president against would-be assassins. That sounds like an important job until you ask yourself this question: “What kind of assassin would prefer Dick Cheney as president?”

I’m not making an anti-Bush or even an anti-Cheney statement here. It’s simply an observation that no one on the planet – Democrat or Republican or Green Party – thinks policies would improve if Cheney had the top spot.

Even Al Qaeda has no reason to go after a president with a two-thirds disapproval rating. If they ever got past Whitehouse security it would be to slip a baby aspirin into the President’s orange juice and leave some yoga brochures.

I know you’ll argue that the people who try to kill presidents are usually insane. For example, John Hinkley tried to kill Reagan to impress Jodie Foster. But even Hinkley would have realized that making Dick Cheney the leader of the free world doesn’t get you laid. Hinkley wasn’t THAT crazy.

I imagine myself in the job of protecting President Bush. Would I even bother wearing that itchy bullet-proof vest? And how much effort would I put into scanning the crowds for potential threats versus daydreaming about using my service weapon to shoot the Lincoln Memorial in the head just because it would be funny?

This made me wonder what other jobs might be competitive for the title of Most Useless in the Universe.

- Canada’s Minister of Defence?
- Libertarian Party’s candidate for president
- Sanjaya Malakar’s vocal coach?

Any ideas?

Comments

[Artbuff]

Lately I've been thinking the most useless jobs in the world are the Presidential Debate hosts. I'd get a better read on their fitness for president by letting my dog sniff their hineys.

[James Bach]

To our friends in Canada,

Everybody in the U.S. loves Canada. You're friendly (except for your customs people). You're harmless. You're cute. If you were ever invaded by Iceland, you know we would send our planes and tanks to brush them off for you. WE VOW THAT YOU SHALL NEVER FIGHT ICELAND ALONE!

That's why it's fun to joke about how you've got no military. I mean, yes, you have a "military", but no, you really don't have a military. Admit this to yourselves. You don't have a military for the same reason I don't wave a gun around when I'm getting my groceries: you're not violent and crazy. You're wonderful. You're CANADA!

Let the U.S. be your wacky gun-totin' brother. It'll be like a sitcom where you are the calm one who gets people talking, and when you get clobbered by a bottle, we go crazy and kill everyone. And let us kid you about your peacefulness, because don't you see, we're really kidding ourselves about our violentness, and about our secret plan to invade you when global warming opens up all that Canadian tundra for development.

I've said too much...

[john]

I'm reminded of 16th century France, when a situation like this happened...

France is 4/5ths catholic, 1/5 protestant at this point.

Henry III is kind of France, and Henry of Nabarre is the guy in charge of the protestant region of France. Henry III makes a deal to marry his daughter to henry of Nabarre, and become ruler of France when he dies.

News of the wedding spreads, and it's announced that Henry of Nabarre will be the next ruler of France.

Henry III is en route to one of his many castles, and along the road there is a monk (catholic), who assassinates Henry III because he was angry that Henry III made a protestant next in line to the throne.

Henry of Nabarre (a protestant) now becomes Henry IV, king of France.

The monk might have been missing something upstairs...The full story is a good bit more complicated- there's an order of magnitude more intrigue thrown into the mix. I've always thought the story would make an excellent movie.

[Shrini]

Did you really spend your time testing obsolete equipment?

No wonder you come up with the most twisted and hilarious stuff...

My two pence for the most useless jobs in the universe....
Weapons inspector in Iraq...
Suntan salesmen in Alaska...
Jeffrey Archer... his ghosts write all his stories...
Commentator on Dilbertblog - I don't think it makes a difference, except to satiate your overblown ego.

[Eddie]

Border Patrol - Watch the news they do nothing
Teachers - When you have to teach them how to teach the class...

[Bob]

Money arist, who cares what my money looks like as long as i can pay for my food with it, hire a cat or a dog whichever is cheapest and have it scribber in paper, then right $% and call it good

[Listo Entertainment]

Most useless job?
In Spain we even have a King, useless and well-paid.

[Sly]

I was at a company who provided the website version of the content from several tech related magazines. After a company acquisition the company lost hte rights to publish online versions of those magazines.

One of my co-workers was given the job of sifting through the database of content and deleting any records that came from those magazines, thus removing the content from the site. Two weeks after working on this project, he finally deleted the last record. But when he printed out the final report for his boss it showed there wer over twenty records from the magazines.

When he investigated the problem he found that the records were brand new and had been added that day.

It turns out that the guy whose job it is to scan the magazines into the database had never been told to stop doing so. It took another week for everyone to get clearance for this guy to stop loading in the magazines. The other guy would then have to go in and delete the records.

And then once they told magazine loader (his only job responsibility) to stop loading magazines they kept him in the same job for 6 more months. A Magazine Content Loader for an organization with no magazines to load.

[neers]

most of the religious leaders in india

[Allen]

Obviously, anyone who would assassinate President Bush hates America (ie, wants Cheney to become president instead).

Telemarketers, by far. They're useless, and everybody hates them. I'd imagine that even they'd grow to hate themselves.

As for your job at the phone company, the only people who'd despise you would be the managers, and stockholders.

[Cronzo4]

Seriously, everybody taking offense at the Canada’s Minister of Defense comment... GET OVER IT!!!!! Yeah we make fun of you down here! I have been to Canada on multiple occasions so I already know that YOU MAKE FUN OF US TOO!!! IT WAS JUST A JOKE SO GO OVERDOSE ON CHILL PILLS!!!!!

[some dude]

And I thought the teacher's job of teaching what some learned in kindergarten,others who hadn't figured out what's 2 and 2,and the majority who don't care either way is useless

[Disappointed in Canada]

Scott:

I am a faithful Canadian reader and feel compelled to let you know how inappropriate your comment about our military was. I am proud that I am from a nation that is regarded as a peacekeeper rather than one that uses its mightier military arsenal somewhat indiscriminately and without cause (or perhaps rather for the wrong cause). In the schoolyard which kid deserved more respect? The bully or the kid who helped the bully's targets up off the ground?

Frankly, irresponsible military actions on the part of the US have tarnished, if not ruined, the country's reputation on an international level, while Canada is still well-respected, despite the fact that we have a smaller military. Maybe that's because bigger is not better when you are a nation that elects and reelects someone incapable or unwilling to manage its power with prudence. Maybe we're more respected because we see things like universal health care as better ways to use our money...

[Woody]

If Bush was assassinated, then left-wingers would say that he and Karl Rove were up to some sinister plot.

[admiral krunch]

Queen of England

[Bill]

Libertarian candidate for President is a pretty good one. The major-party candidates are actively harmful, not useless.

[Robert]

lol

[Sal]

Saddam Hussein's personal doctor.

[Roni]

Test Manager

[DL From Heidelberg]

Scott,
Most useless job in the universe? Seriously, cartoonist never crossed your mind?

[Tim Birdsall]

Danbert - did you know that Spiro Agnew's name is an anagram of "Grow a new penis"?

[Bruno Berthold]

(note: didn't read any of the replies, so I might repeat something)

- Britney's press secretary
- OJ's publisher
- Simon Cowell's personal stylist
- Paris' boyfriend
- Larry King's cue card holder (I'm sure he doesn't know he/she exists)
- Ahmadinejad's anger management coach
- President Bush's speach coach
- Nicole Ritchie's nutritionist

I could go on...

[mdc]

- Canada’s Minister of Defence?

This is a very serious job. He's got a lot on his plate, getting together all the resources we'll need to make enough snowballs to start throwing them across the border.

[Darren S. A. George]

"However, since the breakup of the USSR, we're actually the biggest country. No, really. Go Google yourself if you don't believe me."
Uh, no- Russia (which got 80% of the land that was once the USSR) is still much larger than Canada. So go google yourself, and the moose you rode in on.

[A Canadian]

OK,
I took the shot at us Canucks about us beer sods throwing snowballs over the border, with or with our now needed passports, thanks to the U.S., but this is to much.
The most useless job in world, Defense Minister of Canada?
But come to think of it, it’s not bad. Most Americans don’t know where Canada is, I'm not kidding!
And you called him a Minister, well done! He is indeed a Minister and not a Secretary,
Do you call them Secretaries? Or just back room dealers, as apposed to arms dealers?
Any way I’m not here to bash Americans, you do that quite well all by your self’s every time you let Bush or any south US person talk.

Have a nice day, eh?