As RedEye began searching for a few brave souls to share stories about their unusual jobs, we wanted to know two things: One, that they like their jobs. Two, that part of their job is gross.
As in disgusting, vile, putrid. Foul, repugnant, horrid.
You get the idea.
So if trudging to work in the dead of winter has you thinking your job stinks, just wait until you get a load of the stuff these folks have to do.
‘Dolphin poop … happens’
Done with breakfast? Because the story of what Ken Ramirez once had to eat may keep you from finishing yours.
Ramirez, 48, is the vice president of animal collections and animal training at Shedd Aquarium, where he is responsible for the day-to-day care of dolphins, sea lions and other sea creatures.
“I really enjoy making a connection with the animals,” Ramirez says. “Being able to care for an animal every day and being involved with the day-to-day care of an animal is very rewarding.”
Well, not always.
A few years ago, Ramirez was obtaining a stool sample from a dolphin. The method in use was one in which a long tube was inserted into the animal.
“You’d put the clean end of the tube in your mouth and do a little bit of a straw and suck,” he says.
You see where this is going?
“I remember on one particular occasion I sucked a little too hard and ended up with a mouthful of dolphin fecal matter,” he says. “I never intended to have a mouthful of dolphin poop, but it happens.”
Sure, it happens. Sea lion waste happens also, though in a different way. Most waste is disposed of through aquarium filter systems, but sea lion waste is more dense than others, so it builds up and needs to be scooped out by hand.
Ramirez and other Shedd staffers who do this wear gloves and body suits so they don’t come in direct contact with it. The key is to not let it break apart.
“If you know how to handle it right, you can scoop that poop without letting it dissipate and become a cloud,” Ramirez says.
Incidents like that can cloud an otherwise enjoyable job.
“Sometimes you run into these tasks that [and] you think, ‘This is not what I signed on for.’ “
RATS, MAGGOTS AND MORE RATS
If there’s a rat scurrying past Rob Stark’s feet, it must be Monday. Or Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday.
Stark sees rats every day that he makes his rounds as a garbage man with Lake Shore Waste Services. Winter, summer, spring or fall–rats are always there, he says.
“I’ve come across every kind of rodent that you can possibly imagine,” says Stark, 34. “I’ve had rats run up my arm, I’ve had rats caught in the hood of my jacket.”
You might think Stark would get used to rats and other rodents, but no. He has to open garbage cans all day long, and sometimes he forgets that garbage isn’t the only thing in there.
“The day after my honeymoon, I picked up one can that had an opossum in it,” Stark says. “It just hissed, and I was gone. I don’t even think I touched the ground for 20 feet.”
At least rats and other rodents are equally scared of him. Maggots, on the other hand, have no fear.
It’s common for some debris to fly out of the truck when it’s crushing garbage. On at least two occasions, Stark says, maggots have flown into his mouth.
“They weren’t in there long,” he says.
The stink of garbage is a big problem for Stark, but it goes away in the winter when the heat doesn’t make things worse. The worst smells come from restaurants that schedule pickups only once a week, he says.
“Sitting in a Dumpster for a week with the sun beating down on it, it’s spoiled, and it’s not smelling good,” he says.
There are some perks. He once found $300 in Bloomingdale’s gift cards, and he still uses a camcorder recovered from a Dumpster a few years ago. Besides that, Stark likes who he works with, the rats and other rodents aside.
“You talk to different people, run into different people every day,” Stark says. “It’s never the same thing. It’s fun.”
SPERM BANK IS ‘ULTIMATE IN JOB SATISFACTION’
Marybeth Gerrity feels blessed. People come to her with hopes of becoming parents, and she helps them fulfill their dreams.
“It’s the ultimate in job satisfaction,” says Gerrity, 53, who runs Chicago-based Reproductive Biology Resources, a sperm bank.
It’s not as simple as showing up and asking Gerrity to send over a stork. To become a parent, sperm is needed. And there’s only one way to get it.
“The men come into the office, and they masturbate,” Gerrity says. “That’s as blunt as I can put it.”
Go ahead and make a joke; Gerrity says she has heard them all. None are worse than the ones made by men right before they head into the “collection room.”
“Some guys are like, ‘Who’s going to help me? How about that person right there?’ ” Gerrity says. “Well, grow up buddy.”
Gerrity also has to deal with more substantive issues, such as arriving at work and immediately being handed a dozen vials of sperm.
“They don’t smell great, they don’t look great,” she says. “There are some days that it doesn’t grab you in a big way.”
What grabs her even less is when some men, confused and apparently naive, give her urine samples or, worse, stool samples.
Others know full well what they need to give Gerrity, but their problem is aim. Who has to clean that up? That job falls to Gerrity on occasion.
Then there are the guys who have, shall we say, productivity troubles.
“You send a guy in to collect a sample, and he can’t collect it?” Gerrity asked. “That’s not a happy thing for anybody.”
WORK IN SEWERS CAN GET ‘PRETTY SICK’
Chicago taxpayers can be certain that when it comes to the city’s sewer workers, they’re getting their money’s worth.
Who would dawdle in a dark, smelly, disgusting sewer?
“You’re looking for what you got to fix, fix it and get the hell out of there,” said repair foreman Jim McDarrah, 47, a 28-year veteran of Chicago’s Water Management Department.
McDarrah, who oversees four three-man crews that do sewer repair work, has worked in sewers all over Chicago and says many areas have their own unique blend of sewage.
When he worked under the intersection of Fullerton Avenue and Pulaski Road, he would find hypodermic needles and, oddly, feathers in the sewer.
At 37th Street and Sangamon Street, McDarrah once was confronted with rivers of blood and grease from the meatpacking plants nearby.
The smell of grease, which tends to accumulate in areas near restaurants, disgusts him the most.
“You got your regular human waste that’s floating by, but the grease, you go home and you take a shower, and you still smell it,” McDarrah said. “It’s awful.”
Worse than human waste?
“That’s pretty sick too,” McDarrah said. “It’s not a pretty job.”
Sewage workers wear boots and other gear that protect them from sewage, which McDarrah said looks like dirty water.
But occasionally, sewage workers are their own worst enemies.
“There was one guy, his false teeth fell into the sewer,” McDarrah said. “And he just picked them up, shook them off and put them back in his mouth.”
Ugh.
McDarrah, who has been splashed in the face by sewer water a few times, said there’s one thing that always revolts him.
“You’ve got corn that floats by,” McDarrah said. “Where’s the corn come from? Figure that one out. It’s disgusting.”
COLON HEALTH CARE ALL IN A DAY’S WORK
Christina Pfeifer deals with “blowouts” in her line of work that have nothing to do with tires or sporting events.
For nine years, Pfeifer has performed colon hydrotherapy–you know them as colonics–which cleans out one’s colon.
A “blowout” occurs when a tube is overwhelmed while trying to dispose of fecal matter.
Pfeifer, 35, is the co-owner of Colon Care of Healing Quest Center, at 920 N. Franklin St. Her parents were advocates of colonics, and Pfeifer got her first one when she was 14.
“People [tell] me at their first colonic that I’m a fairly normal person, and then after five or 10 minutes they’ll say, ‘How does someone like you get involved in this?’ ” Pfeifer says.
“It really boils down to making people feel better.”
Blowouts are infrequent, but Pfeifer says clients often have a “release” on the table, and some are unable to make it from the table to the bathroom in time.
“Accidents happen,” Pfeifer says.
Accidents aren’t the job’s only gross part.
“As you can imagine when people are having toxic releases, it can emit a foul odor,” she says.
“The embarrassing part is when it doesn’t stay in the confines of the room and works its way down the hall. And everyone else in the office is screaming, ‘Light some incense!’ “
