I honestly don’t think I’ve ever done anything really stupid for money before.
At least nothing that I can remember…
But who knows, maybe something I did late one night for a few bucks is buried so deep in my psyche that I’ll never recover it again. And that might be a good thing…
Have you ever been paid to do something pretty stupid?
Let’s see what folks on AskReddit had to say about this.
1. Easy money.
“I got paid $1,000 to have giant balloons attached to me and hand out temporary tattoos of Fox animated shows (Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, etc) at ComicCon for 3 days.”
2. Just kickin’ back.
“I did an event for a national association for deaf people at which they did every presentation in ASL.
I am an audio engineer, who specializes in live sound and concerts. I did nothing for 5 days of show, $450 a day”
3. Good company.
“When I was 19, I meet an heiress (I think she was in her fifties).
She paid me $20 an hour to go to lunch with her. She would take me to five star restaurants and we would shoot the s**t for 1-2 hours every week. That is literally all she wanted from me… to sit and eat lunch with her at a fancy restaurant.
It was nice, I was poor so that extra 20-40 bucks a week made a big difference and I got to eat some of the best food in Houston. She was a nice lady. I taught her how to pump her own gas and took her to a grocery store for the first time in her life. She taught me proper table manners and that not all rich people are narcissistic jerks.”
4. I’ll take it!
“$175 to do some kind of user study at Netflix.
II show up in the lobby and then they go, “actually we got the data we needed from the studies earlier today, you’re free to go!”.
Still got paid!”
5. Whatever you say!
“I got paid $10,000 to leave an apartment because the new owner wanted to move in.
I was the tenant under the previous owner. I had 4 months left in my rental contract.
This was in Barcelona.”
6. Wow.
“Had a WFH gig working sort of as a personal assistant for a rich guy on the opposite coast from me.
I did all kinds of wacky s**t for him. For example, one time I had to break up with my boss’s girlfriend because he was too wimpy to do it himself. Rly, weird s**t like that was literally my job.
One day, I bought him a new pickup truck. Meaning, I negotiated the deal and paid for the truck with his credit card. All in all, I’d say the process probably took about two weeks, for which I was paid my usual wage at six hours per day. No big deal.
Somehow, his dad found out about the new truck and he decided he wanted a new pickup truck too. He called me about a week after I bought the truck for my boss and said he’d pay me $2,000 to buy a truck for him. I called the same dealership back, spoke to the same salesman, told him what was up and basically said give me another truck, same price as before. The salesman was only too happy to comply.
It took ten minutes to make the phone call and then a day or two to get the title and other paperwork sorted out. So, depending on how you look at it, I made $2,000 for just ten minutes worth of “work”.
Somehow, my boss’s rich friend found out about all this. He decided he wanted a new SUV. “OhYeahThrowItAway, you have to buy it for me!” I told him the last time I bought someone a vehicle, I got paid $2,000. The friend was basically like “F**k it, I’ll pay you $3,000, just get it for me” and then he emailed me his wish list.
That deal took a little longer, maybe two weeks.
I made $5k extra in just two months buying vehicles for lazy (or dumb) rich people.”
7. No snow in the forecast.
“Got paid $300 to shovel my neighbors front steps and driveway while she was away on vacation all winter.
It did not even flurry once.”
8. That was quick.
“I was paid $300 to move my car for a movie that was filming by my apartment.”
9. It’s a bet.
“Waiter said it was impossible to lick your elbow.
I informed him I could do it.
He bet me $5 I couldn’t do it.
I increased my net worth by $5.”
10. Don’t go in there.
“I got asked to do 2 hours of barrier watch (Guarding a barrier ribbon while a crew did x rays inside a power plant).
This was asked last minute after a 12 hour shift so the bonuses of staying happening to be a Sunday, etc I was being paid $110 to stand and play on my phone and make sure sure nobody tried to pass all the DO NOT ENTER DANGER DANGER signs during a time of day with minimal personnel.”
11. Sitting around.
“Twenty five years ago, and in Indiana, the law was that in order to operate nail salon, someone there must hold a full cosmetology license, not just a nail technician license.
A nail salon opened next to the hair salon I worked at and they all held nail technician licenses and the one who held a cosmetology license would be delayed in Korea for a week for whatever reason. At 18 years old, I was paid $25 an hour to merely to sit in the nail salon as the “holder of the license.”
I answered no phones, tended to no clients, did nothing but paint my own nails repeatedly and watch tv for an entire week. Was a sweet, sweet gig.”
12. Whatever you want.
“$1325
The guy wanted a drawing of his pony having s** with a bunch of balloons shaped like various cartoon characters in a massive collage. My rate charges per character per fetish, and he came to me fully prepared to dump $1500 on the complete commission after adding it all up himself.
I gave him a discount since even I felt like it was insanity. I probably should have charged the full amount since it did end up taking me 2 weeks to do on and off just from burnout at drawing the same style balloon over and over just in different shapes, but that was definitely the most silly/dumb commission I’ve ever had, or at least the most I’ve been commissioned for something dumb/silly.”
Have you ever done anything really dumb for money?
If the answer is YES, please tell us all about it in the comments.
We’d love to hear from you!
