82 People Shared Their Stories Of Getting Paid To Do Dumb Things

"I was paid $100 per week to check on my university professor’s guinea pig while she was on sabbatical in another country for 2 months. I had to go in each day and check on it and take care of it. Instructions were to buy it organic romaine lettuce and baby carrots to eat, clean the cage once a week and the best part... I had to give it his wrapped Christmas gifts on Christmas Eve, open them in front of him and take pictures of him with his new toys and treats to send to the professor."

"When I was 22 I was working at "Marshalls" and 2 middle age women bought a workout machine. I had to carry it to their car and put it in the trunk. One of the ladies offered me $200 to come over after work and set it up shirtless. Easiest $200 I ever made."

"I rented my chicken to a photographer for fifty bucks."

"Rich dude once paid me and my ex girlfriend $500 each to stay in south beach an extra day and go to a yacht party with him so he didn’t have to go alone."

"I signed up for a medical study. They did a physical and had me do an at home sleep study to check eligibility. They paid me $150 for doing this part. They called after and asked me if I knew I had sleep apnea. I had no clue. I wasn't eligible for the rest of the study because of it. So I got paid $150 to get diagnosed with sleep apnea."

"My mom worked for an incredibly wealthy lady as a housekeeper for 10 Years. I also worked for her as a shopping guy for 3 or 4 Years, so I went to get groceries, stuff for her dog, medicine, and all that stuff. Her husband bought himself a brand-new Porsche Boxter. But he needed to go on a business trip, so he couldn't do and pick up the car in person so he send me. But he also didn't wanna break in the car when he came back in 3 Weeks, he wanted to have fun, drive maybe on a Racetrack. So I needed to drive 3000 KM with the Car so the engine would be good for a track day. I literally drove a car around for 3 weeks and was paid for it."

"$175 to do some kind of user study at "Netflix", I 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!"

"I made $10/hr. (2006) to open soda cans, pour them out and throw them away.

I was working at a Pepsi plant through this temp agency. When the cans come out of the machine, all of the defected cans get kicked out into these side compartments. I had to keep the side compartments clear so that the defected cans wouldn't end up mixed in with the regular ones. I was instructed to open the cans, pour them on the floor, and throw them in the trash. Of course I drank some. Also, I got fired! Sodas in this stage of production are super carbonated/pressurized. So what you learn to do is, lightly hit the can on the side of the machine and it'll explode. Much easier and more fun than opening the cans to pour them out. Even more fun is launching these carbonated grenades towards your coworkers. Apparently starting soda can fights is frowned upon."

"When I was younger my geography teacher realized I was the only one paying attention (second last class on a Friday, most people were antsy) so he stopped in the middle of his lecture once and said 'I'll give all the change in my pockets to anyone who can repeat back to me what I've been saying this past minute.' He tried a few of my other classmates for fun, but the most they could guess was the general topic. He got to me and I was able to recite what he was talking about, and he gave me all his change. I got paid enough money for a carton of chocolate milk and a scone for paying attention."

"I tutored for the 21- year- old daughter of a wealthy family and charged around $65 an hour. I warned in advance that I still charged for cancellations if there was less than 24 hours' notice, but she would regularly arrange 6-hour sessions or longer, then cancel on the day. I told them and let them off the charge the first few times, but nothing changed so I thought, f*** it . For 6 months or so, I was probably making an extra $400 on average per week just for cancellations."

"Rich family paid me $500 (minimum) a night to babysit their 8 year old son. I was about 18 (certified for child CPR, first aid, and grew up watching my nephews from a young age). I never set a price, just told them to pay me what they thought was fair. The kid was very polite and basically a young adult. I'm not sure if he took etiquette classes or something but his face lit up when we played pretend ninjas for the first time. He slayed three of them in one slash haha. I was also there for his first skinned knee, and he took it like a champ. Just kept saying "Oh man, it hurts a lot!" But wound up extremely proud of it. One night they called abruptly to have me come sit, paid me in advance, then left three hundred dollars "for pizza or whatever, you can keep the change, too." Then took off for three hours. They wanted him in bed an hour after they left but I gave him two and a half to play DK country. Overall, dumb, but such good money. 10/10 would babysit again haha. Male babysitters have it rough, though. It got a lot of wierd looks."

"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 stuff 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. 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. "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*** 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."

"Got paid $40,000 to not show up at work. It was the financial crisis and there was a hiring freeze right before I was due to start work. The company I was to work for couldn't honour the employment contract we signed, but it was all very sudden and my would-be bosses felt bad enough about the situation that they offered me half a year's salary as a gesture of goodwill."

"I once did a psych study where I was told to talk to a guy about a few controversial topics (abortion, military, etc.). Afterward they said, "as an unrelated thing, here is a box with a small cup. We are doing a different study where a guy will have to eat a random amount of hot sauce, so he'll just have to eat whatever you put in there." So my immediate reaction was to fill the thing with as much sauce as it would handle. Afterward, they informed me that the actual purpose of the study was to see how willing people were to inflict pain on others (hot sauce) if they had just had a heated debate with someone (secretly another researcher). Also I was the control group I guess because the person I talked to was agreeable about everything. Long story short, I am scientifically proven to be an a***ole."

"I am currently being paid to be an engineer for $55,000 and I have no idea what I’m doing."

"Someone paid me $50 for every snake I removed from his shed. I told him they were rat snakes and did more good than harm but he wanted them out. Made $200 in about 30 minutes. Then he got a rat infestation."

"Visited NYC, a strange series of events happened, next thing I know I'm on set shooting a commercial that plays on a TV within the TV show. I was there 4 hours just hanging out, was in front of a camera for literally 5 seconds just holding a cell phone with no lines, made $12,000. It was so dumb and so random, but as goes my life."

"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."

"I quit smoking for $250. The only requirement was that I smoked at least 1 cigarette in the last month, so I bummed one off a friend and smoked outside the clinic, then I "quit". I got my $250 and told them to keep me in mind for future studies. Apparently, it was easier for me than many of the participants."

"I have lived in China for a while. Not long after I first arrived, a friend of my work colleague asked if they could hire me for their wedding. All I had to do was go there and pretend to know the bride and groom. I later learned from my Chinese wife that for some people it's seen as a weird sort of prestigious thing to be friends with a white American. In fact, that's what the lady who hired me basically said, but I thought there had been some loss in translation. I mingled with the people at the wedding as best as I could, clinging on to the three people who spoke barely enough English. People took a lot of photos of me. I think I took more photos with the bride than her new husband did. I ate some new things. I danced badly. I sang karaoke worse. I maybe added 50 people to my Wechat (a HUGE mistake, as now everyone wanted a white monkey friend). Basically, I either ruined those people's wedding, or made it the most epic event in the history of their entire lineage. I was paid $200 by a friend of the coworker but was given nearly $1,000 by the groom. They got way, way, way more than that from gifts, so I sort of felt like it was the "Pay the hooker to get her to leave" fee. Good times."