- The Discovery Channel television series "Dirty Jobs"
is outstanding in many ways. It might be the ultimate in reality television.
No awards here or voting for best anything. Just plain, hard filthy dirty
work in the harshest of conditions.
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- The show lays to rest the common mainstream myth
"there are jobs that ONLY illegal aliens will do, and that's why we
need them." If you've never heard of the television show, can't access
it or have not seen it before, you'll quickly find that picking
crops is clean work compared to numerous jobs few have ever heard of before.
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- We'll look at stomach turning dirty jobs that AMERICANS are
doing everyday. The show's host Mike Rowe wears the same protection
(or lack thereof) that workers use for each job. Mike actually does
the dirty job for a full work day. As someone with background in broadcasting,
theater and film, there is a cardinal rule often heard in all the arts:
"Don't let anything happen to the talent at any cost." This
show violates that edict in every show. Mike is treated the same as
employees, often yelled at by on-camera foreman and supervisors with "hurry
up, you're getting behind" or "if you were working for me, you
wouldn't be anymore."
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- Below are some of the jobs actually worked by Mike Rowe.
This only for 2005.
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- NOTE: If you are about eat a meal or have a weak
stomach, don't say I didn't warn you! Click your browser's "Back"
button.
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- * Sewer inspector - these workers clean and repair sewers
in steamy summer California heat (and all around America's cities)
while hundreds of rats move about them, and thousands of big cockroaches
scamper about the walls and drop on their backs. They also find their
way into the protective jumpsuits and Mike found they crawl into the
crack...well, you know where it is.
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- * Chicken sexer - handling tens of thousands of chickens
each day, workers sort males from females while gently squeezing the genital
area to determine sex.
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- * Oyster Shucker - After splitting the shells on Oysters,
tens of thousands of discarded shells must be sorted through for foreign
material in the boiling hot sun of America's South Carolina coast. Shells
are loaded on a special flat deck boat, and hosed off the deck into
the water in special designated areas off-shore to help sustain new oyster
beds. This is probably the "cleanest dirty job" I've seen Mike
do.
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- Mike Rowe cleaning sludge (Discovery Channel website)
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- * Sludge Cleaner - This dirty job requires working
inside sewer collection tanks with hoses and shovels to remove solid
grease and waste from collection tanks.
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- * Hot Tar Roofer - The name says it all. A great way
to lose several pounds in one day while you fry in the sun while putting
on a roof.
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- * Coffee Farmer - For special coffee blends, Donkey fecal
matter is spread by hand among the plants for fertilizer. Losing a boot
in the sticky "compost" is just one of the job's hazards.
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- * Ostrich Farmer - The birds regurgitate an evil
smelling, stomach turning black vomit into the very water they drink from.
Mike Rowe was gagging as he emptied the buckets and washed them out. Something
to think about the next time you see an Ostrich feather in a hat or on
a dancer's costume.
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- * Chinatown Garbage Collector - It's food, right?
How bad can that be? From midnight to 3AM, 200 stops must be made before
the morning rush hour. It requires walking quickly through twisting, winding
alleys and traversing numerous stairwells. Garbage is carried at a
fast pace in heavy sacks like Santa-Claus slung over the shoulder,
and emptied into the trash truck.
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- * Pigeon Poo Cleaner - Like the roofer job the name says
it all. In big cities, pigeons are the filthiest birds around. Nor do they
clean up after themselves. Wearing environmental protection suits and respirators,
workers must clean up droppings from window ledges high above the ground.
Pigeon droppings carry disease and people cannot safely have any physical
contact with it. Something to think about the next time you see bird droppings
on your vehicle.
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- Although not in the list above for 2005, a dirty job
show that aired in July 2006 was that of collecting and processing food
from special dumpsters all along the Las Vegas strip restaurants. The collected
food in a huge dump truck is taken to a pig farm. First, food
is checked for inedible objects by elbow deep probing through
the raw material to remove trash, coat hangers and plastic. Next, the
"food" transported up a conveyor belt to a home-made, giant 25ft.
high open steel kettle outside with no cover. There it is cooked to
sterilize it. The brown, thick, nasty smelling lumpy fecal-looking
liquid is dumped into an open box transport truck. It is
then delivered by hand to 3,200 waiting pigs who jump and crawl over each
other to eat it. This is all done in the hot Nevada sun. Bon
Appetite'!
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- Yet another dirty job requires wearing a gas detector
while cleaning out the sewage pump tanks for Los Angeles' sewage treatment
center. A submersible 100HP pump had to be replaced at the very bottom
of a 25ft. deep incoming sewage collection tank. After it was emptied, workers
opened a hatch at the bottom of the tank to allow the remainder of the
sewage to flow out. Gas detection alarms went off, and they had to flee
the area twice until it was safe. Mike then followed other workers inside
through the hatch to hose off the remaining human waste on
massive pump to expose the huge nuts and prepare it for removal. Mike and
the workers had to literally run out of the tank when the toxic gas
detector alarms sounded, and wait for the gas to dissipate before returning.
If not, they stated you would drop unconscious to the floor (into
the filth) wherever you are standing. Mike was also told that human
waste is among the most dangerous material on earth. It has every dangerous
disease known, including AIDS. So the next time you're in the smallest
room of your home about to flip that handle - just imagine where that's
headed off to...
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- And the next time someone feeds you a whining line of
BS about "Oh, we need those illegal aliens to do the jobs Americans
won't do?" Tell them about some of these jobs. Note that these
jobs on the show are being performed by Americans - NOT illegal aliens.
When watching that show one must ask the question - "Would an
illegal alien do it, and do it fast enough not to get fired?"
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- So to all those AMERICANS out there that "do the
jobs that make modern life possible" as Mike says, you have my
eternal respect!
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- For short videos of these jobs, see http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/dirtyjobs/splash.html
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- Ted Twietmeyer
- www.data4science.net
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