Not all professions are equal, and few jobs are as odd and unexpected as those we’ve rounded up here.

How does your job title describe you? Assistant? Manager? Vice-President? Chief Executive? Please. The Wall Street Journal reports that, according to LinkedIn, “Ninja” has “far outpaced the growth of other trendy titles in 2009.”

“The concept of a ninja is metaphorical. It’s about confidence,” Alex Schliker, who has been advertising to hire one for his business-software start-up CureCRM, told the Journal. It’s “an easy way to say you need to be good at learning anything new I throw at you,” he said. Ninja is “sexier” than its predecessor, Schliker said: “Guru is so Web 1.0.”

In the tech world, 2009 could be considered ancient history. If you look at some of the professions further in the past — sin-eaters, curse-tablet makers, flatulists, orgy planners, etc. — today those jobs seem much more colorful than sitting in a cubicle or working in a machine shop.

Yet, if you look around, many professions today are still, shall we say, unique.

What follows is a roundup of some of the stranger jobs we’ve come across.

(Note: Excluded from this list are jobs that heavily involve bodily fluids, of which there are many — dairy-cow midwife, sneeze modeler, ocean-snot diver, vomit collector, tampon tester, whale-feces researcher, dung curator, the list goes on — because, eww.)

1. Bad Dance Observer — Peter J. Lovatt, a former professional dancer and a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in England, studies “the psychology of dance.” Part of his job involves examining “the often unflattering gyrations of everyone from preteens to the elderly in search of the influences and motivations behind human dancing,” Popular Science says. “Lovatt and his team record videos of the dancers and then quantify their groove thang using a special movement-analysis technique and software.”
2. Fortune Cookie Writer — If you’ve ever wondered who writes those fortunes inside the cookies that come at the end of a Chinese take-out meal, it is actually someone’s job. One such professional told The New Yorker: “I don’t think I ever sat in front of the computer and said, ‘I am going to write 10 fortunes right now.’ It has to come naturally.”
3. Cheese Sprayer — This person is in charge of tending the equipment that sprays cheese onto popcorn or similar kinds of food, according to the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The task is performed not only with a machine, but also by hand in order to hit every side of the snack. “It seems pretty easy but it is important that every nut, popcorn or other snack is completely covered with the right taste,” training and employment solutions provider ApprenticePower notes.
4. Odor Evaluator — Someone has to ensure that all those deodorants and antiperspirants are operating properly to keep their customers funk-free. Also, paper towel sniffers make sure that once a paper towel is used, there is no noticeable scent. Finally, there are “odor judges” who smell nasty morning breath or breath “insulted” with strong scents, like garlic or coffee. According to CareerBuilder.com, the latter job requires rating the breath on a scale from one to nine, one being the worst. To test odor-reducing products like gum or mouthwash, they smell the breath again and assign it a new rating.
5. Honeymoon Tester — It may not be a full-time job per se, but winners of a vacation contest this month will be sent to resorts in Europe, Africa, Asia and the United States, where “they will be asked to blog about their experiences a few times a week” and write for the Irish Times once a month — “when they can get out of the hammock after sipping a glass of champagne,” according to CNN.com.
6. Dice Inspector — Considering how much money is won and lost as a result of throwing them, it should come as little surprise that someone is employed to inspect dice. At the same time, who’s really thought about it? According to online career guide Job Profiles, a dice inspector checks for proportionality, specific angles and blemishes.
7. Multispecies Baby Tickler — Popular Science describes the work of Marina Davila-Ross, a University of Portsmouth neuroscientist who “sought an answer in what is perhaps science’s most enjoyable research project: tickling human and ape babies to compare their laughter.” After tickling colleagues’ babies and recording their giggles, Davila-Ross traveled the world, tickling baby apes and recording the laughter. Her and her team’s research suggests that tickle-induced laughter developed in a common ancestor 10 to 16 million years ago.
8. Laughter Therapist — Built on the philosophy that giggles, chuckles and belly laughs do a body good, laughter therapists work with clients to help add a smile to patients’ daily lives. It is well-documented that regular doses of laughter can help reduce stress, boost the body’s immune system, reduce the signs of aging, strengthen morale, build camaraderie and, in general, be a positive influence on a person’s well-being. According to user-generated resource Socyberty, “there really is a big calling for laughter therapists.”

Would you be interested in any of the jobs listed above?

Earlier

Snake Milking and 7 Other Odd Jobs

Some Odd Jobs

2007′s Worst Jobs in Science

Recommended Reading: Working IX to V

Resources

In the Search for a Hot Job Title, Enter the Ninja
by Geoffrey A. Fowler
The Wall Street Journal, April 7, 2010

The 10 Worst Jobs in Science
by Nigel Buchanan
Popular Science, April 8, 2010

10 Jobs You Didn’t Hear About on Career Day
Mental Floss, April 25, 2009

10 More Strange Jobs from History
by Jamie Frater
ListVerse, March 28, 2010

Cookie Master
by Jeremy Olshan
The New Yorker, June 6, 2005

Job Description: Cheese Sprayer
DOT Dictionary of Occupational Titles

Weird, Wicked and Wanted Jobs: Cheese Sprayer
ApprenticePower, March 23, 2010

20 Odd Jobs
by Rachel Zupek
CareerBuilder.com, Feb. 25, 2008 (last updated)

Honeymoon Tester is Latest Dream Job
by A. Pawlowski
CNN.com, April 1, 2010

37 Weird Jobs that You Can Actually Make a Living at
Job Profiles, March 12, 2007

Apes Laugh, Tickle Study Finds
by Brian Handwerk
National Geographic News, June 4, 2009

Eight Weird Jobs
by Karen N
Socyberty, Sept. 7, 2008

Nine Extremely Odd Jobs
by Brie Cadman
DivineCaroline, Aug. 12, 2008 (last updated)