10 of the World's Greatest Jobs

1.  Paradise island caretaker

ben southall

Ben Southall, 34, of Petersfield, beat out nearly 35,000 applicants from around the world for the dream assignment to swim, explore and relax on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef, while writing a blog to promote the area. He was selected for the $111,000 gig - a six-month contract to serve as caretaker of a tropical Australian island. He now has to live rent-free in a three-bedroom villa, complete with pool.

Before getting the job he had to spend four days on the island for an extended interview process, which required applicants to snorkel through crystalline waters, gorge themselves at a beachside barbecue and relax at a spa. He also had to demonstrate his blogging abilities, take swimming tests and sit through in-person interviews.


2.  Luxury bed tester

roisin madigan

A student from Birmingham City University has landed her dream job...literally! Sleeping on the job and having a lie-in will no longer be a problem for a girl, who has been selected to test out luxury beds for a month and get paid for it.

Roisin Madigan, 22, is earning £1,000 to sleep in designer beds every day for a month. The student is helping with a "sleep survey" carried out by luxury bed specialists Simon Horn Ltd. The company sells luxury Savoir Beds, originally made for the Savoy Hotel. General manager Craig Roylance said Roisin will not only provide an objective view of the beds on sale, but will also be part of a look into what brings a good night's sleep. She will spend 10am to 6pm in beds in the company's showroom in Edgbaston, and then will blog about her experiences.


3.  Resort waterslide tester

tomyy lynch

Surely the envy of any desk-bound office worker, Tommy Lynch has travelled over 27,000 miles this year for his job, testing holiday resort waterslides. Mr Lynch, 29, works for holiday giant First Choice, checking the height, speed, water quantity and landing of the flumes, as well as all safety aspects. In 2008 Mr Lynch testedwaterslides at holiday villages in Lanzarote, Majorca, Egypt, Turkey, Costa Del Sol, Cyprus, Algarve, Dominican Republic and Mexico. This year he will quality control First Choice's new splash resorts in Greece, Turkey, Florida, Jamaica and Ibiza.

Liverpool-born Mr Lynch, whose job title is lifestyle product development manager, was recruited to identify the very best pools to be featured in First Choice's new Splash Resort collection. He also ensures potential new resorts are up to the company's standard.


4.  Professional prostitute tester

jaime rascone

Jaime Rascone is no different than the rest of us in that the erstwhile DJ needs to grab the occasional odd job to make ends meet. But the Chilean lothario has beat all of us by holding the type of fantasy job that just sounds too good to be true: Quality Control in a brothel.
Rascone, an occasional male model and DJ, first happened upon Fiorella Companions in Santiago, Chile while working on a story about the country's sexual revolution. He was offered the gig by Madam Fiorella, who needed somebody to provide that final “interview” in her hiring process. It goes like this: girls who are interested in working as VIP escorts for Fiorella have to undergo interviews, psychological testing, and a photo session. The applicants are whittled down to a final six, who are then fucked one after the other in a single day by Jaime. He takes diligent notes on, say, how they moved their hips and whether their groans were adequate, and makes recommendations to the madam. There is even paperwork involved. The strain of the job is actually such that he can only do it once a month, testing around seventy girls or so a year.


5.  Wine tester and blogger

hardy wallace

Imagine moving to the heart of Sonoma County, where every day you'll come home to more than 450 wineries along the beautiful northern coast of California. Picture living rent free, learning the intricacies of making the perfect wine, and capturing and sharing the entire experience for your network of Twitter followers. Now imagine getting paid $10,000 a month to do it. Listening? Hardy Wallace of Atlanta, the first person to submit his application, was the winner for the position at Murphy-Goode Winery— a $10,000 p/mo for six months, rent-free job updating Twitter and Facebook with his winery lifestream. The interview process was simple: submit a YouTube video explaining why you would be good for the job and wait to see what happens.


6.  Candy tester

harry willser

Another one of the world's best job has gone to schoolboy Harry Willsher, 12, chief taster in a sweet factory. Harry's job is to test top secret recipes. He got the job after winning a contest at Swizzell's Matlow to find a recruit. According to him, after his first tour at his new job, he felt like having stepped into the book Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. He wowed judges by describing the flavor and smell of his favourite sweet, the Drumstick lolly. The Derby firm, which also makes Love Hearts, Rainbow Drops and Parma Violets, has now given the youngster chief taster overalls and business cards. As well as sampling the sweets, he will also monitor their development at the company's factory in New Mills, Derbyshire. I don't know if it's the best job, but it's definitely the sweetest. 



7.  Condom tester

An Australian manufacturer called for applications for what it claims could be the world's best job - condom tester. Durex marketing manager Sam White was hiring Australians over the age of 18 who could apply for one of 200 positions as a condom tester. Unfortunately the position is not paid, but successful applicants would receive a free $60 selection of Durex products and will be required to provide the company with honest feedback about the products' performance. One of the lucky 200 testers would win a $1000 bonus. Maybe the bonus is not that great, but one thing's for sure - it's a job where employees won't mind taking their work home and burning the midnight oil. We are sorry to inform you applications are closed. 



8.  World of Warcraft Tester

Do you Play World of Warcraft? And if so, do you play well? Can you farm 200 gold an hour and hit level 80 in under 2 weeks? If the answer is yes, you can apply for the job that about 12 million players only dream about, as a Wow game tester! There are in fact several Blizzard jobs posted on their website. The Blizzard employment database has dozens of mmorpg jobs available, mostly WoW employment opportunities. They are currently hiring for several game tester positions for World of Warcraft, under the QA department. They are in particular looking for foreign language testers, so if you speak any other language besides English, don't hesitate to apply to start your Blizzard career. And, yeah, you will be required to play at least four hours a day. 



9.  Director of Fun at a museum (at age 6 years old)

sam pointon

A six-year-old boy who wanted to become the director of York's National Railway Museum landed himself a job - as the director of fun. The ambitious youngster got a plum role at the National Railway Museum after applying to replace retiring boss Andrew Scott. Sam Pointon sent a handwritten letter headed "Application for director" asking for an interview at the centre, in York. The letter listed his credentials for the role, including his expertise on his train set. "I am only six but I think I can do this job," wrote Sam. "I have an electrick (sic) train track. I am good on my train track. I can control two trains at once." Staff was so impressed they appointed Sam an honorary "Director of Fun" and his job will be to bosses how he thinks they can ensure the museum is the most fun place for kids to spend a day out.

Ok, maybe this isn't the best job in the world for an adult, but it certainly rocks the world of a 6 year old.


10.  Bike rider-photographer for Google Maps

bike rider-photographer of google maps

Google (GOOG) has hired two lucky young men to ride around France on dopey looking tricycles snapping up photos of historical sites that are inaccessible by car. This three-wheeler is a sight with its long pole holding nine cameras, a GPS, a computer and a generator. But the contraption tooling around the French capital needs all that gear to do its job – adding three-dimensional images to Google's Street View Maps.

The riders, wearing Google tee-shirts and white helmets, are visiting well-known sites such as the Chateau de Versailles, west of Paris, the Jardin du Luxembourg on the city's Left Bank or Les Halles, in the busy centre of the French capital. 


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10 Fun Facts You Didn't Know About Google

“Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one.” So began the “letter from the founders” penned by Sergey Brin and Larry Page in the company’s securities registration form in 2004. Despite ever-increasing commercial success since that date, Brin and Page have kept to their word.

Google is an unconventional company with a huge stake in our online lives. It is a source of fascination for many, including us, but what really happens in the Googleplex? And what cool factoids and stats exist from the company’s relatively short past?

Here we bring you 10 fun facts about Google to quench our own thirst for Google knowledge as well as hopefully offer you a distracting diversion from your daily life.

1. The First Google Doodle

the first google doodle

Google’s famous homepage “Doodles” (the changing Google logo graphics) are well known and enjoyed by millions around the world as a way to mark an event or anniversary. But did you know that the very first Google Doodle was designed as a kind of “out of office” message?

In 1998 Brin and Page took the weekend off to go the Burning Man festival in Nevada. The Burning Man doodle (shown above), was designed by the Google guys and added to the homepage to let their users know they were out of office and couldn’t fix technical issues like a server crash.

2. Interesting Figures from the Google IPO

interesting figures from the google ipo

While the initial price for Google’s stock at its Initial Public Offering in August 2004 is an interesting stat in itself, there’s more to the story. The opening price for Google’s stock was $85 per share. At the time of writing, the stock price was $483 but has soared as high as $600 in the past year, making GOOG a rather nice investment for many.

A bonus factoid from Google’s IPO process is the value Google stated it hoped to raise on its S-1 form — as much as $2,718,281,828. It may just look like a string of numbers to non-mathletes, but 2,718,281,828 is actually the first ten digits of the mathematical constant ““e”,” showing that even as their company was planning to go public, the Google guys could still geek out with a bit of numerical humor.

3. The First Google Storage Was Made From LEGO

the first google storage

As proud hosts to Google back when it was still a research project, and known as “BackRub,” here Stanfordnow showcases the original Google storage from way back in 1996. It’s made up of a whopping 40 GB (less than a modern iPod) and it’s made from, as fans of the building bricks will be delighted to see, LEGO. It even hash funny mini-figures on the top.

Legend has it that the reason for the LEGO construction was that the Google guys needed an easily expandable, and cheap way to house 10 4 GB hard drives, and LEGO fit the bill. Whether the primary colors of the bricks used were the hues that went on to inspire the Google logo’s design is up for debate, but we’d guess it wasn’t just a coincidence.

4. Google’s First Ever Tweet

google's first ever tweet

Google’s first ever Twitter post was as satisfyingly geeky as you could hope for. The message, sent in February 2009, reads “I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001 00001010.”

For anyone not fluent in binary, here’s a hint — it’s a well known phrase from the company’s homepage. Got it? Yep, it reads: “I’m feeling lucky.”

5. Google Rents Goats

google's goats

This one isn’t actually one of Google’s infamous April Fools’ Day jokes: Google rents out goats. Yes you read that right. It rents goats from a company called California Grazing to help cut down the amount of weeds and brush at Google HQ.

The operation of 200 goats (plus herder and a border collie) is kind to the environment, and as Google puts it: “A lot cuter to watch than lawn mowers.”

6. Google’s Impact on Language

google in dictionary

While you’d think the news that the Merriam-Webster and Oxford English Dictionary adding “google” as a verb to their lexicons in 2006 would thrill the search engine, Google was actually none too pleased with the development.

“We’d like to make clear that you should please only use ‘Google’ when you’re actually referring to Google Inc. and our services,” the company wrote in a blog post at the time.

The rationale behind the semantic displeasure was that Google had “a brand to protect,” and feared Google would “slip from trademarked status into common usage.” Now, four years later, we have to say Google was fighting a losing battle — just ‘google it.’

However, we’ve found some other Google-themed linguistic delights for you — a Google staffer is commonly referred to as a “Googler,” while a new team member joins as a “Noogler.” Nooglers also used to wear a colorful hat with a spinner on top. According to a former employee, those hats are now pretty scarce in some offices, instead: “Every Noogler gets a yellow smiley balloon and a nameplate.”

7. Google Is Dog-Friendly

Google is a super dog-friendly company. It proudly names “company dogs,” like Yoshka (described as a “free-range Leonberger”) pictured above. Yoshka accompanies Urs Holzle, senior VP operations and Google Fellow to the Googleplex. Less senior staff are also allowed to bring their dogs to the office.

According to Google’s “Dog Policy”, one indiscretion too many on the Google carpets, or aggressive behavior, means Lassie will have to stay at home in the future. Strong bladdered and friendly canines are more than welcome across the campus.

Unfortunately, cats are not quite as welcome. Here’s an excerpt taken directly from Google’s Code of Conduct: “Google’s affection for our canine friends is an integral facet of our corporate culture. We like cats, but we’re a dog company, so as a general rule we feel cats visiting our offices would be fairly stressed out.”

8. Google’s First Ever “Company Snack” Was Swedish Fish

swedish fish

Back in February, 1999, the chewy candy known as “Swedish Fish” became the first ever company snack (not counting beverages) that was ordered into the Google office.

Although a relatively small event, it has led to big things. Google is infamous in the industry for treating its employees to not just free drinks and snacks on tap, but full-on gourmet meals, three times a day at a plethora of on-site cafes and eateries, as well as regular BBQs during the summer.

Brin and Page have been quoted in the past as saying no Googler should have to go more than 100 feet for food, leading to snack-filled “microkitchens” that are liberally dotted around the Google offices.

In fact, the free food is said to be so tempting that Googlers risk the “Google 15,” similar to the “Freshman 15,” where they pile on weight soon after joining the company. Good thing they also have a Google gym.

Backing this up, here’s a stat from Google — “Bay Area Googlers consumed approximately 5,500 pounds of handmade chocolates from the snack bins in the microkitchens in 2007.” Wow.

9. The Google Logo Was Not Centered Until 2001

Google’s famously sparse homepage is considered a classic design in the online world. The Google logo, however, wasn’t actually centered on the page until March 31, 2001. As early users will remember, the homepage had a bias to the left-hand side, and even earlier — back in 1998 — Google sported a Yahoo-style exclamation mark.

10. Google Has a Company Dinosaur

By all accounts, there are many wondrous sights to be seen at the Googleplex, but one of the most arresting is surely the gigantic T-Rex skeleton — nicknamed “Stan” after a “real” dino found nearby — that looms menacingly at Googlers in Mountain View.

Joining Stan in the unique campus decorations is a scale replica of the SpaceShipOne, enormous Android-themed models, pink flamingos, a large LEGO man, Google-colored phone boxes and grown-up size ball pits. One thing seems for sure — just like the company itself — life at the Googleplex must be far from dull.

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16 of the Most Memorable Google Doodles

 

 On Friday, 21 May 2010, on the 30th anniversary of the arcade game Pac-Man, Google unveiled worldwide their first interactive logo. Anyone who visited Google could play Pac-Man on the logo, which featured the letters of the word 'Google' on the Pac-Man maze. The logo also mimicked the sounds the original arcade game made. The "I'm Feeling Lucky" button was replaced with an "Insert Coin" button. Pressing this once enabled you to play the Pac-Manlogo . Pressing it once more added a second player, Ms. Pac-Man, enabling 2 players to play at once, controlled using the W,A,S,D keys, instead of the arrows as used by Player 1. Pressing it for a third time performed an "I'm Feeling Lucky" search. It was then removed on Sunday, May 23, 2010, initially replacing Pac-Man with the normallogo. Later on that day, Google released a permanent Google Pac-Man site, due to the popular user demand for the playable logo. (Link)  

 Five blue dots, three red dots, three yellow dots, four blue, three green and two red: yes, it's Google spelled out in Braille. This was issued on 4 January 2006, in celebration of the 197th birthday of Louis Braille, who invented the embossed-point alphabet for blind and visually impaired people.   

 Google's August 29th logo celebrated Michael Jackson's birthday a couple of months after his death. The two Os in Google were replaced with two feet, en pointe, wearing patent leather shoes and shiny white socks below slightly-too-short trousers.   

 In 2009, Google marked the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street with a new 'doodle' featuring the programme's Cookie Monster. Users of Google in the UK, France and Canada were greeted with the hungry blue character's familiar 'googly eyes' in honour of the programme's four decades on air.   

 The UFOs in Google's logo were designed to mark the 143rd birthday of author HG Wells. Although Google regularly uses its doodles to mark significant events, anniversaries and notable dates, it usually does so explicitly. This was the first time Google has used a series of mysterious logos to build up to an event, although the search page today shows a new Google doodle to mark Wells' birthday which takes web users straight through to a list of web pages related to the author.   

 In 2010, Frida Kahlo's 103rd birthday was celebrated with a Google doodle.   

 Google's Doodle for world cup 2010 final with the 3 most important elements of that day: Spain, Netherlands and Octopus Paul.   

 This doodle that appeared online in Sept 2010 was meant to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Flintstones.   

 This logo was featured on December 12, 2006 (Edvard Munch's Birthday). Featuring "The Scream," this composition was created by Munch and is said by some to symbolize the human species overwhelmed by an attack of existential angst.   

 On Friday, October 8, 2010, to mark what would have been the day before the 70th birthday of John Lennon, a 32-second "Video doodle" appeared on the google homepage. The "E" of google was shaped like a play button. The video was a simple animation that was accompanied by Lennon's song "Imagine."   

 20th anniversary of the Wallace and Gromit Characters.   

 Google unveiled this logo to celebrate the 400th anniversary since Galileo Galilei, the Italian astronomer, showed Venetian merchants his new creation, a telescope.   

 Google's Doodle for Charles Darwin's 200th Birthday, in celebration of the discoveries and life of Charles Darwin, the scientist and naturalist who first described biological evolution via natural selection.   

 The 213th anniversary of the birth of Mary Shelley, the British author of Frankenstein, was marked by a very unusual Google doodle of a darkened room with ghostly portraits on the wall and a shadowy figure in a doorway.   

 On March 2010, the Pi Day, 3.14 was celebrated by math nerds and Google, worldwide. Having been conspicuously missing from Google's ever-growing repertoire of special-event doodles for years, Google finally relented and unleashed its inner nerd, not that it tried to hide it too hard in the past. And, perhaps to make up for all the years it skipped, Google went all out this time and showed off six common uses of the famous number. The Pi Day Googlelogo starts off with the formula everyone knows (?) for the area of a circle A = πr2, but goes on with some more advanced stuff. The two 'os' in Google are used to represent the sin(x) function over a 2π period.   

 On Thursday, April 1, 2010, Google jokingly changed their name (and logo) to "Topeka" for a day in response to the city of Topeka; Topeka, Kansas, had unofficially changed its name to Google for the previous month.    

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