13 People Reveal the Dumbest Things They’ve Ever Been Paid to Do

Some jobs take a lot of hard work, skill, talent and/or education. Some jobs require a lot of time and energy. Some jobs are simply hard. Other jobs are surprisingly easy.

Have you ever been hired to do something and felt like you were actually doing way too little to justify the amount you were being paid for the job? Perhaps it was a slow day at work, but you still got paid just to show up. Perhaps you were paid an extremely high rate just to do something that was fun or way too easy.

On Reddit, multiple people answered the question, “What’s the dumbest thing you were paid to do and how much were you paid?” Scroll down to read 13 of the most incredible answers.

  1. Paid to Leave

    Reddit user Mental-Restaurant-47 wrote:

    Got paid 10k to leave an apartment because it was sold and new owner wanted to move in. I was tenant (renter) under previous owner. I had 4 months left in my rental contract. This was in Spain (Barcelona)

  2. Lunch with an Heiress

    memelissaann explained:

    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 shit 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.

  3. Paid to Do Nothing

    murter95 answered:

    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

  4. Hiring a Chicken

    slhopper added:

    I rented my chicken to a photographer for fifty bucks.

  5. “Every Man Thinks He’s the Grill Master”

    ambereatsbugs shared:

    I was paid to be a kind of server for a fancy outdoor dinner party, they wanted me to go around with a plate of drinks and food and offer it to people. When I get there they tell me the person they hired to cook on the grill never showed so they wanted me to make that my priority – but I told them I didn’t know how to grill anything (I was 17). The woman told me to look helpless and some man would come do it, “every man thinks he’s the grill master and wants to show off”. So I did…and it worked. I basically got paid to stand next to this guy and thank him every so often, and get him drinks. I got paid over 100 for just a few hours, it was pretty awesome.

  6. A User Study at Netflix

    Lycid wrote:

    $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!

  7. HDMI Cable

    harmar21 answered:

    For work I got an well expenses paid trip to Florida just to plug in an HDMI came in a conference booth. I literally expensed my meals at walt disney world since I was on call (in case they needed. Me to unplug and replug in the hdmi cable).

  8. “Corporate Money Is Ridiculous Money”

    _Justag1rl_ shared:

    I was flown to Paris to do a compliance audit, the systems weren’t setup for the audit, couldn’t get access so spent the week being taken to restaurants and shopping. On 1 of the days and at the last minute the company decided to send me into London for a meeting, literally just to meet people. I missed the eurostar because I forgot my passport (totally blanked that I was entering another country), they had to rebook the eurostar. Nothing was achieved out of this trip. No audit was completed. Nothing came of the meeting. The cost to the company 25k++ for me to do nothing for a week. Corporate money is ridiculous money.

  9. Reparking a Car

    dragoblaster666 explained:

    I was paid $300 to move my car for a movie that was filming by my apartment

  10. An Easy Winter

    LeakyFaucett32 added:

    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.

  11. A Nail Salon

    HoosierMama6998 explained:

    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. Hiring Freeze

    tokalita wrote:

    Got paid USD 40K 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.

  13. Pre-Assembled

    -PM_me_your_recipes- added:

    I was paid $50 to assemble some brand new gym equipment for a friend because her husband had been dragging his feet for months.I open up the box, pulled it out, and made the easiest $50 of my life because it was pre-assembled. I just took 10 seconds to unfold it and was done. She was furious with her husband, and still paid me to spite him.