The worst ever job promotion was when Alistair Jones, a worker at Melbourne Zoo, was made Vice-Executive Olfactory Presentation Technician in 1996. His duties consisted mainly of disposing of dung from the zoo’s ‘Waste Intensive Mammals’, chiefly Elephants and Rhinoceroses, and cleaning their pens. Although these duties were identical to those of his previous position (‘Dunny Scraper’), the management of the zoo awarded Jones the promotion, at an identical wage, but with a 3 minute longer lunch break, after he “improved the efficiency of the zoo’s wastage recycling/disposal techniques.” Jones explained, “Well, there’s only so much crud you can shovel into the Polar Bear enclosure before folks start asking if they’re looking at Grizzlies, so I realised ‘hey, the chimps love to chuck their own around so much, why not line their cages with it?’”
©2008 James Mathurin,
