We've written before about Milwaukeeans with unusual jobs. Porn stars from Cudahy, horse cops Downtown and real, live ghostbusters who will check your house for paranormal activity.
But most of us have pretty normal jobs, working for the weekend just like everybody else. That's not say, however, that within our jobs, really weird stuff doesn't happen all the time.
In fact, polling a few Milwaukeeans-- some you've heard of and some you haven't -- everyone was quick to point out a time when in their very normal job, someone asked them to do something very, very abnormal.
Here are these Milwaukeeans' stories. Add your own weird work requests using the Talkback feature below.
Joy Guzikowski, stylist and co-owner, Phoenix Hair Studio
We had a client come in who had above the shoulder length hair who requested a haircut that would make her hair look longer. I just cut it and prayed to God she wouldn't hate it. I never laughed, though. When someone comes in and wants a mullet, they always ask for it short on the top, with a slight trim to the back. Anything to make a client happy, but mullets are coming hot off the runways right now. We're going way back to the '80s, which is good and bad. I didn't get to cut hair back then, I was too young!
Kate Hartlund, Downtown manager, Central Bark Doggy Day Care
Working with dogs, you will quickly learn that there is no room to be shy or easily embarrassed. Dogs are animals, and that's how they act and behave. They don't know that some things aren't socially acceptable. Things such as eating their owners' underwear or scavenging the garbage and eating whatever out of it they choose. We've been asked plenty of times by parents to keep an eye on their dogs' poop for something odd or unusual. You name it, we've found it. Underwear, feminine products and prophylactics, just to name a few things. Like I said before, no room to be shy or easily embarrassed.
Diane Pathieu, anchor/reporter, WTMJ4
This one is a no-brainer! When I worked at my second station in Iowa, they asked me to drive a monster truck, on live TV! And of course, I did! Weirdest, yes, but also most memorable!"
Paul Kennedy, bartender, Tonic Tavern
As a younger man I worked for a local liquor distributorship and was given the task of opening a new territory in the Milwaukee's inner city. My sales book, though plentiful, contained products more suited for German restaurants or suburban wine shops than a gin mill or liquor mart. Having little success at first I put in for something, anything, to pitch to my new customer base. I was promptly supplied with eight pallets of "Wild Louie," a fortified wine with similar bouquet and characteristics to TJ Swan or Richards Wild Irish Rose.
The odd request came from my superiors in the company. Gentlemen, I was told, you never disappoint the first time. Sell out the entire stock by month's end or suffer the dire consequences. I, newly married and in the process of buying my first house, was not about to poke the hornets' nest. My sales strategy was simple. I purchased two cases of of the fine Bordeaux, myself, and proceeded to "salt" the market. I would offer a free bottle to anyone of legal drinking age hanging about the stoops or corners of my busiest accounts. In turn I would ask them to please "keep an eye on my car" while I made my sales call. My presentation complete, I offered a second bottle upon my exit with the appeal that my new friends would "ask for Wild Louie by name." Within a fortnight I was proclaimed "Mister Wild Louie" and hailed as a returning hero each time I exited my vehicle in front of an account. My customers couldn't keep enough on the shelf, my bosses looked upon me as a dynamo and all was right with the world.
Trenni Kusnierek, sports reporter and blogger for OnMilwaukee.com Ted Perry, anchor, FOX6 news Then, the next winter, he had me bob in the freezing waters of McKinley Marina while I tried to scramble out of the water onto the ice. When I couldn't get out on my own (and I couldn't) the Milwaukee Fire Department Dive Rescue team plucked me out. They supervised the whole thing so I was pretty sure I was gonna be fine.
Fortunately for me, that news director took another job before the next ratings period as I'm pretty sure I was about to be shot out of a canon for the sake of "sweeps month."
Bill Rouleau, bartender, Palomino I had only been a bartender for a short while and was working at a friends' families place, a small smoky tavern on the south side -- a working man's bar. One night, two of our regulars, both hard-working burly guys, Cue Ball Ken (resembled the Crusher in both looks and voice) and Mexican Bob were sitting at their usual spots, tossing around the usual fare: Packers, work, family and health when they started talking about dental care; Ken was not a believer in professional dentistry. Ken also had a loose tooth. After much coaxing (shots of Cuervo), Bob was persuaded to remove that loose tooth, AT THE BAR! They asked me for a pliers, which I pretended not to have offering up instead a hole punch, figuring that that would be the end of it.
"We can make it work", they say as they grab it from my hand and try to rig the punch opening so that it will be wide enough to pull the tooth, a molar. After a couple minutes of the punch grabbing then sliding off of the rounded edge of the tooth when pressure was applied, they devised a different tactic and ask me for a clean coaster. They figured that the coaster would act as a good agent to sop up the saliva that was making the job difficult. I was horrified, I was enthralled, I was IN a Coen Brothers movie. After a few graceful origami-like folds to the coaster, Bob pinned Ken up against the bar, his meaty fist in Cue Ball's mouth. After a few painful looking attempts, Mexican Bob extracted that tooth like Excalibur. I can't remember what happened to the tooth, but I'll never forget this spectacle.
Last year during the World Series I was interviewing a high profile performer and was told by her publicist that I must refer to her as: Grammy award-winning singer, actress, philanthropist, founder of xxx charity, and I think at least two or three other superlatives. Clearly I couldn't remember them all, but it was easily the weirdest pre-interview request I'd ever received. Different performer, but same time frame, I was told I had to step off the riser so I would make the artist look taller!
My former news director seemed half-bent on killing me in the name of ratings. One time (not at band camp) he sent me to Oklahoma City to demonstrate how to get out of a "burning" plane. It's the same place the airlines send their people to train. They fill the cabin with faux smoke, turn off the lights, tip the fuselage and have people run over you. I grew up in a big family and we called that dinnertime, so I emerged unscathed.
As a bartender, I have seen a lot of strange and wonderful things as part of the job. Fights and flashing breasts, homoerotic wrestling, idolatry, coveting, blood rituals and stupid pet tricks. I have had people turn in lost ballet slippers and retainers and request drinks that contain one, two or three ice cubes, martinis shaken no more than four times and tequila and diet Cokes. But the most bizarre moment I have witnessed and that has been burned in to my brain was all due to a simple request by a patron for pliers.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
