8 Wacky Jobs at Best Companies
by Shelley DuBois, reporter
Wednesday, February 9, 2011 Fortune on CNN Money.com
From the 'Duck Guy' to a veggie coach, meet folks who have some of the most off-the-wall gigs at America's best employers.
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Veggie Coach
Company: Wegmans Food Markets
Best Companies rank: 3
If a recipe for collard greens doesn't get you jazzed, look to Barb Rundle, Wegmans' "Veggie Coach," for inspiration. From her station near the front of the company's Warrington, Pa., grocery store, Rundle spends her days demonstrating recipes and getting patrons psyched about eating from the healthier parts of the food pyramid.
Rundle is one of 77 veggie coaches company-wide; Wegmans staffs one per store. (Some of its larger stores have coaches in the meat and seafood departments as well.) Besides recipes, Rundle also teaches customers tricks to make healthy food taste better. "You build a relationship with the customers," Rundle says. They come in and say, 'Hey what am I making this week?' I'm their Rachael Ray."
Rundle previously worked as team leader for Wegman's Chef's Case, an area of the store that offers ready-to-eat meals for shoppers. She's not formally trained as a nutritionist or a chef. But when the position became available three and a half years ago, she jumped on it, thinking it would be a good way to try out new recipes for her family -- which she does regularly.
"Heck, when my husband comes in, I say 'Try this collard green, do you like it?' Because who wants to go to the trouble of making a big recipe and having everyone hating it?"
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"Duck Guy"
Company: Aflac (NYSE: AFL - News)
Best Companies rank: 57
Those ubiquitous quacking ducks in the Aflac commercials may get the on-screen fame, but six real live ducks actually live on the company's campus in Columbus, Ga. And ever since security guard Bill Zimmerman was assigned to the area that encompasses the duck pond, he's become the official company caretaker of the animals.
Each morning he lets the ducks out of their overnight pens; then he cleans their beds while they hang out all day on Aflac's quarter-acre pond. At night, when everybody goes home, the ducks do, too: Zimmerman treks to the pond, where the ducks waddle up to him to be fed, watered, and put to bed. He says they know the sight of him, and come running when they spot him. "They get used to the blue uniform," he says.
Zimmerman loves his feathered friends. "It's like caring for a kid -- that's what I call them is my kids," he says. "If I have to leave Aflac for any reason, hopefully they'd let me take one of the ducks with me."
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Resort Biologist
Company: Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts
Best Companies rank: 53
Tenley Thompson is not your average hotel worker. As the resort biologist for the Four Seasons resort in Jackson Hole, Wyo., she spends her days taking hotel guests out on four-hour animal-scouting excursions. "I specialize in wolves and grizzlies -- that's sort of what I'm known for finding," she says.
The Jackson Hole resort is geared for adventures -- Tenley works for the hotel's Department of Recreation, which also includes a ski shop and a fly-fishing program. Two years ago, she noticed the hotel's guiding services were being contracted out to a third party; she thought she could serve guests better as an in-house employee.
Naturally, her trips go out in Four Seasons style: While out on a safari, guests get gourmet food and treats like crushed peppermint and cocoa. Tenley herself enjoys Four Seasons-style perks, too, like a free pass to the ski slope outside the door of the hotel. The company also supports her wildlife education by encouraging her to go to conferences or attend outdoor safety classes.
Her skill at spotting rare wildlife makes her valuable to the resort, but Thompson is modest. "Anyone can do what I do. Your brain develops these search images for all types of things. All I have is a really good search image for wolves and grizzlies in my brain."
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Designer for Hot Wheels -- Tracks and Playsets
Company: Mattel (NYSE: MAT - News)
Best Companies rank: 69
You'd be surprised how many ways you can make a toy car crash. In fact, it's been Eric Ostendorff's job for the past 27 years to think up new, inventive ways to flip tiny cars around plastic tracks as a designer for Mattel's Hot Wheels brand. "If your toy is hurting, add loops and crashing. Crashing inside loops, even better," he says.
An engineer by training, Ostendorff works on rough designs for toy track models at the company's headquarters in El Segundo, Calif. Before joining Mattel in 1983, he worked as an engineer for Pratt & Whitney Aircraft in West Palm Beach, Fla.
But he says he's always wanted to design toys; in fact he's been building them since long before it was his bread and butter. In college, Ostendorff won a prize for a rubber-band-powered car that protected a raw egg it was carrying while crashing into a wall.
Now, he works with a group of about 3 or 4 other designers to collaborate on a trackset. "We grab some rough plastic and we cut it and chop it and glue it together ourselves. We get our hands dirty building these things. We work together and play together." Ostendorff is also a member of the Hot Wheels' bicycling club. He adds that his colleagues inspire a lot of the cool new ideas he has for toys. "You can grab the dozen people closest to you to have a last-minute quickie brainstorm to come up with a new idea."
But the key to his job, he says, is to love to build. Anyone can make a pretty drawing, he says, but "until you have something in your hand and you can actually play with it, you can't be sure if it's fun or not."
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Senior Green Coffee Specialist
Company: Starbucks Coffee (Nasdaq: SBUX - News)
Best Companies rank: 98
Imagine if you were paid to get your caffeine fix. Okay, it's not exactly that simple, but Leslie Wolford, one of Starbucks' Senior Green Coffee Specialists, does sip coffee for a living.
Every day, she and two other people in Seattle sample about a teaspoon's worth of anywhere from 60 to 120 samples of Starbucks coffee from all over the world before green-lighting blends to sell in stores. Wolford says she has a sensitive palate for coffee and can discern subtle flavors in each blend, whether citrus, floral or herbal.
A veteran of the company, Wolford started as a barista in the '80s. "When I started with Starbucks 20 years ago, I knew nothing about coffee," she says. Then in 1994, she went to Starbucks' hand-roasting facility, which was new at the time, and learned.
When that closed down five years later, she moved to Starbucks' coveted coffee department in Seattle -- the company's 20-person department that works with growers, tastes the coffee and ensures the quality of the beans.
Leslie says even though she's inundated with Starbucks brew all day, she's never sick of the beverage. Work or no work, she still enjoys her morning cup of Joe.
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