Dirty Jobs Recap: Penguin Keeper

Concrete Stamper. During the Concrete Spreader job of the Termite Controller episode, Mike didn't get terribly dirty - but he certainly worked hard. It seems that at least one person saw that episode, and decided that while he did a decent job, he missed something dealing with concrete. Difficult to believe, but I'm not the expert, and (apparently) neither is Mike. So he heads out to learn about stamping concrete.

Luckily for us viewers we first get to witness Mike spreading some concrete first. In a similar but altogether different style, Mike gets a hose that is used to spread the concrete. The crew that does this job is good at it. Mike is not. He almost falls down several times, and at least once on camera ends up on his back spraying concrete wildly in the air. But eventually the concrete does get spread. Then the stamping process can begin.

Though I can understand the principle of concrete stamping - that is, while it is wet, applying a stamp to give it a rough look - I must admit to not understanding why you would want to do this in a drive-through area to be used in a gas station, where thousands of cars will surely wear this down very quickly. But hey, it's not my money. Maybe somebody with money just wants to see Mike do it.

And this job he does fairly well, with the exception of stepping into the concrete (and leaving a footprint) - but someone else did that too. And he also left at least one mark in the concrete from stamping too hard, but they have people that can fix that. Altogether he didn't do a bad job at it. Watching him roll around with the concrete hose was sweet. Spraying the one worker was a riot.

Penguin Keeper. The title segment involved Mike visiting some penguins, which I thought might be a bit seasonal. But it turns out that these penguins are from Africa, and in case you haven't been paying attention, Africa is hot. So their habitat is more like a rocky mountain outcropping. In other words, no snow here. If you're looking for something in the spirit of the season, watch it on video, because this isn't it.

Mike did get to clean up a bunch of poo, because one things penguins do generate is a bunch of it. They apparently go through something close to one-fifth of their body weight each day, so that's a whole lot of poo. But in one of the sadder scenes he has put on video, none of the penguins wanted to eat after he cleaned up after them. Perhaps he didn't wash his hands. Or maybe they had seen some of his other work.

Bloodworm Harvester. The final segment in this episode is one of those that you just can't believe that people do. Imagine if you will a large mud field. Then put a dozen people out there with buckets and the end of rakes. Not the handle, just the metal part. Then bend them over and dig in the mud to stir up the mud. In that stirred-up area, they will see worms. But only some of the worms are profitable, so they have to be able to recognize which worms are keepers. The others are thrown back. Now, repeat this all day, every day, and you've got the scene.

Oh, there's one more thing. The worms that they keep are called bloodworms and they can be a foot long and their heads have four black teeth on them that come out and bite, apparently a feeling that isn't good, as it feels something like a bee sting. And if you don't remove them from your skin, they will just keep burrowing through your skin. Nice. People actually do this for a job. They get hundreds of these worms during a shift.

One lady pulled in 125 worms during her shift, and she is allergic to the bite so if she gets bitten she has to go to the hospital. Another guy had 175 (he is not allergic, so I guess he does a better job). It's just one of those things that you can't really imagine people really do, but apparently they do. There was a nice fight in the mud where Barsky, who was in white (what was he thinking) ended up in the mud. But other than that there really wasn't much to it.

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