Bring em back

Ninja is not an obsolete job! They've just become so stealthy and cunning that no one realizes they're still around 🥷🫥

Ignoring the joke, it is actually obsolete. The last ninja family refuses to name a successor, pass on certain techniqies, etc. so technically, no more official ninja
- I don't know... That sounds like just the sort of thing an ancient ninja clan would want you to think...
- That's what they want you to believe.
- Well that sucks. If there are never goin to be ninjas again the least the family could do is write down all the secret techniques for histories sake.
- Only a wannabe fake would claim to be a "ninja" !
  Come on that's like talking about fight club...
- They stll work today, protecting sports memorabilia. They are the ninja baseball batman.

Dont forget "computer"

Hidden Figures should be required reading (required viewing?) for anyone in STEM
- Assuming we're taking about the Charles Babbage era computers, yes.
"What's a computer?" - Apple 2017

These sound like classes in a weird jrpg

Well fuck. I'm a useful man..

Looks like that's useless :/

You were simply transformed into a handyperson.
- It wasn't the same as a handyman. The title "useful man" was for a servant who'd never actually serve the master.
  Today it'd be a "runner" or some kind of "assistant to the assistant"

Does a priest hunter find new priests, or is it a person who kills priests?

First one; then the other.
Turns out they were basically bounty hunters for Catholic priests during Elizabeth I's reign.
- Which "for"?
  Bounty hunters searching for Catholic priests.
  Bounty hunter working for Catholic priests.
Or a priest who also keeps the monastery flush with game meat?

There’s a podcast called Jobsolete that covers, as the name implies, obsolete jobs! It’s inactive now but they have an ok size catalog that it’s worth going back and listening.

So the podcast is now obsolete?
- Meta af

I would have been great as a garden hermit.

I’m already halfway there, I’m just lacking the garden

With no more High Priestess the priest hunter could finally retire

With decriminalization, they're probably coming back
No no, see, priests still exist, just not high priestesses.

They said we don't need toad doctors anymore, but I'm not so sure.

Is the doctor treating sick toads, or treating sick people using toads? Both? Maybe it's just a pejorative and real toads aren't involved all
- Its a toad using people to trat sick toads and humans

Them: You're a ninja? I didn't realize you all still existed. You: Thank you

That's the one that jumped out at me almost religiously. I feel like I lost out on something deeply fulfilling and tailored to my very soul.
Edit: It doesn't mention living in a toadstool or a hermit hut covered in them as I had imagined, but I'm sure it's perfectly legal to do that while still upholding your oaths and croaks.
- It's similar to cunning folk, another kind of folk magician.
- I wonder how much schooling someone would need for this? What's the salary and benefits like? I think I could do this.

But also on purpose.

Huh, no wonder anyone's so damn useless 🤣

Sign me up to be a priest hunter.

It's not on the list but I always wanted to be a knocker-upper

FWIW, fluffer is still available.
I'd like to be a town crier.
"Hear ye, hear ye!"
Plus you get to ring a bell.

Also, court jesters.

Hey, we still have plenty of ridiculous clowns. I hear Ricky Gervais' career is still going strong
They still exist i think

If you’re a dude who hunts handsy priests using ninjitsu, I’d consider you a useful man…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden_hermit

Doesn't sound like a bad life!

lasted three weeks until he was sacked after being discovered in a local pub
Sounds like there was no "time off".
- It breaks immersion if the guy you hire as "weird hobo that dwells in your garden" to show off to your upper class friends is seen outside that context.

I always thought court philosopher would be a good gig

"I don't know, king, what is Truth? Anyway, pass the pie."
The polar opposite of the court jester, unless the two are in on the whole joke.

Professional mourners are very much still a thing. Had them at a few funerals I attended. Very awkward to see them more invested into crying for the departed than the family. Some of the family members also seemed to think so, but hey, it's tradition and respectful of the dead.

Cigarette girls still exist, in Vegas at least.

Do they sell individual cigarettes or something?

That's okay, I'm not a useful man.

Damn I wanna be a high priestess of athena polias

Now, imagine being, let's say 50 years old, and losing your career. You previous job that you have been doing for 20 years is gone. And soon your home and possessions are too.

Do you have time to go back to school to learn a new skill and then start from the bottom again? And by the time you are done retraining, will anybody hire a 50 to 55 year old rookie when they can get a younger person for less money instead?

It's easy to say, "Just move and do something else" when you are 20. But the older you get it becomes very difficult to nearly impossible for a large number of people to do so. Not everyone can be retrained and there are few low skills jobs these days.

I bet a number of those jobs had transferrable skills. "Cigarette Girl" likely had sales and customer service skills. "Toad Doctor" may have either moved on to small amphibians, or something with crystals.
- Some do, some don't. And not all people can be retrained for a new and different job. That takes time, money, and aptitude, which is something not everyone has.
  There was a time when coal mines were being shut down - a good thing right?. And 1000's of miners were losing their jobs left and right and families were homeless and starving. Whole towns and cities were losing population as jobs were lost. The economic impact was felt up and down "Main Street".
  There was a large cry that something must be done! An idea took hold that we should retrain all these coal miners for a new career. The Federal government even got involved with educational grants. The idea was to train people to code because well, the world needed a lot of coders, the pay was good, and the miners would have a better life - A win for all. And everyone in the rest of the world felt good about it and went back to their lives.
  Turns out, coal miners don't really have a suitable and transferable skill set to learn coding. Nor is it very effective to teach a 50 year old how to code from scratch. And even if you were one of the lucky few to manage succeed at it, now AI threatens your livelihood.
  The moral of the story is: Things change, the world changes. There are a lot fewer places large numbers of people can go to so they can start over. The skills barrier is a lot higher than it was when "cigarette girls" were a thing and that barrier just gets higher everyday. And frankly, not many cigarette girls were capable of learning the newest skills to get a different and hopefully better job. So now what do we do?
- “Cigarette Girl” likely had sales and customer service skills.
  I don't know about that. They stood with trays of cigarettes in clubs. It's about as much of a customer service skill as people selling peanuts in the stands at a baseball game.
Hi, that's me now that everyone has access to a video editor. Even though most of them don't understand how to use it properly. They don't think they need people with actual editing skills anymore. I'm 46. The last job I had involved checking designs for quality control issues at a company where mostly businesses ordered a personalized product with their own art on it. It paid nothing. I'm kind of fucked, especially since I'll now have a gap in my resume because I had to leave to put my daughter through online school. If she stays in online school until she graduates, I'll be "out of work" for five years. At that point, no one is going to be a video editor anymore. I can't go back to school when I'm 51!

Aren't professional mourners still a thing in China or something?

I don't know about the others, but runemaster sounds fascinating.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Runemaster

You could still make runes as a hobby I guess. Sell em on Etsy and call yourself a modern Runemaster

Why is ninja, and only ninja, askew?

Maybe because we "think" there are no more ninjas, but we can't confirm?

You can still be a kind of garden hermit if you get certain jobs in science and ecology.

If only I could be a Useful Man...

Back when only men were allowed to hold jobs…

In Shakespearean times all cigarette girls were men.
- Priestesses too.
- Men with big boobs
Yeah that was always one of the weirder sides of the Patriarchy, establishing naming conventions like the suffix -ess being female but still giving the title High Priestess of Athena Polias to a man.

RIP lighthouse keeper

Damn, at least my job as a zombie hunter isn't in any danger yet.

Wait until Trump is President again