Random Weirdest Jobs In The White House (14 items)

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  (#1) Usher

  A White House usher is a member of the household staff at the Executive Residence, which means they're bound to sometimes accidentally see the president nude. That's what happened to Skip Allen when he caught "The Gipper" naked in his private residence.

  He was delivering a top secret document, the story goes, when President Reagan allowed Allen to enter the residence... even though he was totally naked and dripping wet, having just stepped out of the shower. Reagan was allegedly "unfazed" and later teased Allen about the encounter... when he saw the President in his underwear later that night!
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  (#2) Social Aide

  White House social aides are typically volunteers from the military that attend social functions (in their finest military attire) and help make guests feel comfortable. They receive no extra pay for this task, but they get to dance and mingle with actors and actresses, literal princesses, and other esteemed guests. The best part about being a social aide has to be the celebrity stories.

  Ginger Rogers admitted to one aide that she used to tape her butt cheeks together to make her dresses look better. Jamie Lee Curtis required two aides to fix her broken strapless dress. Chevy Chase told one aide to introduce him as "Clark W. Griswold."
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  (#3) Chimney Sweep

  Former White House Chimney Sweep Jeff Schmittinger is a character, for sure. He refused to be paid for the gig, for a start: he volunteered during the Clinton administration, they took him up on the offer, and he kept doing it until his retirement in 2017. He also kept an old-fashioned chimney sweep costume (think Dick Van Dyke in Mary Poppins) in his vehicle at all times, just in case a customer wanted that "experience."

  Wearing the costume, he's also the official mascot of the annual German Fest in Milwaukee. The website for his full-time gig ("Wisconsin Chimney Technicians") is super-charming, too, featuring Jeff in his full regalia on the White House roof, holding an American flag.
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  (#4) Portrait Artist

  While not an official position at the White House, the role of Portrait Artist is one that is nonetheless filled with every new elected President. It's a weird, unpredictable gig, too: Théobald Chartran was commissioned to do President Theodore Roosevelt's portrait in 1902, but Roosevelt hated it so much he destroyed it (he thought it wasn't masculine enough).

  John Singer Sargent was brought in to do another one, which Roosevelt loved (after giving Sargent a notoriously hard time). President John F. Kennedy's was done posthumously, requiring painter Aaron Shikler to cobble it together from photographs (Kennedy's body is actually his brother Ted's body).
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  (#5) Calligrapher

  Who says cursive handwriting is dead? It's certainly alive and well at the White House, where the calligraphy office pumps out thousands of ornate envelopes, programs, and place cards every year. Sure, they sometimes use a computer and Adobe InDesign these days, but a lot of what comes out of the office is still done by hand.

  Conservatives have made a stink in recent years over how much the official White House calligraphers get paid (about $100,00/year for the Chief Calligrapher), but the documents they write are typically intended for kings, queens, and other illustrious heads of state. What should they do, just use Comic Sans?
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  (#6) 'Body Man'

  Also known as a "Special Assistant and Personal Aide," the President's "Body Man" takes care of their personal needs. The role is sometimes considered to be "part valet, part buddy" and was famously filled by President Obama's so-called "little brother," Reggie Love, from 2008-2011.

  Obama jokingly called him "iReggie" in a New York Times interview (“I have an iReggie, who has my books, my newspapers, my music all in one place") and the two frequently played basketball together. Love also kept the President supplied with Nicorette gum while he was quitting smoking.
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  (#7) Ethics Advisor

  One of the more stressful – and arguably noble (depending on the administration) – jobs in the White House involves being ever at the ready to advise the sitting President on issues regarding "more than 1,000 pages of government ethics rules and regulations." This job, that of White House Ethics Advisor, requires being on call 24/7 to assist the President and his staff with complicated ethical dilemmas.

  During the Obama administration, ethics advisor Norm Eisen was sometimes called from his office to resolve conflicts 15-20 per times day. 
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  (#8) Executive Pastry Chef

  There's nothing necessarily weird about being a pastry chef, but when you're tasked with making cakes (and sometimes birthday cakes) for popes, king, queens, and Presidents, things are bound to get a little surreal (like if you're asked to build a 475 lb. gingerbread house, for example).

  The current Executive Pastry Chef - and the first woman to hold the title - is Susan E. “Susie” Morrison. Besides creating desserts for all the social events at the White House, Morrison also tends the White House bee hive.
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  (#9) Chief Data Scientist And Deputy Chief Technology Officer For Data Policy

  It's pretty weird when the President basically creates a job just for you. Dhanurjay "DJ" Patil is widely considered to have coined the term "data science," so it's fitting that former president Barack Obama appointed him as the White House's first Chief Data Scientist and Deputy Chief Technology Officer for Data Policy (or CDSaDCTODT for "short"). So what did the former Silicon Valley hotshot do, exactly?

  He functioned as a statistician, analyst, and "data hacker" tasked with helping the federal government to "harness the power of technology and innovation to help government better serve the American people" and better "utilize public data and make it usable by everyone." Patil calls being a data scientist the "sexiest job of the 21st century." Patil left the position in 2017, and his role has yet to be filled by the Trump administration.
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  (#10) Barber

  The most famous White House barber was Milton Pitts, a staunch Republican known for speaking his mind (he once told Gerald Ford that his ties were too loud). His clients included Richard Nixon, Ford, Ronald Reagan, and George H.W. Bush... but not Democrat Jimmy Carter. The role of "White House Barber" has been a fluid one since the Clinton administration, with some Presidents choosing to bring in outsiders (like President Obama's choice to have his Chicago barber flown in), but for a time, it was one of the strangest gigs in D.C. Pitts even achieved minor celebrity status: he appeared on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982.

  The President's private barbershop was replaced by the Homeland Security Council Office during the George W. Bush administration.
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  (#11) Engineer

  Perhaps the weirdest part of being an engineer at the White House is the Engineer's Shop. Located two floors under the White House's main floor, beneath the North Portico, past "an endless maze of tunnels and pipes," it's the only office that operates 24/7.

  Temperature control is a huge responsibility for the engineers at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., considering they're basically working at a museum filled with priceless antiques and works of art.
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  (#12) Director Of Oval Office Operations

  No one gets into the Oval Office to see the President without getting past the Director of Oval Office Operations, a position that's basically a cross between a personal assistant and personal secretary (although the President has a separate one of those, too). The DOOO isn't a powerful politician, but as The Washington Post notes, they have "more freedom than just about anyone to go into the Oval Office unannounced."

  President Obama's DOOO and Special Assistant to the President, Brian Mosteller, almost never left the President's side when he was in Washington, attending to his every need, including readying the Oval Office every morning and "closing up shop" in the evening. He's also the guy that readied Obama's remarks and placed them on the lectern, told the Commander-in-Chief if his shirt was wrinkled, and researched what beverages various heads of state enjoyed so the President would be prepared to offer them. Several people have held this position during President Trump's administration, including Keith Schiller, Jordan Karem, and Madeleine Westerhout.
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  (#13) The Uniformed Division

  Everyone knows about the Secret Service, but a lesser-known group inside the Secret Service is the Uniformed Division, a team of more than 1,300 officers and technicians who often have an even more dangerous job than other agents. The so-called "U.D." screen White House visitors and patrol the outer perimeter, meaning they are the ones in direct contact with the sometimes gun and knife-wielding public.

  If someone jumps the fence, for example, it's the U.D. - not the guys in suits with the earpieces - that have to tackle and restrain them. They deal with the weirdos trying to drive through checkpoints, the drones crashing on the White House lawn, and basically any other direct, frontline threat to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
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  (#14) Executive Chef

  Cooking for the leader of the free world, the first family, and all of the illustrious guests of the White House has to be one of the most intense - and bizarre - jobs you can have in the culinary world. Former White House Executive Chef Walter Scheib puts it this way: "We’re not just around outside and next to the President; we’re physically inside of him. You really couldn’t get any more close to that. In a way, you may be one of the singularly most trusted people in the whole country."

  It's also pretty weird to know what these powerful people love to eat (Hillary Clinton, for example, had "50 or 60 different hot sauces she liked to use").

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