Dirty IT job No. 7: Disconnect/reconnect specialist
Wanted: Able-bodied individuals with affinity for adapters, plugs, prongs, and dongles; willing to crawl under desks and squeeze into tight spaces that have never seen daylight. Strong stomach required.
Disconnect machines from one site, reconnect them at another. It sounded so simple Garth Callaghan couldn't quite believe someone would pay his company, 127tech, to do it. Now he employs three full-time employees and 30 contractors, who spend half their time unplugging and replugging machines for commercial movers in Richmond, Va.
But don't think they don't earn their money.
Most businesses have been in the same location for a long time, says Callaghan, and many of their employees haven't budged from their desks in 5 or 10 years. That can make for a rather mucky experience.
Occupational hazards include dust bunnies the size of basketballs, displays coated in soot, keyboards with enough food lodged in them to feed a small third-world country or, in one recent case, caked with a viscous layer of cosmetics.
In the three years his company has been in business, Callaghan and his crew have probably unplugged and replugged 10,000 workstations. But one in particular stands out.