Random Weirdest Jobs In The White House (14 items)

• 

  (#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.
• 

  (#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).
• 

  (#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").
• 

  (#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."
• 

  (#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.
• 

  (#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?

New Random Displays    Display All By Ranking