Playing Santa Claus - the second most powerful, fictional character in the human history right after Jesus Christ – has been one of the weirdest, yet awarding jobs I have ever had.

What made this particular assignment different to all those shopping mall Santas operating on the ground was that my throne situated two-hundred and twenty metres above sea level on top of Sky Tower in Auckland, the biggest city of New Zealand. […]

Would you ever consider becoming a florist? Have you ever wanted to be a woman? Do you ever count the windows of buildings you are walking past?

These were only a few questions asked from us, young adolescent men, amongst hundreds of other questions supposed to determine our suitability to compulsory military service in Finland. […]

At first sight, this job title suggests that it has something to do with diplomacy. Soon after signing up with a few promotional agencies though, I discovered that being a brand ambassador was not quite the same as being a political figure or an ambassador of the countries. […]

Around this time, I had already started calling myself an “actor”, which meant that any source of additional income was desperately required. Hence, the good old saviour, Gumtree, came to rescue. Rather than following traditional search methods though, I decided to look only for jobs that would require the strongest of my skills I had been given at birth: my heritage. […]

When I was young, I always thought: to be a model, you would have to start at the age of fourteen, have legs up to your ears, be perfectly proportionate yet skinny as a rope; or as a man, have permanent six-pack, chiseled jawline and eyes not too far apart. […]

I have a vague memory - way before the time of Amazon and eBay - of those notorious vacuum cleaner door-to-door salesmen in baggy turd-coloured suits mainly harassing the elderly and terminally ill. On the rare occasion when they succeeded to make a sale, the prices were sky-high and profits extortionate without question. […]

I would like to clarify one thing before anyone starts calling me a racist: I am not using the word expatriate in this article only because I am a white, North European immigrant, but this story is about a genuine expatriate deal when a company from my home country, Finland, sent me to work overseas for a certain, fixed period of time, with the intention of returning me back home once the assignment abroad had come to an end. […]

I cannot thank the website Gumtree enough for offering me all these weird and wonderful opportunities. Some years ago, at halfway point on the journey to find myself, I stumbled upon a job ad that particularly stood out. An exclusive pet grooming service was looking for a chauffeur. […]