You think your job is bad? Well, it could be worse. Of course, you might have to go 500 years back in time to find a worse job.

Groom of the Stool

What would somebody with the job title “Groom of the Stool” have to do for a living? Well, think of the worse possible thing and, just maybe, you can guess.

According to Wikipedia, the Groom of the Stool was “a male servant in the household of an English monarch who was in charge of providing facilities for the monarch’s defecation, and assisted in his cleansing or washing thereafter.”

In other words: he wiped the king’s ass.

Lovely, right?

Now, keep in mind, this was about 400 years before the invention of toilet paper. You can feel free to use your imagination on how the cleaning of the King’s bum would have happened , but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Not that bad actually

So, you’d probably think this would be a job no one would want… but you would be wrong. This was a highly sought after dream. A man holding this position would have private access to the king. He could share his ideas with him, pushing forth his agenda.

Imagine having this job today. While President Obama is doing his business you could whisper your ideas for a flat tax into his ear (Herman Cain, am I giving you ideas?).

Sometimes to achieve your goals in life, you need to get your hands a little dirty.