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If you are a white male, have a suit, and can look like you are an important person, you may work as a fake executive in China. No experience required. No education required. Just pretend that you are the boss.

Big Chinese companies hire a fake executive to look well-connected to the Western World (mostly U.S.) and to show the community their importance in the world of business. This is not a year-contract job, you will only be asked to be present at the ceremony, to attend some dinners, maybe to tour the factory or the company office. You know, to show yourself around. For the rest of the day, you may just enjoy the hotel services or pretend you are working hard at the office. If you look like a real cool boss, you may even be asked to give a speech.

This job is becoming more and more popular, but you may expect to find this kind of job only in big Chinese cities or somewhere not far away from them. Due to the local tradition, no ladies are allowed. No need to know Mandarin, the interpreters will translate everything you say in the way they want. Basic acting skills are welcomed.

You may expect to get $1,000 a week with all expenses paid by the company.

If you see a lonely adult man in a swimming suit who zips down the hotel’s water slide several times in a row, it can certainly be just a person who is trying to recapture his lost childhood, but it can be a water slide tester as well.

A water slide tester is usually hired by a hotel chain or a big travel company in order to check how fun and how safe the water slides are. You need to focus on whether you are sliding down quickly enough and whether it goes smoothly, notice how much water the slide uses, and generally evaluate the adrenaline factor of the water attraction.

This kind of job will give you around $30,000 a year, with all your travel and allocation expenses paid. You travel by airplane from hotel to hotel, check in, put on your swimming outfit, and go directly to the pool. After the main job is done, you need to write a report about your feelings while sliding and send it both to the company that hired you and to the hotel manager.

The water slide tester job does not require any special degree, you just need to be older than 22 years old, you need to be reliable, stay calm under pressure, and learn as many synonyms for the words “fun,” “water,” and  “slide” as you can to write a unique report for each case. And it would be nice if you could swim well. You know, just in case.

For those of you who love spending time with animals, The Giant Panda Protection and Research Center in Ya’an, Sichuan province in China offers a job of a panda custodian. You will have to stroke little fluffy bears, give them food, provide the animals with everything they need, and receive all the love they will give to you in return.

The salary is $32,000 yearly plus free meals, transit, and accommodation near the research center. Generally, the center does not require much from the applicants, they just need to be older than 22 years old, have good writing skills, photography skills, and have some basic knowledge about pandas. The center expects that most applicants will be office workers who got tired of the stressful city life and who want to change their office work to a peaceful vacation-like job with cute animals.

Imagine a person who says “I paid for this Tesla Car by eating ice cream.” Sounds like a joke, but in fact, ice cream tasters earn quite good money ($60,000 yearly), plus, of course, they have free ice cream of all the possible flavors every day.

As an ice cream taster, you are expected to evaluate taste, consistency, texture, smell, and a number of other features of every portion of ice cream. Well, we all understand that in any case it will mostly be only about the taste. Therefore, you are expected to like ice cream, otherwise, this job may turn into real hell for you. On the other hand, will you still love ice cream like before after you taste your 5,000th ice cream sample?

This part of work requires a solid computer education and a natural desire to crack and hack programs and systems. You may do it just because you are a naturally curious person, or you can earn money in that working as an ethical hacker.

Ethical hackers are hired by the security departments of big organizations (or even the national government) in order to find out whether their information is stored safely enough. It means that a hacker absolutely legally tries his best to penetrate a computer system and gets money for this (the yearly salary can be up to $150,000).

The purpose of this job is to find the weak places that the “freelance evil” hackers may use to break down the system. Once an ethical hacker finds the vulnerability, they should document it and provide advice on how to fix the problem. So, generally, ethical hackers are there to improve company’s overall security.

Do you like to procrastinate while working and browse the Internet for hours instead of actually doing your job? Maybe then it is time to make reading stuff on social networks your main source of income? A chief listening officer can earn up to $95,000 yearly for observing and monitoring comments and opinions that customers and clients leave on the Internet about a certain company.

Basically, you need to focus on blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and other social networks to track all references to your company. You need to find out what people are talking about the products and services, whether they are satisfied or disappointed. You collect all the complaints, all the tips and ideas people want to be realized and then deliver this information to the company departments.

For instance, if your company’s Facebook is full of bad reviews of one product, you send this information to the Customer Service Director, so that they can solve the problem and improve the situation. It is also very important to let people know that the clients are happy with the excellent service, so they remain motivated to do their job further on the same high level.

If you have a nice voice and a good accent, you may earn your money for simply saying things. The voices you hear on TV and radio commercials, in award presentations or backstage theater reading—all these pieces of work are done by voice-over artists. You may remember storytelling voice-overs in some popular movies, such as Fight Club, Blade Runner, Moulin Rouge!, or The Shawshank Redemption.

A voice-over artist, especially if they have a unique voice, may earn about $80,000 yearly on average. No need to write your own text, just read the script as well as you can.

If you are one of those blessed that can (and do!) work from home, we have something to say to you. First of all, it is now officially proved that working remotely indeed increases performance, and the increase is significant. The study shows that not everyone chooses to work from home, as for some people socializing with coworkers means more than having the opportunity to work in their own rhythm. Butaccording to the study, those who favored telecommuting, statistically work more productively, are generally happier, and even quit less often.

Those people who took part in this study volunteered to work from home, which means they could have already had a natural preference for working remotely. There are still lots of people who are forced to do so, and maybe if they had a chance, they would prefer a chaotic fussy environment, which can be distracting for one, but helps to be more creative for others. There are also some people who lack self-discipline, and they may even hate working from home.

I am definitely not one of those haters because I love working outside the office, so I can share with you some tips on how to increase your productivity if you work from home.

Maybe, it was one of your sweetest dreams just to roll out of your bed (or even stay in bed with your pajamas on) and start your working day without bothering about all those “unnecessary things” like putting your pants on or brushing your hair. And this is indeed one of those benefits that comes with working on your own at home. The trick is that very soon your relaxed behavior starts to influence your productivity. Therefore, you need to split the working part from the relaxing part.

Such a simple thing as putting your clothes on can help you get into a working state of mind. You do not need to do makeup or put your best blouse on, or iron your suit and choose a tie; in most cases, simple, comfortable clothes is enough (however, if you want to work with your best clothes on, no one dares to forbid you).

It is not so easy to fool your mind and make it work effectively if it “feels like home, feels like it is time to do nothing.” You need something to create a border, to leave this procrastination state aside. And more or less formal clothes can do that for you. Putting nice clothes on starts a psychological switch to the “working mood”.  Plus, in case there is a Skype call, you will not need to run all around your house in panic trying to find “something normal” so you do not feel ashamed.

Commuting? Seriously? Yes, this is absolutely not a joke: getting out of the house before you start your working day can make you work more efficiently. It may sound ridiculous, but it has sense. The thing is, starting work immediately after waking up does not give your brain time to adapt to another rhythm. But during the time you spend outside, you mentally prepare for working.

The good thing is you do not need to take a train or drive for 40 minutes, just a little walk around your house can work perfectly. You may even turn it into a small ritual: for instance, you may go to a café to buy some coffee and go back through the nearest park. Then you can come back home with the feeling you are actually coming to an office, but a very nice and comfortable one.

This short morning walk outside has another bonus “side-effect”—it makes you move more. This is especially important if you have a sedentary way of living. Therefore, it is also important to make short exercise breaks during the day. Just like you had coffee breaks in the office, you need the same breaks while working at home, though it is better to use this time healthier.

You can use any of those numerous videos with HIIT workouts on YouTube—they are usually around 10-15 minutes long. If you are not in the mood for sweating, you can simply go out of the house, walk for a short while, or you can do just any exercises at all for a start. In any case, exercises will boost your mood and productivity. And this is exactly what we need.

If you want to stay sane while working at home, you need to make a rule for everybody you live with not to disturb you during working hours. It is great to spend time with your family, but if you are distracted by your kids and your significant other all the time, you are risking to have problems with focusing on important details and, therefore, to make lots of mistakes. Sometimes, it is difficult for others to understand that although you are staying at home, you still cannot give your loved ones all the attention they want. But you can find a balance in this situation.

You can find a learning station for your kids, and choose, for instance, some course on the Internet to keep them busy. If your significant other also works from home, it is better to work at the same time but in different rooms (if it is possible).

It is important to escape the distraction that comes not only from the people in your household, but from the rest of the world as well. Try not to use Facebook, Twitter, and other time-wasting sources. They are a straight way to procrastination. You go just to reply to the message from your friend, and in half an hour you find yourself watching cat GIFs and sending the funniest ones to everyone in your Skype friend list.

If the temptation is too big, you can even remove the bookmarks from your browser or put your phone into an airplane mode. As for me, I chose to create a guest account on my laptop. I never activate any of my social networks under this account, and if I need a break, I would rather get away from the desk and let my eyes and my body rest than start browsing the Internet.

You can get the best results while working when you use both focused and diffused modes, but not at the same time. For instance, you can use the Pomodoro Technique. This technique requires you to work hard for 25 minutes, and then to give yourself some reward, like browsing the Internet, drinking a cup of coffee, or talking to a friend. And then you repeat the session.

The trick is to switch the brain from focused (i.e. working) mode, when you work hard, to the diffused (i.e. relaxing) mode, when you do any other things that let your brain forget about work for a while. If you are focused all the time, you will not only feel exhausted and burned out in the long term, you will simply be less creative and effective right now. When you switch your attention to something else on purpose, your mind keeps on working in the background, but since you are not focusing on the problem, it can see other ways of solving it.

Sometimes 25 minutes of working and then 15 minutes of lying in bed with eyes closed can be much more productive than 35 minutes of non-stop hard working. You give your brain an opportunity to rest, it gives you back nice ideas as a reward. During those breaks, you may do your exercises, check your Facebook (finally!), or walk the dog. Whatever makes you forget about your task for a while is good.

The best thing about working from home is that you can make your own rules. If it is better for you to sit in Starbucks café, go and work there. You may also go to a coworking center, especially if you had planned a meeting during the day. If you are a late riser, give yourself an opportunity to sleep in the morning and start your working day later. If you have always dreamed of working while sitting in a lounge chair and drinking mojito, this is the time to do it.

If you tend to procrastinate, it is better to find a physical space in your house that you will use as an office. It can be a separate room or a table which you use only for working and for nothing else. So when you are leaving this place, you will have the feeling that the working day is over.

If your working hours are scheduled, try to use them as effectively as you can (remember that your mind is working even when you have a break) and force yourself to stop when the working day is over. Do not try to do everything in one day. Do not work on your weekend. Treat yourself nicely. And finally, enjoy being outside the office.