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Jun 12 2020 8 Comments

A Tokyo playground squeak consultant?

What this local government employee’s official job title is remains a mystery. Is he a squeak consultant, specialist or even a connoisseur? But whatever it is that’s written on his business card, there can’t be many better jobs than cycling round the city, trying out all the swings, then rather precariously de-squeaking any that aren’t perfectly smooth and silent.

a tokyo playground swing de-squeaker

Categorized: Photography

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jenn says

    6/12/2020 at 1:14 pm

    Ha, where do I sign up?!? 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/12/2020 at 8:17 pm

      I think there’s a very long waiting list!

      Reply
  2. cdilla says

    6/12/2020 at 5:52 pm

    What an unusual scene to happen across. Perfect that his diminutive assistant was there too, testing the maintained swings.
    When you are young and selecting a career you maybe know 100 or so. But there are countless tens of thousands individual careers out there you only come across by accident. Had I known of “Playground Maintenance Engineer” when I was a school leaver my life may have been quite different 🙂

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/12/2020 at 8:22 pm

      It was. A lot of fun to see as well. And this being Japan, he clearly took his job very seriously. Plenty of testing, and then ever so carefully administered oil.

      I know eh? All those jobs we never, and still don’t know about. With that in mind, I wonder if one of his colleagues is a slide slipperiness specialist?

      Reply
  3. Ken says

    6/14/2020 at 7:31 pm

    I’m surprised he isn’t wearing a helmet. Every other outdoor occupation seems to require one.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/15/2020 at 5:52 pm

      Haha, hadn’t thought about that. He probably should do actually as he wasn’t very steady at all when applying the oil…

      Reply
  4. Rohan Gillett says

    6/14/2020 at 8:31 pm

    For a moment I thought it was the World Swing Competition and the guy was oiling the chains to get every bit of speed out of his machine lol.

    Reply
    • Lee says

      6/15/2020 at 5:54 pm

      He was good when trying them out (pre and post-squeak), so maybe that’s his background — a former competitor. Maybe even champion!

      Reply

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