10 Worst Jobs in Cleveland

And you're looking at doing this for the next seven months, until someone with a cooler nickname decides to shoot you for talking to his woman at a bar last Friday — even though you were in Lorain that night, chasing down a guy named Pink Eye who still owes you 14 bucks from April. But, oops, mistakes happen.

#7 Bum With a Weak Con
Estimated Pay: $7.46/day
Benefits: Fresh air
When you're a Bum With a Strong Con, the world is your ATM. Simply tell some sucker about your starving sextuplets, and watch him stand at the supermarket checkout while you buy baby formula with his $20. Then, as soon as you're out of the Samaritan's sight, return with the formula and receipt, and voilà! There's a three-day Jim Beam Festival under the Carnegie Bridge, and you're the Grand Marshal.

But being a Bum With a Weak Con? That's a different story. When "Slim," whose territory is the Warehouse District, gets thirsty, he unveils the crappiest con in Cleveland.

"Lenny! We meet again!" he yells to every man who walks past St. Clair and West Sixth. Most passersby, typically named something other than Lenny, glare disdainfully at Slim and keep walking. Occasionally, the target might correct the misinformed beggar — "No, my name's Rod" — offering Slim a chance to confuse the guy into submission: "Shit, I know that, Todd, long time no see, baby!"

Then he goes for the money pitch while Lenny/Rod/Todd is reeling: "Lemme get ten or twenty dollars. I'll give it right back!"

Slim's royal flush is the guy who happens to be named Lenny, and is enough of a drunk to believe he may have befriended a bum when blacked out. "I've gotten two of those," says Slim, who's been a Bum With a Weak Con for nine years now. "Both times, they were pretending hard that they remembered me."

Of course, Slim's weak con is further weakened by his choice of names. According to namestatistics.com, Lenny is the 968th most popular name in the country. Why not boost his odds and go with, say, John?

"John?" responds Slim incredulously. "That's too fuckin' obvious that I'm playing around. Lenny, people think I'm for real."

#6 The Cop Who Guards Hollywood Video
Estimated Pay: $18/hour
Benefits: Free popcorn and the chance to memorize every line in Heat
Every Cleveland cop needs a side gig so he can afford extra layers of Kevlar for those long, cold nights on East 93rd. But you couldn't be the cop who guards the end zone at Browns stadium, could you? Or even the cop who enforces the "penis in pants" rule at Christie's?

No, you're the hard-luck case who works nights at the video store, sitting on a stool near the door, waiting for that heist that never comes. You're forced to overhear World of Warcraft debates between pimple-faced clerks, as the soul-piercing sounds of Daddy Day Care loop endlessly on the TVs overhead.

Unfortunately, Cleveland's law enforcement runs on a model popular in Latin America — namely, We Can't Afford It, Pendejo, so Pay the Cop Yourself. Which is where you come in.

You spend 50 hours a week arresting guys with the IQs of toaster ovens. Then, because the city's so dangerous — and because you're so broke from sending your kids to Catholic school that you'll work for a security guard's wage and free DVD rentals — Hollywood decides to pass on the rent-a-cop and actually rents a cop, like with a gun and stuff.

The sum result is that you're working the door for an additional 15 hours a week, watching the stoners file in and out with Dazed and Confused and Klondike Bites.

Swear to God, you find yourself thinking as your hand slides over your holster, the next time one of these hippies asks me if Short Circuit is in stock . . .

#5 Frank Jackson's SpeechWriter
Estimated Pay: $65,000/year
Benefits: None
Excerpt from an e-mail between a departing Jackson speechwriter and his replacement:

To: rejectedbyarbys@hotmail.com

From: idratherbeunemployed@gmail.com