Bizarre jobs

Every now and again, there's a job advert that catches the eye. It's not becasue of the unbelieveably high salary. Nor is it because it's the dream job that will take you out of the cruddy hell that is your current place of employment. No, it's because the job is so improbable - that you know that it is the only one of its kind. I came across such a job this week - and here it is.

Head of Movement at the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford. Duties include; increasing the physical eloquence of the performing company and support their wellbeing. I love this job.

Now, it's easy to ridicule the position - and indeed it seems that the RSC HR department are already on the case given their choice of phrases in the job description:

• To take responsibility for the day to day running of the movement department
• Through imagination and ambition to foster an integrated, flexible, intelligent and relevant movement practice

But that's missing the point. People who take up these positions are far removed from the jobs that most of us have in the corporate world. We try to impress our bosses with colourful spreadsheets that show how much profit we're earning the company each second. We reply to emails on our BlackBerrys at unearthly hours just to show that we're constantly plugged into the corporate mothership.

But how do you measure the success of the Head of Movement? Start bending the limbs of the actors until they start breaking? Get them to do standing back-flips like Buster Keaton? At a time when everything is becoming measurable and we are increasingly nothing more than a statistic on a number-cruncher's database - I say hail to the Head of Movement.

(Buster Keaton picture from www.newworldclassics.com)