A truly obslolete job description : "Arc Lamp Trimmer" These were the guys who went around the city on a daily or weekly rotation replacing and trimming the carbon rods in the electric street lamps of the late 1890's and early 1900's . The carbon rods required replacement about once a week in newer lamps and almost daily in older lamps . This was a dangerous job because the electric induction in street lamp circuits could approach 6000 volts or more even when they were turned off . The lamps were often designed to be lowered to the ground on ropes or chains for easy trimming and frequent servicing or the trimmer had a special cart with a tall ladder for reaching the lamps . Trimmers were often also given a wood platform mounted on porcelain or glass insulators to insulate them from the ground when working on lamps . These lamps and this job were obsolete by 1915 when most cities had replace arc lamps with more modern tungsten filament bulb lamps that lasted years in service . Needless to say you would not want to shake the trimmers hand wile he was servicing a lamp or you'd both end up dead! Arc lamp trimmers had a very high mortality rate on par with contemporary lineman and explosives handlers in their day . It is no surprise that life insurance companies of the era refused to offer insurance to people who held this job .