I used to hear about "detasseling corn" as an utterly miserable short-term summer job option for high school students. Walking through cornfields in heavy clothes (to avoid getting cut up by the leaves) in summer in Iowa.
Miserable indeed! I was in Southern MN and did this job for a few weeks in the summer. We started around 5:30am and worked 8-10 hrs per day, rain or shine.
Why do this? At the time (early 2000s) it was an extremely well-paying, unskilled job at $15/hr!
