The USS Enterprise is where the Star Trek Federation’s best and brightest want to get stationed, but not every job involves working as a celebrated diplomat or experimenting with the cutting edge of warp technology. With everything that goes on aboard the flagship, what jobs are bound to suck?


Yes, being a redshirt on an Enterprise away team is a hazard to one’s health, but some of the jobs must be soul sucking. Like who is responsible for clearing out the bodies when something goes horrifically wrong, like when poor Lieutenant Van Mayter got stuck in the floor in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “In Theory”? Is there a team that comes in to investigate what we can learn from these gruesome deaths? Is the body transported to sickbay in multiple pieces? Who makes sure that there’s no Van Mayter gunk left in the ship’s mechanics?

Anyway, that’s my pick. What job — one we’ve seen or one that you imagine must exist aboard the Enterprise — would be dull, gross, or simply bone-chilling?