Thanks to its unique political system and the wages paid for work Cubans developed a range of jobs that do not exist anywhere else.

You can’t live on a salary, even if you are a minister or director of a company. So everybody has a job next to his official designation.

A few examples:

We buy our rice at the supermarket and boil it. In Cuba rice is dried on the streets so it is dirty. This guy is letting the wind blow the dust out of the rice. Nest step: Looking at every grain to fish out the little stones (they will cost you a tooth) and bad grains. It’s a day’s job at every restaurant.

2 Receipt ripper.

At the door of every store, there is a man (always a man) that carefully checks if the items in your bag match the ones on the receipt. Once satisfied, he folds the receipt and carefully rips it. They all do this the same way. There must be a receipt ripper school!

3 Nail polish bottle recycler.

This guy sells nail polish and pays his customers 1 Peso (4 cents) per returned bottle. He then cleans them, fills them up again with self-made nail polish and sells them for 10 Peso.

4 Bus money exchanger.

The bus costs 40 cents but if you pay with one Peso you will not get change. So this guy gives you 4 20 cent coins for a Peso. Two bus fares for 1!

5 Internet Dealer

Cuba’s Internet Provider is a monopolist. They provide internet access for 1 CUC per hour using a scratch card. This gave rise to two new jobs:

A: The Scratchcard salesmen buy the cards at the official Internet store for 1 and sell them for 2 in de WiFi parks. People pay that price because the shop always has huge lines and rarely has the cards as they are sold to the dealers for 1.25. (Dealer pays 1.25, salesperson pockets .25 and dealer makes .75 per card.)

B The Network dealer sets up his connection to the internet (paying 1 per hour) and sells off his connection via a private network for 50 cents. He’s making a profit as soon as more than 2 people are connected through his network.

6 Standing in line man

This guy spends his days standing in line. All day, every day. Cuba has long lines. Everybody is waiting for something. The Colista stands in the longest line he can find and when it is almost his turn, he sells his place and goes to the back of the line.

7 The disposable lighter repairman.

If your disposable lighter is empty or the flint went, this guy has a solution. He fills it up or repairs it for 3 Pesos. Most travel guides mention this guy and will tell you he uses insecticide to fill up the lighter. This illustrates the problem of those guides. They simply believe what they see or hear and Cuba has many layers. The truth is that these guys indeed use an insecticide bottle but fill it with lighter liquid. They use the insecticide bottles because they are easy to fill and to handle and last long because they are sturdy.

8 The Yellows

Guys in yellow uniforms play chicken with all government cars to stop them and fill them up with hitchikers.

9 Mosquito Hunters

Dressed in a khaki uniform these guys hunt mosquitos all day from door to door.

The list goes on and on. Nothing to guard guard, Nothing to gard gard supervisor, Plastic bag salesman, always something for sale (that’s about everybody). Market prices inspector, the specialized repairman for everything… Cuba has a lot of extraordinary jobs.

There is a lot of confusion about Cuba because we just don’t understand the system. For instance, the double currency tale is just a tale…

Want to get deeper into Cuba than ‘most travel guides’? Read this blog and then order our book…