This guy’s job is to walk on a mattress. No, seriously. His name is Reuben Reynoso, and he’s a professional mattress walker. This is apparently the important, final step in making a mattress. I am not joking.
If you watch the video of Reynoso walking above, you wouldn’t be crazy to think that anyone could do that job. Sure Reynoso looks like a well-built walking machine with powerful footwork and solid weight-to-body distribution, but… it’s walking on a bed. There’s a science to it though! Well, sort of. Reynoso says:
“It’s work. It’s not for everybody. There is a right way and a wrong way to do it.”
So I guess it’s not exactly a science. But still, there’s a purpose. Reynoso needs to walk on a mattress to “expertly compress no fewer than 28 layers of fluffy cotton batting while seeking to detect tiny lumps or other imperfections”.
The mattresses aren’t your run-of-the-mill springs either; they’re handmade at the McRoskey mattress factory in San Francisco and retail for about $US2750. The walking on the mattress needs to be precise to make the cotton batting perfectly compressed, but still fluffy and without any lumps. What a gig. Read more about the mattress-making and walking process here. [Arbroath via Neatorama]