The Weirdest Job at Apple Literally Involves Gallons of Sweat

Sure, Apple is famous for its sleek aesthetic, consistently ranks among the best employers in the country, and is currently gearing up to move into its spectacular new 'spaceship' campus sometime this month, but that doesn't necessarily mean every corporate job at the tech giant is particularly enviable or glamorous. In fact, an employee with the weirdest and perhaps the grossest job at the company is actually tasked with making gallons of fake human sweat. Really. 

In one of several new videos Apple released on Thursday in recognition of Earth Day, toxicology experts Rob Guzzo and Art Fong explain how there's a whole subsection of a team at the company dedicated to skin safety and ensuring its products "won't harm human health or the environment." This, of course, involves testing how devices like, say, your Apple Watch react to coming into contact with sweat on your skin throughout the day. This is an incredibly important condition to test, considering incidents in which other wearable devices gave some users skin rashes, according to a report by The Verge. While this is likely a common practice, it's how Apple gets its sweat that's interesting. And maybe a little gross.

Instead of collecting actual sweat from lab employees or volunteers, Apple has an employee who specializes in producing a fresh batch of synthetic human sweat every day, which can be used to replicate real-life product usage conditions. That's right: Apple employs someone who's referred to as the "sweat guy" and, ultimately, they go through about 30 gallons of the stuff every year. All in the name of your safety, according to the video. Notably, the video doesn't mention anything about the smells. Probably for the best.

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Tony Merevick is Cities News Editor at Thrillist and tries not to sweat on his Apple products, because gross. Send news tips to news@thrillist.com and follow him on Twitter @tonymerevick.