People have been blown away after learning what Taylor Swift’s first ever job was - and it’s not for the faint of heart. The iconic singer and songwriter, 34, has established herself as one of the most powerful and recognisable artists in the world but before she achieved her legendary status and billion-dollar bank balance, she had a humble job.
Born in Pennsylvania, US, Taylor Swift grew up on a Christmas tree farm - which served as inspiration for the festive song of the same name - and her job was to examine the sold trees for praying mantis egg sacs. The insects often attach their egg sacs, which look like a brown, walnut-sized hard clump reminiscent of a pine cone, to the branches of Christmas trees for safe keeping. Unsuspecting families then take their tree home, decorate it, and risk waking up to 100-200 baby praying mantis’ in their homes.
Whenever her family sold a Christmas tree, Taylor had the job of carefully removing any of the egg sacs so they didn’t go home with the customers. In an interview with Esquire, originally published in 2014, she said: “It was such a weird place to grow up. But it has cemented in me this unnatural level of excitement about fall and then the holiday season. My friends are so sick of me talking about autumn coming. They're like, ‘What are you, an elf?’”.
She said her father's hobby was to tend to the farm outside his work as stockbroker for Merrill Lynch: “He'd get up four hours early to go mow the fields on his tractor," Taylor added. "We all had jobs. Mine was picking the praying-mantis pods off of the trees, collecting them so that the bugs wouldn't hatch inside people's houses.”.
