Unconventional research orders (from a writer's perspective)

I have been providing academic writing service to students for over five years now. I would like to share some recent examples where I just didn't know how to help the student. I am sure many experienced people here have a lot to add to this list. Check out some of my experiences with clients recently.

1. A client from Australia wanted someone to appear for her examination on her behalf. Too risky for everyone involved I guess :-o
Her e-mail read as follows:

"Hi,
its a 3 hour exam, you have to sit down in a exam hall as me, ill give you my ID. exam has 8 questions , 5 to be answered. Exam is in November. im just checking if you can sit it for me?

i need a guarantee pass or i have to repeat it next year:("

2. A client from Canada wanted someone to do her online exam. However, her online college system would record everything during the exam as webcam access had to be enabled as soon as the exam starts. She suggested me to stick a sellotape over the webcam so that a blurred image can serve her purpose. I am sure such technologies do record IP addresses as well.

3. A client from Australia wanted us to compose music for her, her e-mail is as follows:

(i) Thank you for your response. I need some one who can compose a melody on Jazz. It is just 46 bar of Jazz melody composition which is to be presented in notation form. No recording or audio.

Is there any one who is specialized in jazz theory and composition.
Thanks

(ii) My task is to compose a jazz melody using the rhythm pattern and chords provided. It is a 36 bar composition and the most important is to use jazz language...etc

No service was given from me to any of the three cases above, I would love to know what would you have done in such cases provided that it was something you could do very well :-)

Also, any orders or enquiry that fits into being called UNCONVENTIONAL? :-)

The first thing to ask for is a plane ticket to Australia / Canada to make sure the IP matches the country. Second, ask for a selfie of the student to put it in front of the camera ;) But seriously, I don't know a reputable writer who would try to cheat the system like that and take classes online for another student; not only it's risky, but also unethical / illegal.

If you're not qualified to do these orders, stay away from them. And don't help students cheat (one thing is helping in composing an example paper, but taking exams for someone else will get you in jail).

One of the strangest requests I have ever received was from a student claiming to study in a military school. He needed someone who could interview an active duty officer from a nearby military based for a research paper on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and its effect on military men in active duty. I would have needed to get the soldier to sign an affidavit of sorts attesting to the fact that the student interviewed him on a particular date at a particular time. I needed to record the audio (this was before mobile phones with cameras) and present a photo (that is all the cellphones were equipped with at the time) of the student with the soldier. I could have done the first two requirements easily, but the third one was just impossible for me to do. Needless to say, I turned down the paper and told the student that he would simply have to make the time to go down to the camp, make arrangements for an interview, and do it himself.

I once had a student request that I attend an operatic performance at a theater out of state. While the travel time was not that bad and the student was willing to put me up with accommodations for the night, the problem was that the whole class was to board the same school bus, which was going to do a head count, and oh, the teacher would be in attendance too. Now, I was willing to spend the night and let the student answer for everything from the ticket cost to 3 meals plus snacks, I told him that the main problem we had was the school bus and the head count since the teacher would be counting heads as the students boarded the buss. I wasn't just about to go through a Face/Off experience just to accommodate his request.

About 10 years ago, I took an order to rewrite a book draft about bartending from an essay company that primarily provides academic writing.

I am currently working on a paper that is meant for publication in a respected academic journal by a PhD candidate. Interesting, albeit unconventional project.

I had a professionally employed client who had to attend a business conference and file a report for his boss after. It was a 4 day conference at a Florida resort, all expenses paid by the company. Problem was, the person wanted the cold slopes of Aspen instead of the warm beaches of Florida. You won't believe how much he paid me to attend the conference for him. Since there were over 500 people at the convention, I managed to blend into the crowd and not get caught as the impostor that I was. We did that a few times for regional conferences, but I drew the line when he asked me to attend an overseas conference. The hassle of having to get a rush visa alone would not make it worth my while.

Some of my other most unconventional projects have included a (real) departmental policy-compliance audit for the chief of a police department and at least a half a dozen letters for working nurses filing grievances against their supervisors and complaints against coworkers for bullying in the workplace. That's half a dozen totally different professional nurses who had used me years before in nursing school, not a series of letters for one nurse. In fact, my learned familiarity with the prevalence of bullying and very nasty childish cliques in nursing (more often than not, based on race and/or nationality) is why I told my wife to forget it when she mentioned possibly going to nursing school. She has the wrong personality to be exposed to any of that nonsense.

One of the craziest research orders I received was to attend classes for a student whose work hours overlapped with his classroom hours. This was before the dawn of internet based research and classes. He had to physically be present in the school library for the days when research was required as part of the class. The teacher would be sitting in the library with the students to make sure that they learned how to research properly. We could not figure out how to get his sign in sheet signed when his teacher would have been in the library, taking attendance. Needless to say I did not take the order and that student, had to take summer school because he totally missed out on classes and exams that year.