Dream Jobs
I started reading 168 Hours: You Have More Time than You Think this week and it’s fascinating. I’d highly recommend it so far.
There’s a big chapter about how one of the best things you can do is get in a job you really enjoy so that you don’t spend 40-50 hours of your week doing something you wish you weren’t doing.
One of the things she suggests is making a list of 100 Dreams you have in your life, from the wildly improbable (one of hers is to write a fiction series that makes Harry Potter look like small potatoes) to the very doable (keep a stash of chocolate on hand, visit the bakery next to your office, etc). The idea is that you can start with some of the very easy ones and get a taste for doing things you love and also figure out what things you like in theory but actually aren’t very fun for you (this is sewing anything above a hem for me – I love the idea of sewing, but I find actually sewing one of the most frustrating things I can do with my free time).
Bart and I were discussing all of this the other night, and we started talking about dream jobs and what your dream job would be if there were no limits (say, you wanted to be an astronaut who walks on the moon, despite the fact that 1) you have no science background or aptitude and 2) NASA doesn’t even do moon landings anymore).
I think my dream job would be to work as the creative director for the food section of a big magazine. I think I’d love working with food on a constant basis, testing recipes, learning more about styling and photography, and getting to work with a team of people who are really into food too. I’d like it to be a magazine that focuses on real and interesting food, like Martha Stewart or Everyday Food or Real Simple. I’m not very interested in semi-homemade items or things to be dashed together at the last second.
I love books, but I mainly like to read them for fun and then talk about them in a pretty casual way. I don’t want to professionally review books, I don’t want to edit books, I don’t want to write books.
When I was a librarian, I realized that I don’t particularly enjoy teaching (some school librarian jobs are more teaching than others – I had one that was extremely heavy on the teaching side), I’m not great with kids, and I really didn’t like that I was the only person in my entire school that did my job. I envied the teachers who had the other teachers of their grade to work closely with on a daily basis. The best days of the year for me were when we had district meetings and I got to spend time with the other librarians from the district.
I hear fairly frequently that a school librarian is someone’s dream job and I think. . .”It was fun enough, but it turned out not to be my dream job. I’m not at all anxious to go back.”
I do have an Internet friend who does collection development (children/YA) for a big library system. She picks what books they’ll order (hello, reading a lot and also reading a lot of professional reviews, which is one of my favorite things to do). She works with the librarians at other branches to help them build their collections and weed old books. She doesn’t work much with patrons at all.
When she told me about her job, I thought, “Now THAT could be my dream job.”
But maybe I’d do that and find all sorts of things about it that I didn’t enjoy either.
I’m now tempted to ask everyone I know what they think their dream job would be. Because I’m too introverted to go around asking nosy questions in real life, I’ll just ask you lovely non-scary readers from the safety of my computer desk – what job do you think would be the absolute most fun in the world?
Wow! Fun post. I think I would like to be a high school English teacher who later moved on to training other teachers. I have so much passion for teaching that I feel like could rub off on other teachers. I'm slightly hesitant about this dream though and I'm not sure why. My other dream is to be a writer or editor. But I know that I could only so it part time, because I'd go crazy not being around people.
Alesha <3
Travel writer.
Ooo I love this! Let's see… Personal stylist (I love shopping for other people)… Something on Broadway (you did say impossible :)… Or, more realistically, a college English professor, a full-time writer, or an editor, since the only thing I love as much as writing is improving others' writing!
I interned or worked at a bunch of different types of libraries in college and grad school so I could be sure what I wanted. I figured out – school library NOT for me, academic library NOT for me, and although I enjoy cataloging, I got bored doing it 35 hours a week. Being a youth services librarian in a small public library was always my dream starting when I was about 12 and although I've hit some bumps and have days when I just want to quit, it's still my dream job! I hope to transition into collection development at some point in the future – say, 20 years down the road (-:) but I don't know if that's feasible since I work in a very small library and I'd have to get a big system to hire me. Preferably in Washington, as that's another of my dreams (-:)
I'm blessed to really enjoy my current job a lot (readers' advisory/reference librarian at a public library), but since we're going for big dreams here…I'm going to steal travel writer (above) and also add professional musician or a librarian at a really unique and cool special library, like one of these:
http://www.barbican.org.uk/visitor-information/barbican-library
http://www.stpauls.co.uk/Cathedral-History/The-Collections/The-Library
https://www.cia.gov/library/
My dream job would be travelling around like Rick Steeves or those other tv show hosts; travel around the world, see cool things, and eat awesome food everyday? Sign me up!
I have to say, if there was a job where I got paid to read books of my choosing and write/tell like-minded people about them, then that may be my dream job. Bonus if it includes a couch, fireplace, fleece blankets, a mountain view and unending hot cocoa.
Or maybe the second dream job would be to be a lecturer at a college — getting to do more research and reading on a specific topic, and then working with college students.
Fun! I majored in public health and I loved it while I was in school, but since I've been out I've come to think it's not exactly right for me.
I think I'd go with being a writer full-time. I've been working at it part time for the past year and a half or so, and I seriously love it. I'm pretty close to getting ready to query agents, I think. We've got about 3 months till hubby finishes his masters, and then hopefully he lands a job that pays him enough of a salary that I can take a few months (or more?) to try writing full-time before we decide to have kids.
Other than that, I have always wanted to walk on the moon. And be on Broadway. Maybe if we could set up some Broadway musical ON the moon?! And I've always wanted to start up a tiny school in Africa. And if I could somehow travel the world with my job, exploring new places, that would be bomb too.
Whew. Looks like I've got a lot to do. . .
I'd be a Broadway star!!! Someone like Sutton Foster with the voice of Sarah Brightman. Oh yes!!! OR I'd like to be a curator of animal research. I love anything having to do with research….
I'm going to be devil's advocate for a bit here: what if, instead of trying to figure out what our dream job is and act accordingly, we chose a career and learned to love it? I read an interesting piece in the NYTimes a while back about just this. The author had graduated college with 3 very different, viable career options ahead of him. He said, that instead of trying to figure which one made him happiest, he chose one and committed to loving it. Because let's be honest, we can't and won't all be in jobs we love. (like me) It would be great, but it's not feasible. So we learn to love it and find things we like about it. (like me) This is me arguing against the book, NOT your post.
I LOVE dreaming of fun jobs I'd do. Do it all the time. My uber dream job (as in don't have the skills) would be to be a professional dancer. My medium dream job would be to travel and write travel books (or have someone else ghost write them for me). My maybe-attainable dream job would be to be a personal finance consultant. I love telling people what to do, I love budgeting, and I love saving money. Yup, I'm that cool.
This is fun to consider. My top three dream jobs would be…
1) Television screenwriter – Preferably for a fanciful show like Pushing Daisies!
2) Travel/food writer – Get paid to travel and eat and write? That would be perfection.
3) Broadway Star – I'm much more suited for ward choir, but if I could do ANYTHING, it would involve me singing and dancing on Broadway.
(Now I want to start working on my list of 100 dreams.)
I'd like to have a career as a college student. Homework optional.
And @Gretchen Alice, I think you should pursue your dream of writing shows like Pushing Daisies. That was one of my all-time favorite shows and I'm so sad it was cancelled!
Homework optional! Haha! That'd be great. I told my husband once that I wanted to audit all the classes from the great professors at Georgia Tech, so I could learn cool stuff and not do the horrible homework.
Oh man, I've got a few. I've always thought I'd probably enjoy working in the film industry. Assuming this is a different world in which I was very talented, maybe as a director?
NatGeo travel writer. Traveling and writing? Sign me up.
I've discovered from being in YW that I actually really enjoy teaching. So I'm sure there's a dream job there, though I'm not sure what it would be.
Heavens, what a timely post for me! I've been doing a job I often actively dislike for 4.5 years now and am finally able to start thinking about that cliche "what I want to do with my life." And I'm drawing a blank! I want to be a freelance writer – but having done it I know exactly how hard it can be (plus it's an incredibly tough time right now to be relying on your pen!), so I'm really intimidated to try to jump into it again. Part of the Mysterious Project I've been working on is giving me an insight into the administrative side of the writing world, and I'm discovering I really enjoy it, so maybe working for a publishing house or magazine or website in day to day support capacity while I freelance on the side and try to write a novel someday.
I always wanted to be a waitress. Silly right? Because it is something I could probably do if I applied :). My husband doubts my coordination to carry those big heavy trays filled with food without dropping it… and he might have a point. But the people interaction sounds so fun. I like beign on the go like that too.
In truth my favorite (paying) job ever (and that I have a hard time imagining beating) was working at the MTC. I loved it so so much. I love LOVE teaching and it was the perfect class size with the perfect class length (8 hour teaching days? Too long, too much lesson planning) with the perfect curriculum. Too bad I can't go back. Sigh.
While I did really love teaching high school, it was incredibly stressful and time consuming. maybe that's because I only really did one year? Maybe part time teaching would be more up my alley?
I'll just stay home with my kids, thanks. I love our totally free schedule, coming and going as we please. Having time to read books, bake or cook, sew, and play endless dress-ups with some hilarious little people. There are definitely stressers, but so many positives that I would be devastated if I had to give it up and actually get some kind of paying job right now. Just the thought almost makes me panic. So maybe I'm doing my dream job :). Cliche but true.
This is such a great post! I've spent A LOT of time thinking about my dream job and if I can go about doing it. Most of my dream jobs revolve being a consultant because I love having attention on me, being bossy and helping people improve their lives. I would love to be a dating/life coach, professional organizer or teach teachers on how to teach better. I actually might be going back to school to make that third one happen!
Also, I really like what was said in an earlier comment about committing to loving your job. Every job will have it's drawbacks and so we could always find something we hate about each job. Even our dream jobs! But it's important to find joy in what you are currently doing.
I want to run a non-profit to help women in the US and the developing world. I want to fight against domestic violence, abuse of women, and try and change some of the freakishly backward attitudes of the general public towards the worth of a woman. I want to incorporate education for women (Kindergarten thru college graduation, and public health resources, and create places for women to go where they feel safe and can learn about algebra or engineering or midwifery or biology or nutrition or whatever.
Yep, that would be my dream job.
xox
Ideally I'd love to teach 1-2 community college humanities classes per semester. I actually did this during grad school and I loved it, but it's not particularly feasible as a full-time career. I'm also very happy with my current career as a university career counselor with lots of control over programming and developing new programs and resources.
For me, any dream job would be part-time (with full-time salary and benefits, of course). I have too many interests to be able to devote all of my time and energy to one thing, even if it's a job a love.
Travel writer looks like it's a popular one, and I would have definitely listed it as one of my dream jobs a few years ago. As much as I love to travel, I've come to the realization that I love routine too much to really want to travel as frequently as a travel writing career would demand. An international vacation every year or two is sufficient for me.
That sounds like a really interesting & thought provoking book. I'd say my "dream job" would be something along the lines of a Kimora Lee Simmons or a Heidi Klum–I would have loved to model and then become a "brand" so to speak and actually deal with the fashion, the runways, designing clothing, etc.
My sister has a friend who worked at Sunset Magazine. Her job was to go on weekend getaways around the West (all expenses paid, of course) with her husband. Then she would review the hotels/inns they stayed in and restaurants they ate at. This would prove difficult with kids, but it is still my dream job.
Also, I wonder if you would enjoy being a school librarian more now that you have kids.