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?
this is such a great post..i've always thought my dream job would be working at a magazine, i have loved magazines forever…but now i think maybe more on the online publication side would be a smarter move. it's so true about finding something you love since you spend so much time doing it! i'm not in my dream job by any means…but i like my coworkers and company, so there's that at least! 🙂
Thanks for the post, and the book recommendation! My boyfriend is actually struggling to find his dream job right now (he's in finance, and very unhappy). I think this book is just the thing he needs right now.
I think my dream job would be to be a fitness instructor at a small gym. Seems pretty low pressure, a positive environment, and you would get your exercise in.
This is so much fun. I had to do an exercise like this in college in my "career exploration" class. The entire semester of that class was a joke except this exercise.
My complete dream job: In the morning I would read books to recommend to Oprah to for her Book Club. During lunch I'd play in a basketball league with my co-workers; it would be fun but not super competitive. Then in the afternoon I would create window displays for Anthropologie. That complete job doesn't exist, though.
Something that I've thought about doing is opening a wedding and reception venue. I actually have it pretty well planned out in my head (except where to get the money, ha!), but I just can't bear the thought of giving up Saturdays and Sundays with my family and let's be honest 90% of weddings are on Saturday and Sunday.
I wouldn't want to do it as a career, but I think it would be perfectly amazing to be a rock star for one night and play to a sold out stadium with people screaming, dancing, and singing along as loud as they can.
Someone at my church gave me this book (apparently the author is the daughter of a church member or something?) and I hung onto it because someone at NPR liked it, but I haven't read it yet.
Now I will.
Thanks for that. 🙂
I think my dream job would be to translate English books into German, that way I could get paid for reading books and write nice things without having to make up the plot 🙂
What a fun question! I'm not even sure what I would do! Ever since I was a kid I've loved to draw up floor plans for houses, and I had planned to study architecture until I accepted the fact that I am TERRIBLE at math and it all just wasn't realistic for me. So maybe not quite an architect, but some kind of home designer.
Ooohhh. I would own a children's bookshop! And have no worries about staying afloat. Just happy children entering each day wanting to listen to and share books!
I still want to go back to teaching some day, because I do love it, but probably only part time (because it's super exhausting). I'd spend the rest of my time writing (preferably getting paid for it, unlike the writing I do now.) Basically, anything that makes me feel like I'm using my brain, pays real money, and lets me be home for my kids would be an ideal job.
I'm an "old" lady, and I still don't know what I want to do! LOL Really, I would love to be a professional genealogist, minus the crabby people, of course. Having to tell a person that he or she really isn't directly descended from someone famous is. not. fun.
I love this post! My dream job would be serving as editor of American Girl magazine or a similar lifestyle magazine for teens/young women. I absolutely love editing and designing layouts (and I'm a control freak, I'll admit), so I can totally see myself doing this.
Also, my mom is an elementary school librarian, and one of her biggest gripes is that she is one of the only people at the school who does her job, too! She's perpetually frustrated by teachers who don't teach students how to read and just send them to the library for her to deal with them. I think being a librarian would be incredibly hard, especially if you don't enjoy being around kids all day (and I definitely don't, either). Glad you've figured out what you like and what you don't!
My ultimate dream job would be teaching business skills to women in third world countries – working for a charity like Women for Women International. I am dreaming right now of opening my own business- a candy/ice cream shop/happy place, or of being a personal financial advisor and teaching financial skills to middle school and high school age kids (not in a public school- in my own private classes).
I also think I would love to be a gardener someplace beautiful. I love to dig in the dirt and see beautiful flowers bloom and vegetables and fruits grow that I had a part in. I would love to learn how to prune shrubs in interesting shapes and grow espalier fruit trees.
My dream job is having my own boutique…of any kind. I have always wanted Meg Ryan's "Shop Around the Corner" on "You've Got Mail". I think that would be so fun. I have started on my dream…I have a booth space at a local boutique where I sell jewelry and accessories like hats, sunglasses, bags and wallets. I LOVE it and wish I could figure out how to make the move to my own store…one day.
My daydream…no chance of happening dream…would be to act in movies. Good ones. And win an Oscar.
I also want the dream job mentioned in one of the other comments…traveling around with my husband, all expenses paid and then reviewing hotels and resorts and restaurants. Yes, I could definitely get into that. I would love to take my kids with me too and review "kid friendly" travel spots. Yes, that'll do.
I know what you mean about being the only one in a school that does your job. As a speech-language pathologist, I was the only one in 2-3 schools that did my job. Thankfully I was assigned to the same schools from year to year, and I made teacher friends I could socialize with whenever I wasn't doing paperwork through lunch (rare). But if I needed feedback on something job related, I had to pick up the phone to call a colleague.
I look back on my time in the schools fondly, but like you, I'm not eager to go back. Maybe when my kids are school-age I'll reconsider.
I've said for a long time that my dream job would be becoming a member of the Jeopardy Clue Crew. They travel all over filming very short bits for the clues and go into classrooms to play Jeopardy. Fun!
I'd also like to do something more artsy, like interior or graphic design. That's what I love to do in my spare time.
I have several dream jobs….
one would be working for Oprah magazine, reading and recommending books in her book section. I think I could pick out an Oprah book club book from a mile away.
Despite the fact that there is no money in it, I would love to be a book concierge (a title I have thought up all by myself, and doesn't it sound impressive?), recommending books to people. I feel like once I know a person I do a pretty good job of recommending books they will like.
Owning/operating an indie bookstore like the one in You've Got Mail looks pretty fun, although I'm not sure it would be all that much fun in real life.
I really do like my job as a teacher librarian, but your friend who works on collection development would be a great job for me as well since I love reading reviews and finding new books that are coming out.
I think I would like to write a book, but first I would actually have to sit down and get some words on paper – or computer- and since that hasn't happened, well, I don't think my future as a best selling author is going to happen any time soon.
I think I would really love to decorate homes, except that I would always want to decorate the homes the way I wanted them to be done. How rude of me right? =[ I love decorating but I think that if I always always had to follow a specific style or set of rules then it wouldn't be that fun for me anymore. I feel like it would be like telling an artist how to do their job – that's a no no. I also think that I would like to be an author except that I can't seem to get any of my ideas on paper… I would be really good at a being a professional dreamer though! =]
I was going to ask on Goodreads if you liked this book, and then Bam! you post about it like magic.
Um, yes. I might have my dream job. I do like helping patrons, but being "on" for the public all day exhausts me, and I am strangely bad at face-to-face reader's advisory. I feel super-duper lucky that this job exists.
But… I also spend like 75% of my time at my desk making sure that each of the hundreds of books we order each month has the right code in the right column which I suspect most folks would find completely loathsome.
I used to feel very dreamy about any job where I could stay home, set my own schedule, and wear yoga pants, but right now twenty minutes on the train to sit in my office all day sounds preferable to a zillion little deadlines looming over my head. In fact, that sounds like grad school… which makes me feel like breaking out in hives.
I think I really was doing my dream job before I had Henry. I got paid to talk about a place I love to live and I got to use social media to do it. Also, I worked with really, really great people. It breaks my heart sometime to think that it's someone else's job now, but I know I made the right decision in staying home with my baby and hopefully I'll be able to find a job I like even better when he's a bit older.
I would be a scuba instructor, for sure. Not like one here in Utah. Somewhere in the Caribbean. I used to say marine biologist, because I love studying animal life and just being in the water, and that would be fine too 🙂 I just want to be in and near the ocean (any ocean) all the time. That being said, I guess if there were no restrictions it would be pretty boss to be a wildlife photographer. Yes, indeed. But, becoming a scuba instructor is actually in the realm of possibility. Once I raise these kids and move to the Caribbean and become decent at diving myself 🙂
Recently though I've developed another dream job. To write for a television series. Maybe I watch 30 Rock too much, but I wouldn't mind just being a miniature Tina Fey.
I might be late to the party, but I love that you made me think about this.
Dream job highly unlikely: Joy's job from Oh Joy (the blog). I'm not sure exactly what she does, but it seems to involve graphic design, working with very creative people, wearing beautiful clothes and getting your picture taken while eating at fabulous restaurants. Sign me up, baby!
Dream job kind of likely: as an undergrad, all of the documentaries in my Women's Studies classes were super outdated (like from the early 80s), and I decided that my dream job would be to update them with my husband: he can film/edit, and I can research and be on camera. We'd get to travel the world together! (Think "Half the Sky," but without the celebrities). Still holding out for this one.
Dream job based on current skill set: to work in the communications branch of any public health organization (for- or non-profit). Right now I work for the AZ Dept of Health Services, but not in the Comms department which is where I would like to be 🙂