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?
I really love the job I have now (I've been a vet tech for 15 years). Sadly, the field as a whole does not pay well and it would be extremely hard to support a family on the salary. So while there is lots to be said about having a job that you love, there is also much to be said about jobs that pay the bills. I know you are speaking hypothetically, but I sort of agree with Erica. Changing careers isn't always an option, and rather than spending 40-50 hours a week hating what you do, find a way to make it work for you.
That said, if I had to choose another profession, maybe I would have gone into zoo medicine or epidemiology.
168 hours is on my to-read list. I'm curious to see what you think about it, considering some of the reviews I have read.
Very fun post. I don't know if this could be considered a job since it's done on a volunteer basis. Either way, I saw a special on a group that consists of volunteers who takes their certified therapy dogs into hospitals to work with groups such as psychiatric units, burn victims, children with traumatic brain injuries, etc. I love dogs and I love working with people–especially people who need help. I think this would be my dream job. So even though I have a degree as an accountant and that's my dream job right now because it gives me the flexibility to be a stay at home mom, but keep up my skills and earn some spending money during his naps, working with therapy dogs is sort of my retirement dream job.
Is it wrong to wish for no job as my dream job? If my mortgage was paid, I would spend my time volunteering in animal shelters, teaching finance classes, packing food baskets for the hungry, and mentoring at-risk kids . . there are so many great causes out there that can't afford to hire the people they need. And those organizations are the ones I'd most like to help 🙂
I picked up this book right away on B&N based on your review.
In all honesty, I am studying right now to be a personal trainer and I think that or a group fitness trainer would be a pretty sweet job. Especially since I love working out but I don't have the energy to do a 9 to 5 most of the time.
Or like I said above, I would love to audit classes. Learning without the homework? Win!
This is so interesting to me! I like the idea of making a list of dreams. You better believe I always have chocolate on hand… you never know when a blizzard could hit!!
My dream job? Stay-at-home-mom with a heavy dose of personal photography and perhaps some commercial freelance.
I sure wish you wanted to go back to work and lived in Mpls because my work just hired a new design director. I don't know how it works at other places, but at my job the design director is over the art directors, photographers and freelance illustrators and photographers. That role is really neat because you basically put the entire magazine together and in my view are responsible for the entire feel of that issue. I know it's really demanding and difficult. Art director has always been one of my goals, but it takes like 10 years to move up the masthead.
You would be excellent in publishing, too, I think. 🙂
I've been thinking a lot about this lately as some days I want to punch my job in the face. I would LOVE to own my own bakery, let my creative juices flow while baking, make my own hours, please people with treats…so great. I would also love to own my own flower shop even though I know nothing about horticulture. I just love how flowers can cheer someone up or give them a bit of comfort and they can be just so pleasing to the eye. And of course I would love to write the next Harry Potter series but I just don't know if I have the patience for that…
Wow. I loved this. I have NO idea what my dream job would be. I'm going to think about it.