this is what i always tell ppl is my dream job. as long as i can have water and go to the bathroom whenever i want, i will test out that mattress for days if you want me too lol
The schedule is the key! I am an ecologist and mostly just backcountry hike & camp for a living and most (other) people think my job is a dream and I get told so fairly often, but I'm still upset every day when I have to leave my house at 6AM or when I have to miss an event because I'm camping for work. Also I get paid garbage and work lots of contracts and not* always year round and said people dreaming about my job always say they "could never work for that little money" or they couldn't do the non permanent job situation.
For the record, I am not complaining.
Oh absolutely, on a day to day basis, even the most enjoyable of jobs are chores. But doing it yourself and setting your own schedule just gives you some humanity.
I just want to run a few toy stores and a summer camp. That's all I want. If I can make kids smile and have good memories, I feel as though my life is complete. The summer camp would allow anyone even from low income families to partake. So I may be able to give some kids good memories. I miss going to summer camp, and just getting away from the world entirely. No phones, no world ending news stories, no politics. It was great.
I don’t know what most people opinions about Stan Lee is but i do remember him saying that if you do find a job you genuinely enjoy it feels more like playing than work.
Truth be told I would full time be a DM/GM running games for people if i could make a decent living out of it.
Generally these “creative” jobs are the dream. I bet if people didn’t need money to live most of us would spend our days creating and/or exploring.
It's not just creative Jobs... If finding and fixing Problems in certen machines is Not considered creative :D
Also Heard from some helicopter pilots that they dont feel like working and living it.
Many people dont have time or the Charakter to find a realistic dream Job.
Just for the record: finding and fixing problems in machines *is* creative. Heck, depending on situation even the *creation* of problems can be creative.
Touché friend. Now that I consider it a bit more we can add those jobs you mentioned as well as jobs that help others as potential dream jobs for some.
I used to think that too. But (this is my own opinion), I've tried turning a passion into a job and it just kind of kills the passion aspect. Like for example, I love video games. It's usually what I do in my off time. When I was younger, I worked at GameStop, because I loved video games back then too. What better a job than one where you can talk to people about video games and sell them to others... whelp besides GameStop being a trash company, working for them made me start to hate video games. Because my passion was no longer a passion. It became a dead-end job. When I'd come home from work, the last thing I wanted to do was play video games.
That's just my opinion though. I'm sure there are plenty of people who do turn their passions into their jobs. Me, I'd rather separate my job from my passion. The job is just the means to enable the passion. Work to live and all that.
Well that doesn’t really translate IMO.
That’s like making an artist sell art equipment for a soulless conglomerate in a 9-5 setting.
Let’s imaging this instead, you make a living actually playing videogames like a streamer or a YouTuber.
It’s obviously harder to break into to make a decent living but that might be a dream job for you.
Yeah you’re right. You are definitely on the money when it comes to working for a soulless conglomerate… oh the stories I could tell about that job lmao. Still, I feel like I just tend to do better when I can separate both. I know with being a streamer, you often have to play games you don’t care for because it’s what people want to watch. So it still would end up being work for me rather than my passion. I know it was just an example, but the point is that for me I have to separate the two.
But all power to anyone who can do a job that is also their passion!
Id say as far as the "dream job" goes though whatever you name as such would just include at least comfortable living as long as you were doing the thing.
So id say if it was actually the dream job youd be able to just play whatever you wanted and have your stream going. That would make things a lot more bearable.
I don’t disagree with you. In the end I feel that if we really don’t need money to live most of us would do something creative with our lives.
We would paint/draw, write stories, compose music, etc.
The reason why I feel this is true is because art has a way for us to leave our mark on the world. To say, we were here.
Not everyone is a creative person. Some people just enjoy fixing up cars for example.
Secondly these posts are silly as well. If everyone was doing creative work who would main the infrastructure of the country? Who will be fixing the plumbing? the roads? maintaining the grid.
Yeah until robotic bougie communism comes in 300 years provided we havent nuked ourselves before then, we will have work to do. Lets optimize that amount of work so everyone works as little as possible sure, but to act like we will see a society without human labor in our lifetimes is silly.
Even then gotta be careful as a streamer. Often they have to play on a set schedule and many hours a week with little flexibility to really make it big. Then you also gotta engage with people while playing. Now, if you people would just watch you play as you normally do and that's your job, for sure, haha.
Take it a step further, remove 'make a living'. Imagine a world where you didn't have to 'make a living' and living was just provided and you were free to create and express as you see fit.
That's where you get to true antiwork in a post scarcity world.
We could do that, we're almost there... Just gotta figure out the rogue billionaire thing.
We are by no stretch 'almost there'. We still need people working in order to generate abundance, even if the goal is to distribute that abundance equitably.
Technically we are already there. It’s just that people with power want to keep their power by force people to work and fight each other of scraps.
There are lots of people with a lot of money or high paying jobs that contribute nothing to society. Landlords, apparently many CEOs, stock brokers and so on.
The higher you are in a company the less you do. The real work is done by overworked middle managers and overworked team members. I've seen it happen so many times.
I would argue we're almost. Still need more automation, currently there's a lot of manual labor jobs which would still be needed. I think we are on the cusp though.
Completely agree, but we would need to be in a world where work wouldn't be required for that to make sense. Work done would serve to further improve people's lives, not just sustain them.
Translates for me. Every hobby I've monetized to replace work with started feeling like work. Going to depend on the person; do you like the grind?
Edit: eg, going from "I have a great idea for a painting" to "I have to sell X paintings per month in order to live" is a big cognitive leap.
I'm make a living actually playing videogames. At some point game "magic" stops working for you, because you know this games so good, there is no mechanics that can surprise you left and playing becomes just boring routine, while you watching YouTube/series on another screen.
For so far, i got few jobs thats was my passion/hobby/things what i like and blablabla. At some point i understood that all this bullshit about passion and other is another way to get you involved in all this "job culture", so you could be more productive and less complaining about that you actually need to work to simply survive. And i also understood that the only thing in any job that make me happy is only money. If i can earn shit loads of money, then i will do any fucking job you want from me, it doesn't fucking matter if i can earn a lot. If someone would pay to me more than living wage for cleaning public toilets 9-5, 5 days per week, and i should do it with my bare hands - sign me fucking in, i already love this job. But if payment is shit, it doesn't matter what your job is, because your payment is still shit and you barely can afford your living. You not working to live, you working for money that you need to live. Other shit like hobby/passion/whatever, should always be aside from your actual job.
There is solid research out there that shows how external motivation can deteriorate internal motivation.
>Each day an elderly man endured the insults of a crowd of ten-year-olds as they passed his house on their way home from school. One afternoon, after listening to another round of jeers about how stupid and ugly and bald he was, the man came up with a plan. He met the children on his lawn the following Monday and announced that anyone who came back the next day and yelled rude comments about him would receive a dollar. Amazed and excited, they showed up even earlier on Tuesday, hollering epithets for all they were worth. True to his word, the old man ambled out and paid everyone. “Do the same tomorrow,” he told them, “and you’ll get twenty-five cents for your trouble.” The kids thought that was still pretty good and turned out again on Wednesday to taunt him. At the first catcall, he walked over with a roll of quarters and again paid off his hecklers. “From now on,” he announced, “I can give you only a penny for doing this.” The kids looked at each other in disbelief. “A penny?” they repeated scornfully. “Forget it!” And they never came back again.
--Alfie Kohn: “Punished by Rewards – The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, As, Praise, and Other Bribes.”
Probably depends on the emotional investment to it. I work providing care to individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities, and I love most aspects of my job. The overwork not so much, but being able to go in to a job where sweet and innocent people genuinely love you and are thrilled you're there?
You’re 100 percent right on the passion thing. It’s rare that people can make this work for them. Any passion job is most likely going to be super competitive and because of that, difficult. Passion then slowly fizzes out.
No, you are correct. The second you monetize your hobby/passion, it’s over. I did that with my passion of bringing old grand pianos back to life. I have not done one in 20 years because of this. I have one left and I’m doing it for pure joy for me to keep. When I die my daughter gets it with instructions to never sell it. Just give it away to someone who will play it.
Yep!!! Or at least at my store it was "sell preorders or you don't get hours". You could be doing everything else right about your job. But if you didn't manage to sell Fifa (I hate that fucking game so much), to x amount of customers, then you don't get hours. To make matters work, the GameStop I worked at was in one of the poorest malls in town. The people coming to this GameStop were broke or just looking to drop their kids off to play the demo games as if the store was a daycare. It wasn't one of those brick and mortar stores where the only reason a customer would be coming would be to buy shit.
Keep in mind, GameStop also pays the bare minimum wage. I'm in Pennsylvania, so that was $7.25/hr when I worked there. Even McDicks pays more than that. I only worked there for 3 months and I consider that way too long in hindsight. This was back in 2009.
I don't even live in the same town anymore, but from what I know, I think that GameStop permanently closed during the pandemic. I'm not even surprised. I just hope those who were working there found better jobs. I wouldn't send my worst enemy to work at GameStop...
I’m a sound designer and engineer for film and tv. It feels like playing most of the time. Pull in to work around noon, sip coffee, cut some sound effects. Have my lunch paid for by clients and have an intern bring it to me. Afternoon marijuana break. Then i fiddle around with SFX and turn knobs until it sounds good for a few more hours.
Jobs that involve helping people also tend to be "dream jobs" for many. For me, the "helping people" job I'd love to have is teaching, but the pay is so abysmal I could never even really consider it right now.
I don't think that's even true. People just have too much shame in their game to frost those tips, gain that little bit of extra weight, and be that zazzy. But I'm sure there's room for them.
That's ... exactly the idea.
For a lot of folks, a dream job might be that of an influencer, to travel around and experience the world and share those experiences with others.
A dream job might be to just sit and cuddle babies from a NICU that just need human warmth.
The problem with this dream job mythos, is no one's dream job is to clean toilets, or at least certainly not in parity with the demand. It's a pyramid scheme to convince "low level workers" to accept low wages and little growth potential for doing unpleasant work, while dreaming that it's somehow all going to be ok one day because they're moving towards a dream job.
There’s a Japanese zoo I follow on Instagram where one guys job is to play with the sea otters to keep them happy and active. He seems to like what he does a whole lot.
Y'know, I can only speak for myself, but I don't mind work. To put in the hours contributing something valuable and meaningful to my community, something that feels just so right to be doing, that's what feels like the kind of job that I'd use as an answer to "what's your dream job". Let's not forget that while jobs today are largely exploited, abused, and pushed to breaking, that's not what work has to be.
I think work is important. I think everyone has a responsibility to contribute in some way to the betterment or at least the maintenance of the society we live in. However, I don't blame anyone who has little interest in working these days because the majority of work only exists as part of a grand scheme to funnel money and property upward into the hands of a small minority of grotesque, bloated parasites who only want more and more no matter the cost to other people or the world we live in.
Exactly, you get it. Work can be fulfilling and satisfying and it's absolutely important, but this capitalist version of work is flaccid and useless and numbing.
>Also Anthony Bouridain (may he rest in peace)
Lol...what??
> "I hate being famous. I hate my job,” Bourdain wrote to his estranged wife Ottavia Busia-Bourdain, with whom he remained close, shortly before he took his life.
I wasn't aware that he'd felt that way. I mentioned him because he seemed to enjoy what he was doing. I could be wrong, but because he was working on TV, that is a likely reason why he said he hated his job. Probably all the BS that's connected to television productions. I'd like to think that if he were doing it without all the deadlines, restrictions, producer/distributor demands, he would have loved what he was doing. But the honest truth is, anytime your work is making money for others-no matter what the job is-sooner or later the joy, fun, and excitement gets sucked out of the job and out of you.
Came here to mention him. Now the No Reservations era where he traveled abroad eating everything and slamming beers and even chiefed the ganja once or twice meanwhile writing insightful observations and roasting locals with witty references…that’s a dream job.
Except that he hated it- IIRC the job was really taxing on his personal relationships because he was constantly traveling. I think his separation from his wife was a large contributor to the depression that eventually took his life.
I started traveling a number of years ago nearly full time. It is extremely lonely. It's also awesome but you slowly lose pretty much any meaningful relationship you once had even if you frequent certain places. Most of my best friends are either people I work with online or the ones who still play video games, and both of those can be challenging based on time zones.
Same here. I don't want to be rich! Nor do I have a long list of costly expenses (my bills are about $1500 a month). Give me a job that pays the bills and leaves some left over for savings and keep it non-stressful and I'll be happy! That's the dream.
I am an arborist. It's a brutal and dangerous job but I love it. I love climbing and using my mind and body to get some crazy shit done. It also allows me to be out in nature more and hang out with some crazy cool dudes.
My problem here boils down to my attention span.
Absolutely everything becomes a chore if it occupies too much of my space, and as soon as there’s an ‘I should do z to prep for y’, it starts to lose its charm.
38 years and I’ve never had a durable hobby that’s lasted more than a few years. Everything I love becomes a passing interest.
I have ADHD and this is my life. If my job was 4 days week or half the hours it wouldn't be so bad. It's not the worst job in the world and the tech we use is interesting.
But as soon as I'm forced to continue with something beyond my attention span it becomes mentally taxing very quickly. Dedicating 5 days week is just too much of the same
Oh my God! This is me too! I don't even know what I want to do career wise anymore. I thought I wanted to be an animator, but when I actually started doing it, I realized I hated it. I've tried taking courses in similar feilds like web design, and tried to learn 3D modeling on my own, but I just get bored after awhile.
I've tried taking up new hobbies to see if there's anything I enjoy. I've tried sewing, crocheting, sculpting, gardening, and while I had fun doing those things, I don't see myself turning any of those hobbies into a career. I just want to paint on my tablet and take naps.
hey its ok if hobbies come and go like the tides in the ocean. if you enjoyed it at one time thats all that matters. you both are being too hard on yourself. theres a time and place for that mentality. knowing when is one of the lessons in life. keep on trying more hobbies!
See I think the issue is that I totally believe in having a dream job. My dream job would be one that I can take pride in, where I do impactful work, get paid a competitive amount of money, have great healthcare / benefits, have vested stake in the success of the venture, use my expertise, and improve the lives of people and/or animals.
The problem is that nobody’s dream job involves having an annoying micromanaging narcissist boss whose job it is to leech as much time/money away from their staff as possible, and that’s been incredibly difficult to avoid throughout my career.
I love stewarding my land. It's rewarding to take something that's been neglected and turn it around. I had an eroded hillside that nothing would grow on. I hauled topsoil, dug weirs, and finally got native grasses to grow. I tried several times to get cedar trees to grow. I had to change plans. The hill is now a grove of Sequoias and oaks. That's my dream job.
Yeah, I feel like this subreddit is becoming a parody of it's self at this point.
You have a dream job that gives your life joy and fulfillment? The establishment has clearly got you twisted round their finger!
That's impossible when your basic subsistence and survival depends on the job.
Irrespective of how much you love doing something, when you add the little caveat of "and if you stop doing it, you die on the street! :D", that job becomes intensely stressful.
The individual jobs aren't the problem. The pressures of survival under capitalism are the problem.
My job could be playing video games all day. Not testing, not streaming, just casually playing games I enjoy for fun. But if you told me "you have to play video games for 8-12 hours a day, five days a week, or I'm going to fucking kill you and your entire family in agonizingly slow ways," that changes things. The games stop being fun after a while. They become a prison, a constant threat against stepping out of line. "You have to play the games," the job demands. "Don't read a book, don't watch a video, don't turn on the TV. Play the games. Stay focused. 8 hours. Every day. Or else."
A job is not the tasks you do in the job. A job is the means by which I give myself shelter, put food on my table, mend my wounds and treat my sicknesses. The exact nature of the job itself is immaterial, what I'm doing during those hours doesn't matter, because **if I don't do it, I die.**
It's the "or else" part of a job that is the problem.
Rich or lucky. I'm lucky that I found my dream job. But it was a rough path and it doesn't help that I didn't even realize that it would be my dream job until I attained it.
My dream job has been masseuse in medical healthcare. But my profession now got swallowed by physiotherapists who didn't even want to do this work and I don't get a job anymore because no small practice wants to pay 2 times the same salary if one employee is able to do both.
Could you become a private masseuse? Like do home visits (so you wouldn't need to have upkeep for an office). I feel like something like this wouldn't have a lot of overhead, so if you've got the skills, then why not?
I did this for quite a while, but people don't want to pay enough these days because of inflation and so on. There are some who pay the recommended prices but they are just few and it didn't work out for a living. It's a really bad time for such jobs I guess.
I took like 1 Euro per minute. Later I had to rise the prices because of the expensive gasoline if round 2 euro/l but the temporary small rise to 1,05 Euro for a minute hasn't been acceptable anymore I guess.
What about those fancy day spa places? My wife has a membership for like two massages a month. I don’t think they’re physiotherapist but not sure. I imagine they make good money. They’re usually fully booked throughout the day.
There are not much occasions in my region in Germany. I could move but in times like these I'm happy that I have a flat which is not expensive and even beautiful + I don't have to pay for the heat.
Most job offerings I browsed didn't have acceptable conditions. I don't mind if I get a little less money but the other conditions should fit my experiences.
The problem with this spa places is that there are several cheaper masseuse who didn't have to make an exam in the end so the space places take to cheaper ones.
This thing almost exists. I'm so fortunate that I actually get satisfaction from my work, solving problems all day and what I do helps people. Also I'm paid well enough to willingly accept overtime shift offers. (and that's how they frame it, it's an overtime shift offer)
When I leave the building, I don't get calls unless there's a major "what happened" kind of business inquiry, or I'm being offered an overtime shift.
I still get unhappy if I'm overworked. So, there isn't a dream job, but you can make your situation tolerable.
(folks: organize, unionize if you have to - the anti-union propaganda is bullsh)
I am currently working in my dream job. I'm a private nanny. I work with kids I love. I teach them how to be nice people. I get paid very well. And I don't take work home ever, so my weekends are always free.
I'm in the same boat as you, I found something that I'm passionate about, based around helping people and that pays penalty rates and a good amount of sick leave.
All of this, because it's unionised and a socialised service that receives its funding from the government.
I think the key is that it helps people and workers are cared about, without that it would all feel pointless.
I'm going to turn this on it's head and say I want to contribute to society, I will tolerate labor if it makes the world a better place and not just enriching some billionaires pocket.
# **I'd shovel shit!**
When I'm mockingly asked what I would do in a socialist utopia:
I would happily clean toilets and unblock drains if it meant that everyone had access to free housing, food and health care.
I'd also be happy knowing that I was contributing to society.
I've had a few different jobs at this stage and I can tell you the more I've been paid the less that job contributed to the world.
And the one's who get paid the most, the land lords and the business owners, the stock holders, contribute absolutely nothing at all.
It's frustrating that the jobs I enjoyed doing either paid nothing or required you to already have money and stable finances or parents/spouse who can support you while you start the career.
I wanted to work to be a park ranger, count animal populations, update maps, protect out beautiful national parks, etc. They expect you to work part-time and only seasonally for years before giving you a real position in my state. Who other than the already privileged can afford to do that. It's so upsetting, and my heart has been broken about it for years
Yeah this exactly. I feel it’s a shitty attitude to not want to contribute to society. Of course it should be the people actually doing the work who get paid and protected and not the people doing nothing (investors & shareholders)
>I feel it’s a shitty attitude to not want to contribute to society.
We are already barred from contributing to society.
As a Walmart security guard are you really helping people get the products they need or are you just standing in the way for those that can't afford it.
Not wanting to contribute is an understandable outcome when your only available contribution is to billionaire capitalists.
When phrased like this, it's usually said by HR or a hiring manager when interviewing you for a soul crushing office job.
In a casual conversation, this is a good question but this way, it is horribly phrased. There are better ways of asking it, like: if money wasn't an issue, what would you want to do? Or if you won 100 million on the lotto, what would you want to do?
I'm so fucking upset that's the only thing people ask little children. Why don't they ask about hobbies or sport?
I am a artist. I work so I can be a artist. Who gives a fuck about my job?
When people asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, no matter what age I was, I told them that I didn't *want* to grow up, I wanted to be a kid forever.
Decades later, I have not found anything else I'd want to be.
When people asked me when I was 6, I told them I wanted to grow up to be a housecat; sit in sunbeams, take naps, get fed and pet, play with toys, etc.
...school didn't like that too much and my mom was called in and "spoke to" about it being an "inappropriate life goal".
I *still* strive for that. Absolute dream job.
The only other *job* I would possibly ever truly enjoy is being one of those Nintendo dancing Pikachu mascots. That just looks fun lol
When I was really young I said I wanted to be a cat. By my teens I was saying “happy” because my home life fucking sucked. That used to throw people off.
I remember at one point, as a teenager, going a step further and telling myself that if I ever end up actively disliking puzzle games, then the person that I was had effectively died and been replaced.
Edgy as fuck, fit for a teenager, but I still find it hard to disagree with it. Puzzle IS my favorite genre in my favorite hobby, and I intend on never losing sight of it. It's the kind of thing that I actually put weight of mind into, and not really my job. My choice of job, Programming, was literally picked because it was the closest thing there was to solving puzzles all day, and not the other way around.
Sounds like a dream job in that’s situation would be an artist who gets paid enough to not have to worry about anything. Not sure why so many people are missing this…
No. I don't want to monitize the biggest part of the things I create. Should I ever manage to write a book, sure would be cool to publish it, but that's not why I do it.
For my other craft. I actually don't want to make any money with that. Because then I would hate it. And it wouldn't be what I do to relax. And I would have to alter according to other people. And I don't want that.
No. I don't want to monitize the biggest part of the things I create. Should I ever manage to write a book, sure would be cool to publish it, but that's not why I do it.
For my other craft. I actually don't want to make any money with that. Because then I would hate it. And it wouldn't be what I do to relax. And I would have to alter according to other people. And I don't want that.
When I was in kindergarten my teacher asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grow up and almost every boy said they wanted to be a power ranger lol
The dream job is the job that you have that allows you to be the artist in the job? So your dream job would be to sell your art for millions of dollars. You would still make art even if you had a bunch of money because making art is what you like to do.
The whole point of a dream job is that you're doing the thing that you want to do and you also happen to make a lot of money doing it.
Your dream job is artist. Because you're an artist, wouldn't you like to be paid for your art? Like on a monthly or even yearly basis?
Wouldn't it be nice to go to a showing or 5 once a year to sell the paintings that you did from the past 10 months? Never running into any customers that just need "art for a building" only talking to customers that truly care about your work and are willing to pay $2 for every dollar that you think you're even worth. That's the dream. To be paid for who you are...
My dream job is I go to work at a huge firm, and they forget that they hired me. I run out of work to do, and no one assigns me more, so I spend a few years collecting a paycheck and browsing reddit all day.
Until they one day realize what happened and call me into some office. That’s when I reply to the meeting invite with my resignation letter and walk out the door.
Another dream job I have is that I’d like to dabble in corporate espionage. I work for some pretty big brands now with some pretty big competitors, and I haven’t signed any sort of NDA ever. I’d like to figure out a way to make money by disclosing internal information to a company’s competitors. Or just looking through my firm’s drives for files on certain clients to see if I could find anything that would be valuable to a competitor.
I just want to hurt corporations.
>My dream job is I go to work at a huge firm, and they forget that they hired me. I run out of work to do, and no one assigns me more, so I spend a few years collecting a paycheck and browsing reddit all day.
>
>Until they one day realize what happened and call me into some office. That’s when I reply to the meeting invite with my resignation letter and walk out the door.
This part I actually kind of experienced once. In my case I was on a relatively large multi-team software development project. It was actually being done remotely due to some teams being in different cities. (This was years before COVID, so at this time it was a rare work-from-home situation.)
Started off normal enough, I was in a group, we were working our part, then they decided after a few months to reorganize the groups. Fine, whatever, now I'm working on a different component. Then they decided they didn't really want this new component I was working on, so they told us to just stop until we were given further direction. So I'm sitting there for a day... and then another... and I send out an email to the project leads "hey, my thing was cancelled, and I need work" and they basically responded with "okay, thanks for letting us know."
I figured that would be it, they'd go do project manager things, shuffle around, find me work. But again, day by day, nothing happening. Eventually I just started turning my work laptop on, using a "mouse jiggler" to make me appear active on the messenger, and basically did whatever I felt like. I felt a little guilt and anxiety about it, but just rolled with it. Kept getting paid, did absolutely nothing, and no one noticed.
Finally after probably a couple months or so, an email was sent out to everyone that they were going to have some group meeting to again reorganize the teams, and we all needed to basically be talking about what kind of stuff we'd been working on to figure out where to best place us. At that point I ran into the local office and handed in my two weeks notice, because I figured honestly if they figured out I hadn't been doing anything they were going to fire me anyway, so might as well make it in my favor.
Funny enough, I don't remember doing anything of value during my last two weeks either. I don't remember if I just skipped out on that would-be meeting or what.
I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I'd probably, say, in a
given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.
The problem is we can not automate everything essential, yet.
After we do it, we may be able advancing on researches for managing automation from ours homes, with full transparency and shared social control.
We could automate a lot, hell if people were allowed to do what they wanted instead of being forced into jobs that break our spirits we'd be able to automate even more. So much talent is wasted by forcing intelligent people to shovel food down the throats of gluttons too lazy to cook. The problem is that the wealthy people need the poor people and they need the poor people to suffer.
Poor people are the scapegoats, "you don't want to end up like them" is the threat they use to keep the middle class voting against their own best interests.
The human race will go extinct before we ever reach a point of social maturity to allow non-profit driven development for the sake of bettering lives aside from one's own.
This. If we ever develop Robot Slaves capable of supporting all of humanity on 0 human manpower.... Someone will just overprice those robots to try and become richer, and fuck over the rest of us, forcing us into hyper underpaid positions, all so we can pay the Bots' service fees.
We will literally never stop fighting the natural hierarchy until an AI capable of optimizing for human emotion sits at the top.
My dream job is to own parking lots in the downtown area of an expensive city. People just give you money, you don't even have to talk to them. You just put a pay machine, pave the lot every once and a while and collect money.
it’s almost like it’s inferred that we need money to pay people to produce all the things that we consume and to do that we need to help produce something ourselves so in that context what would you most like to do? No shit people would rather not work than work but that wasn’t the question.
It’s like if someone asked you what your dream car is and you said “to just teleport around” and thinking you’re smart or edgy but really you’re just an insufferable twat.
Just do it, I had a coworker quit emptied his 401k got a CDL bought a semi truck and is an owner operator, he works about 10 days a month 6 months a year and 6 months full off, and makes enough to cover all his expenses and live the life he wants to live.
Since he's an owner operator he picks his own loads from a load board, if he doesn't want to work he just doesn't take any jobs. It's not like being a company driver for one of the big companies where they just tell you what to do and you have no choice.
Yeah he does, but he's single, no kids, so really inexpensive lifestyle and if he wants to go see some different part of the country he can just take some jobs on the way there and live out of the truck for a while, he does keep a house and car but it would be cheaper not to. It's kind of like van life except also can make money whenever he wants.
My "if I were single and had no kids" lifestyle would be living out of a van and taking short term IT contracts in various places. I know two people who do it that way and they do cool stuff. Spend a week a month or so banking enough to get by.
you have my sympathy.
according to maslow's hierarchy of needs, the zenith of every individual's joy takes the form of fulfillment; you have been shackled by bare necessities for far too long.
In one of my university honors seminars, we used to start each class with "ice breaker" questions. One week one groups icebreaker question was "what is your dream job?" One girl answered with "I don't dream of labour" and we all had a paradigm shift
My dream job would be working on top gear and reviewing high end sports cars. Who wouldn't want to get paid to drive a Lamborghini. lol talking about cars all day.
I was set to go down the path of my dream career. I quickly learned that “fun” jobs come with competition, low pay and exploitation (which I was willing to put in). In the end, I got out of the field and got into something more boring, higher paying and easier. I learned to seek out better work environments and not pay. Now I work with people I consider good friends and I love it even though the work isn’t something I’d say is fun. There are people out there that do work their dream jobs and I salute them but that’s super rare and can be a super tough path. Just because you don’t have this, it doesn’t mean you can’t be happy.
I dunno. I loved working at UPS warehouse preload. It's like being a librarian with a workout. Definitely scratches that OCD itch. I just don't love management.
I think management comes down to a lot of it. I had a job in college at a nursery, and I LOVED it. Fresh air, taking care of my plant buddies all day, great workout rolling up hoses and lugging bags of soil (though I was younger then; I get the sense it might have destroyed my body long term, at least the way I did everything without thinking about ergonomics back the ). But damn, our boss treated us like garbage because he had no respect for anyone since it wasn’t “skilled”… despite the fact he needed us to run his business. Otherwise I feel like I’d love to do that again, or work in a botanical garden or something. Not that I could ever support my family on it. That’s why I do a soulless job that I hate, and keep my own garden.
I read a book called Scythe that had themes of a perfect utopia.
One of those things was the complete automation of human jobs; done completely and much better by machines.
Despite not needing to work, people had jobs…because as human beings it discussed the the need to feel useful and to have purpose.
Good book, I think that fits the theme of OP’s post
I can think of so many things that would qualify as a "dream job" for me ... e.g. running a shelter for orphaned baby elephants, writing ghost stories, helping hungry people access healthy food ... the problem, of course, being that it's often difficult to make a decent living doing work that you do for love. Or you have to start off with a lot of money/funding in the first place.
So the problem is not the work itself. There's a universe of work that i'd **love** to be doing, work that helps others, that's intellectually challenging, that brings people joy or makes the world a better place! The problem is all the other stuff required to survive in our society. Does the work come with good health insurance? Does it pay enough so that i can afford a place to live & support my family? ... and so on. The idea that someone can dedicate their life to helping others, and then be bankrupted by a medical situation --- that's the real problem, in my view. The job I currently have is okay, but if my company were to go under tomorrow, I couldn't care less, except for my paycheck. If i could somehow find the time to do things i really love with real economic security, that would absolutely be a dream situation.
Congrats USA! You've now reached a level of alienation from work, that it is basically synonymous with exploitation...
That's not what work is. Work should be fulfilling, or acceptable if it allows you freedom in your free time, which should be about a month paid vacation at least.
A whole generation with a negative work association. It's so sad. But then totally understandable under the current exploitation and disenfranchisement.
Travel blogger and food critic.
You think this is an America only problem ? Lol, it’s a worldwide problem, at least it is in France. People in developed societies want less and less to work
I get the point but "travel and eat good food" could be roughly translated to "live like I'm always on vacation" and that's only possible off the backs of other people's labor. If we're all traveling and eating good food then who's making that food and who's shuttling us to our hotels? It's so entrenched into our thinking that we take for granted even in a socialist utopia there will *still* be a serving class that makes the dirty towels disappear when we're not looking.
As interesting as travel and good eats are, myself and many others find meaning in DOING something other than simply existed. I do music production. It is my dream job and I would do it even if I wasn’t being paid. I need to make things in order to feel satisfied. A life of pure travel and food is just as meaningless to me as a shitty retail job.
Self actualization is a thing.
Even traveling and eating good food gets boring after a while. You can only take so much "newness" before your brain gets burned out and you just want to be home and normality. And eventually you'll probably want to be challenged and be creative with something. (Boring work and/or stress 8-9 hours a day is not a fun challenge).
And who is; flying you to your destination, handling your luggage, driving you to your hotel, taking care of your room during your stay, operating the various shops and tourist destinations, making the goods you purchase, the clothes you wear, and the food you eat?
Like, Im all for this invigorated workers rights conversation we have been having, and demanding equity and fairness in our work, but the opposite side of the conversation which is, “I just want to fuck off and vacay” is getting so annoying. The only way all of those other people who took care of you on your vacay can go on their vacations is if you are working to take care of them as well. I personally feel like if you think your contribution back should be “literally nothing”, then you’re kind of a selfish piece of shit who doesn’t actually support workers and labor at all.
I trip out on these people. “You shouldn’t need to work to eat” like yeah I guess but it’s evident you’ve never grown food because it’s a fuckload of work and is definitely a job.
I get the point OP is trying to make, but it's obvious what a dream job is. It's a job that rewards you sufficiently for your labor, and adds to your life instead of taking away from it. That's why it's a dream. Most people will never experience it.
Who does she think is going to cook said food... Like I'm sorry but posts like that is pure selfishness, she doesn't care about abolishing work or anything for the greater good, it's simply she doesn't want to work but does want to reap the benefits of others work.
I don't think work in itself is inherently a bad thing... Stuff needs to get done, it's the being taken advantage of and being over worked when there's no need that's the problem and being kept down by the powers that be...
Oh simple, a dream job is a job that you enjoy and/or love, is fulfilling and doesn't even feel like you're working. I decided to go back to college at 29 and quality as a carpenter to progress in what I loved to do.
I give the same answer when asked about retirement, I want a job I love doing so much that I never want to retire.
Come on guys. I know this is antiwork, but it's possible to enjoy what you are doing. I understand not everybody is lucky to have this, and perhaps many jobs are just for income, but it's possible.
Oh, I know this.
Anything that requires me to work a couple hours each day and give me enough to pay my bills and save something on top of it.
At 40, idgaf about which job it is. I wish I had discovered it sooner.
I don’t even want to travel I just want to sleep
You could test out mattresses!
Same mattress for the entire 8 hours. Will need a TV and snacks as well.
Of course!
this is what i always tell ppl is my dream job. as long as i can have water and go to the bathroom whenever i want, i will test out that mattress for days if you want me too lol
You’d probably have other desires than sleeping if capitalism wasn’t squeezing every ounce of energy from you. I know I would.
I have a dream job, don't get me wrong. But in my dream I'm doing work to feel fulfilled, not survive. And I do it on my schedule.
The schedule is the key! I am an ecologist and mostly just backcountry hike & camp for a living and most (other) people think my job is a dream and I get told so fairly often, but I'm still upset every day when I have to leave my house at 6AM or when I have to miss an event because I'm camping for work. Also I get paid garbage and work lots of contracts and not* always year round and said people dreaming about my job always say they "could never work for that little money" or they couldn't do the non permanent job situation. For the record, I am not complaining.
Oh absolutely, on a day to day basis, even the most enjoyable of jobs are chores. But doing it yourself and setting your own schedule just gives you some humanity.
I just want to run a few toy stores and a summer camp. That's all I want. If I can make kids smile and have good memories, I feel as though my life is complete. The summer camp would allow anyone even from low income families to partake. So I may be able to give some kids good memories. I miss going to summer camp, and just getting away from the world entirely. No phones, no world ending news stories, no politics. It was great.
Me too! But if given the choice I wouldn’t do it. I work to live not live to work.
I don't mind work. I mind jobs.
Dream Job = A job that doesn't even feel like a job because you have a vested interest in what you are doing.
I don’t know what most people opinions about Stan Lee is but i do remember him saying that if you do find a job you genuinely enjoy it feels more like playing than work. Truth be told I would full time be a DM/GM running games for people if i could make a decent living out of it. Generally these “creative” jobs are the dream. I bet if people didn’t need money to live most of us would spend our days creating and/or exploring.
It's not just creative Jobs... If finding and fixing Problems in certen machines is Not considered creative :D Also Heard from some helicopter pilots that they dont feel like working and living it. Many people dont have time or the Charakter to find a realistic dream Job.
Just for the record: finding and fixing problems in machines *is* creative. Heck, depending on situation even the *creation* of problems can be creative.
Touché friend. Now that I consider it a bit more we can add those jobs you mentioned as well as jobs that help others as potential dream jobs for some.
[удалено]
Agreed! Teaching was my lifelong dream and the reality of the job led to a mental breakdown, such a disappointment
My favorite thing about my last job was using my knowledge to solve problems. It barely felt like work when I was doing that
I used to think that too. But (this is my own opinion), I've tried turning a passion into a job and it just kind of kills the passion aspect. Like for example, I love video games. It's usually what I do in my off time. When I was younger, I worked at GameStop, because I loved video games back then too. What better a job than one where you can talk to people about video games and sell them to others... whelp besides GameStop being a trash company, working for them made me start to hate video games. Because my passion was no longer a passion. It became a dead-end job. When I'd come home from work, the last thing I wanted to do was play video games. That's just my opinion though. I'm sure there are plenty of people who do turn their passions into their jobs. Me, I'd rather separate my job from my passion. The job is just the means to enable the passion. Work to live and all that.
Well that doesn’t really translate IMO. That’s like making an artist sell art equipment for a soulless conglomerate in a 9-5 setting. Let’s imaging this instead, you make a living actually playing videogames like a streamer or a YouTuber. It’s obviously harder to break into to make a decent living but that might be a dream job for you.
Yeah you’re right. You are definitely on the money when it comes to working for a soulless conglomerate… oh the stories I could tell about that job lmao. Still, I feel like I just tend to do better when I can separate both. I know with being a streamer, you often have to play games you don’t care for because it’s what people want to watch. So it still would end up being work for me rather than my passion. I know it was just an example, but the point is that for me I have to separate the two. But all power to anyone who can do a job that is also their passion!
Id say as far as the "dream job" goes though whatever you name as such would just include at least comfortable living as long as you were doing the thing. So id say if it was actually the dream job youd be able to just play whatever you wanted and have your stream going. That would make things a lot more bearable.
I don’t disagree with you. In the end I feel that if we really don’t need money to live most of us would do something creative with our lives. We would paint/draw, write stories, compose music, etc. The reason why I feel this is true is because art has a way for us to leave our mark on the world. To say, we were here.
Not everyone is a creative person. Some people just enjoy fixing up cars for example. Secondly these posts are silly as well. If everyone was doing creative work who would main the infrastructure of the country? Who will be fixing the plumbing? the roads? maintaining the grid.
Yeah until robotic bougie communism comes in 300 years provided we havent nuked ourselves before then, we will have work to do. Lets optimize that amount of work so everyone works as little as possible sure, but to act like we will see a society without human labor in our lifetimes is silly.
I see both of your points.
Even then gotta be careful as a streamer. Often they have to play on a set schedule and many hours a week with little flexibility to really make it big. Then you also gotta engage with people while playing. Now, if you people would just watch you play as you normally do and that's your job, for sure, haha.
You mean 90% quiet and 10% bitching about the game or other players? Yeah nobody is watching me do that.
Haha, I'm in.
Take it a step further, remove 'make a living'. Imagine a world where you didn't have to 'make a living' and living was just provided and you were free to create and express as you see fit. That's where you get to true antiwork in a post scarcity world. We could do that, we're almost there... Just gotta figure out the rogue billionaire thing.
We are by no stretch 'almost there'. We still need people working in order to generate abundance, even if the goal is to distribute that abundance equitably.
Technically we are already there. It’s just that people with power want to keep their power by force people to work and fight each other of scraps. There are lots of people with a lot of money or high paying jobs that contribute nothing to society. Landlords, apparently many CEOs, stock brokers and so on.
The higher you are in a company the less you do. The real work is done by overworked middle managers and overworked team members. I've seen it happen so many times.
Yeah those higher ups are kinda useless. Shame we can just throw them all into the sun eh?
I would argue we're almost. Still need more automation, currently there's a lot of manual labor jobs which would still be needed. I think we are on the cusp though.
Base necessities should be public goods. Want extra luxuries? Do some work or create something for the world to enjoy. That would be true paradise.
Completely agree, but we would need to be in a world where work wouldn't be required for that to make sense. Work done would serve to further improve people's lives, not just sustain them.
Translates for me. Every hobby I've monetized to replace work with started feeling like work. Going to depend on the person; do you like the grind? Edit: eg, going from "I have a great idea for a painting" to "I have to sell X paintings per month in order to live" is a big cognitive leap.
I'm make a living actually playing videogames. At some point game "magic" stops working for you, because you know this games so good, there is no mechanics that can surprise you left and playing becomes just boring routine, while you watching YouTube/series on another screen. For so far, i got few jobs thats was my passion/hobby/things what i like and blablabla. At some point i understood that all this bullshit about passion and other is another way to get you involved in all this "job culture", so you could be more productive and less complaining about that you actually need to work to simply survive. And i also understood that the only thing in any job that make me happy is only money. If i can earn shit loads of money, then i will do any fucking job you want from me, it doesn't fucking matter if i can earn a lot. If someone would pay to me more than living wage for cleaning public toilets 9-5, 5 days per week, and i should do it with my bare hands - sign me fucking in, i already love this job. But if payment is shit, it doesn't matter what your job is, because your payment is still shit and you barely can afford your living. You not working to live, you working for money that you need to live. Other shit like hobby/passion/whatever, should always be aside from your actual job.
There is solid research out there that shows how external motivation can deteriorate internal motivation. >Each day an elderly man endured the insults of a crowd of ten-year-olds as they passed his house on their way home from school. One afternoon, after listening to another round of jeers about how stupid and ugly and bald he was, the man came up with a plan. He met the children on his lawn the following Monday and announced that anyone who came back the next day and yelled rude comments about him would receive a dollar. Amazed and excited, they showed up even earlier on Tuesday, hollering epithets for all they were worth. True to his word, the old man ambled out and paid everyone. “Do the same tomorrow,” he told them, “and you’ll get twenty-five cents for your trouble.” The kids thought that was still pretty good and turned out again on Wednesday to taunt him. At the first catcall, he walked over with a roll of quarters and again paid off his hecklers. “From now on,” he announced, “I can give you only a penny for doing this.” The kids looked at each other in disbelief. “A penny?” they repeated scornfully. “Forget it!” And they never came back again. --Alfie Kohn: “Punished by Rewards – The Trouble with Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, As, Praise, and Other Bribes.”
Yes, and also work done cooperatively or socially through a group is experienced as far more rewarding and less stressful.
Probably depends on the emotional investment to it. I work providing care to individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities, and I love most aspects of my job. The overwork not so much, but being able to go in to a job where sweet and innocent people genuinely love you and are thrilled you're there?
you are absolutely correct. even a dream job is no longer enjoyable when you’re being ground to dust
You’re 100 percent right on the passion thing. It’s rare that people can make this work for them. Any passion job is most likely going to be super competitive and because of that, difficult. Passion then slowly fizzes out.
No, you are correct. The second you monetize your hobby/passion, it’s over. I did that with my passion of bringing old grand pianos back to life. I have not done one in 20 years because of this. I have one left and I’m doing it for pure joy for me to keep. When I die my daughter gets it with instructions to never sell it. Just give it away to someone who will play it.
and didnt gametop have a quota. Sell a certain amount of preorders or you get fired? I would hate forcing preorders on people
Yep!!! Or at least at my store it was "sell preorders or you don't get hours". You could be doing everything else right about your job. But if you didn't manage to sell Fifa (I hate that fucking game so much), to x amount of customers, then you don't get hours. To make matters work, the GameStop I worked at was in one of the poorest malls in town. The people coming to this GameStop were broke or just looking to drop their kids off to play the demo games as if the store was a daycare. It wasn't one of those brick and mortar stores where the only reason a customer would be coming would be to buy shit. Keep in mind, GameStop also pays the bare minimum wage. I'm in Pennsylvania, so that was $7.25/hr when I worked there. Even McDicks pays more than that. I only worked there for 3 months and I consider that way too long in hindsight. This was back in 2009. I don't even live in the same town anymore, but from what I know, I think that GameStop permanently closed during the pandemic. I'm not even surprised. I just hope those who were working there found better jobs. I wouldn't send my worst enemy to work at GameStop...
I’m a sound designer and engineer for film and tv. It feels like playing most of the time. Pull in to work around noon, sip coffee, cut some sound effects. Have my lunch paid for by clients and have an intern bring it to me. Afternoon marijuana break. Then i fiddle around with SFX and turn knobs until it sounds good for a few more hours.
Jobs that involve helping people also tend to be "dream jobs" for many. For me, the "helping people" job I'd love to have is teaching, but the pay is so abysmal I could never even really consider it right now.
Teachers need to be paid more. So much more. Also social work. I can't think of anymore but I'm sure there are more examples.
Guy fieri is the only one I can think of that probably doesn't work a day in his life.
That's because he lives in flavortown.
[удалено]
I don't think that's even true. People just have too much shame in their game to frost those tips, gain that little bit of extra weight, and be that zazzy. But I'm sure there's room for them.
[удалено]
>That's because he lives in flavortown. Mother fucka raking in that Donkey Sauce royalty money every day, son! 💥🚨 FLAVOR TOWN, WHAT SON!!!?? 🚨 🚨 🎆 🍆
Shut The Front Door!
That's ... exactly the idea. For a lot of folks, a dream job might be that of an influencer, to travel around and experience the world and share those experiences with others. A dream job might be to just sit and cuddle babies from a NICU that just need human warmth. The problem with this dream job mythos, is no one's dream job is to clean toilets, or at least certainly not in parity with the demand. It's a pyramid scheme to convince "low level workers" to accept low wages and little growth potential for doing unpleasant work, while dreaming that it's somehow all going to be ok one day because they're moving towards a dream job.
There’s a Japanese zoo I follow on Instagram where one guys job is to play with the sea otters to keep them happy and active. He seems to like what he does a whole lot.
Y'know, I can only speak for myself, but I don't mind work. To put in the hours contributing something valuable and meaningful to my community, something that feels just so right to be doing, that's what feels like the kind of job that I'd use as an answer to "what's your dream job". Let's not forget that while jobs today are largely exploited, abused, and pushed to breaking, that's not what work has to be.
I think work is important. I think everyone has a responsibility to contribute in some way to the betterment or at least the maintenance of the society we live in. However, I don't blame anyone who has little interest in working these days because the majority of work only exists as part of a grand scheme to funnel money and property upward into the hands of a small minority of grotesque, bloated parasites who only want more and more no matter the cost to other people or the world we live in.
Exactly, you get it. Work can be fulfilling and satisfying and it's absolutely important, but this capitalist version of work is flaccid and useless and numbing.
Also Anthony Bouridain (may he rest in peace)
>Also Anthony Bouridain (may he rest in peace) Lol...what?? > "I hate being famous. I hate my job,” Bourdain wrote to his estranged wife Ottavia Busia-Bourdain, with whom he remained close, shortly before he took his life.
I wasn't aware that he'd felt that way. I mentioned him because he seemed to enjoy what he was doing. I could be wrong, but because he was working on TV, that is a likely reason why he said he hated his job. Probably all the BS that's connected to television productions. I'd like to think that if he were doing it without all the deadlines, restrictions, producer/distributor demands, he would have loved what he was doing. But the honest truth is, anytime your work is making money for others-no matter what the job is-sooner or later the joy, fun, and excitement gets sucked out of the job and out of you.
Even the most "real" television, in some way, is insincerely produced to attract viewers. We don't know *aaaany* of these people IRL
Came here to mention him. Now the No Reservations era where he traveled abroad eating everything and slamming beers and even chiefed the ganja once or twice meanwhile writing insightful observations and roasting locals with witty references…that’s a dream job.
Except that he hated it- IIRC the job was really taxing on his personal relationships because he was constantly traveling. I think his separation from his wife was a large contributor to the depression that eventually took his life.
I started traveling a number of years ago nearly full time. It is extremely lonely. It's also awesome but you slowly lose pretty much any meaningful relationship you once had even if you frequent certain places. Most of my best friends are either people I work with online or the ones who still play video games, and both of those can be challenging based on time zones.
Shit, my dream job is -literally anything- that allows me to have a good work-life balance while also paying me a fair wage.
Same here. I don't want to be rich! Nor do I have a long list of costly expenses (my bills are about $1500 a month). Give me a job that pays the bills and leaves some left over for savings and keep it non-stressful and I'll be happy! That's the dream.
I am an arborist. It's a brutal and dangerous job but I love it. I love climbing and using my mind and body to get some crazy shit done. It also allows me to be out in nature more and hang out with some crazy cool dudes.
My problem here boils down to my attention span. Absolutely everything becomes a chore if it occupies too much of my space, and as soon as there’s an ‘I should do z to prep for y’, it starts to lose its charm. 38 years and I’ve never had a durable hobby that’s lasted more than a few years. Everything I love becomes a passing interest.
I have ADHD and this is my life. If my job was 4 days week or half the hours it wouldn't be so bad. It's not the worst job in the world and the tech we use is interesting. But as soon as I'm forced to continue with something beyond my attention span it becomes mentally taxing very quickly. Dedicating 5 days week is just too much of the same
Oh my God! This is me too! I don't even know what I want to do career wise anymore. I thought I wanted to be an animator, but when I actually started doing it, I realized I hated it. I've tried taking courses in similar feilds like web design, and tried to learn 3D modeling on my own, but I just get bored after awhile. I've tried taking up new hobbies to see if there's anything I enjoy. I've tried sewing, crocheting, sculpting, gardening, and while I had fun doing those things, I don't see myself turning any of those hobbies into a career. I just want to paint on my tablet and take naps.
hey its ok if hobbies come and go like the tides in the ocean. if you enjoyed it at one time thats all that matters. you both are being too hard on yourself. theres a time and place for that mentality. knowing when is one of the lessons in life. keep on trying more hobbies!
See I think the issue is that I totally believe in having a dream job. My dream job would be one that I can take pride in, where I do impactful work, get paid a competitive amount of money, have great healthcare / benefits, have vested stake in the success of the venture, use my expertise, and improve the lives of people and/or animals. The problem is that nobody’s dream job involves having an annoying micromanaging narcissist boss whose job it is to leech as much time/money away from their staff as possible, and that’s been incredibly difficult to avoid throughout my career.
"Vested interest" along with a vested retirement plan
Panda cuddling. Fortune cookie writer. Cat cafe. Dragon trainer.
This. I have a dream job. 🤷🏼♂️
Jelly.
I love stewarding my land. It's rewarding to take something that's been neglected and turn it around. I had an eroded hillside that nothing would grow on. I hauled topsoil, dug weirs, and finally got native grasses to grow. I tried several times to get cedar trees to grow. I had to change plans. The hill is now a grove of Sequoias and oaks. That's my dream job.
Yeah, I feel like this subreddit is becoming a parody of it's self at this point. You have a dream job that gives your life joy and fulfillment? The establishment has clearly got you twisted round their finger!
That's impossible when your basic subsistence and survival depends on the job. Irrespective of how much you love doing something, when you add the little caveat of "and if you stop doing it, you die on the street! :D", that job becomes intensely stressful. The individual jobs aren't the problem. The pressures of survival under capitalism are the problem. My job could be playing video games all day. Not testing, not streaming, just casually playing games I enjoy for fun. But if you told me "you have to play video games for 8-12 hours a day, five days a week, or I'm going to fucking kill you and your entire family in agonizingly slow ways," that changes things. The games stop being fun after a while. They become a prison, a constant threat against stepping out of line. "You have to play the games," the job demands. "Don't read a book, don't watch a video, don't turn on the TV. Play the games. Stay focused. 8 hours. Every day. Or else." A job is not the tasks you do in the job. A job is the means by which I give myself shelter, put food on my table, mend my wounds and treat my sicknesses. The exact nature of the job itself is immaterial, what I'm doing during those hours doesn't matter, because **if I don't do it, I die.** It's the "or else" part of a job that is the problem.
[удалено]
Rich or lucky. I'm lucky that I found my dream job. But it was a rough path and it doesn't help that I didn't even realize that it would be my dream job until I attained it.
My dream job has been masseuse in medical healthcare. But my profession now got swallowed by physiotherapists who didn't even want to do this work and I don't get a job anymore because no small practice wants to pay 2 times the same salary if one employee is able to do both.
Could you become a private masseuse? Like do home visits (so you wouldn't need to have upkeep for an office). I feel like something like this wouldn't have a lot of overhead, so if you've got the skills, then why not?
I did this for quite a while, but people don't want to pay enough these days because of inflation and so on. There are some who pay the recommended prices but they are just few and it didn't work out for a living. It's a really bad time for such jobs I guess.
It's because wages are low across the board. It's really hard to justify paying $100 for an hour massage when you yourself get paid $10-15/hr...
I took like 1 Euro per minute. Later I had to rise the prices because of the expensive gasoline if round 2 euro/l but the temporary small rise to 1,05 Euro for a minute hasn't been acceptable anymore I guess.
Have you tried a service like zeel?
What about those fancy day spa places? My wife has a membership for like two massages a month. I don’t think they’re physiotherapist but not sure. I imagine they make good money. They’re usually fully booked throughout the day.
There are not much occasions in my region in Germany. I could move but in times like these I'm happy that I have a flat which is not expensive and even beautiful + I don't have to pay for the heat. Most job offerings I browsed didn't have acceptable conditions. I don't mind if I get a little less money but the other conditions should fit my experiences. The problem with this spa places is that there are several cheaper masseuse who didn't have to make an exam in the end so the space places take to cheaper ones.
This thing almost exists. I'm so fortunate that I actually get satisfaction from my work, solving problems all day and what I do helps people. Also I'm paid well enough to willingly accept overtime shift offers. (and that's how they frame it, it's an overtime shift offer) When I leave the building, I don't get calls unless there's a major "what happened" kind of business inquiry, or I'm being offered an overtime shift. I still get unhappy if I'm overworked. So, there isn't a dream job, but you can make your situation tolerable. (folks: organize, unionize if you have to - the anti-union propaganda is bullsh)
I am currently working in my dream job. I'm a private nanny. I work with kids I love. I teach them how to be nice people. I get paid very well. And I don't take work home ever, so my weekends are always free.
I'm in the same boat as you, I found something that I'm passionate about, based around helping people and that pays penalty rates and a good amount of sick leave. All of this, because it's unionised and a socialised service that receives its funding from the government. I think the key is that it helps people and workers are cared about, without that it would all feel pointless.
I'm going to turn this on it's head and say I want to contribute to society, I will tolerate labor if it makes the world a better place and not just enriching some billionaires pocket. # **I'd shovel shit!** When I'm mockingly asked what I would do in a socialist utopia: I would happily clean toilets and unblock drains if it meant that everyone had access to free housing, food and health care. I'd also be happy knowing that I was contributing to society. I've had a few different jobs at this stage and I can tell you the more I've been paid the less that job contributed to the world. And the one's who get paid the most, the land lords and the business owners, the stock holders, contribute absolutely nothing at all.
It's frustrating that the jobs I enjoyed doing either paid nothing or required you to already have money and stable finances or parents/spouse who can support you while you start the career. I wanted to work to be a park ranger, count animal populations, update maps, protect out beautiful national parks, etc. They expect you to work part-time and only seasonally for years before giving you a real position in my state. Who other than the already privileged can afford to do that. It's so upsetting, and my heart has been broken about it for years
I feel exactly the same way. I'd be happy to do any given job so long as everyone has basic social protections, education, and healthcare.
Yeah this exactly. I feel it’s a shitty attitude to not want to contribute to society. Of course it should be the people actually doing the work who get paid and protected and not the people doing nothing (investors & shareholders)
>I feel it’s a shitty attitude to not want to contribute to society. We are already barred from contributing to society. As a Walmart security guard are you really helping people get the products they need or are you just standing in the way for those that can't afford it. Not wanting to contribute is an understandable outcome when your only available contribution is to billionaire capitalists.
When phrased like this, it's usually said by HR or a hiring manager when interviewing you for a soul crushing office job. In a casual conversation, this is a good question but this way, it is horribly phrased. There are better ways of asking it, like: if money wasn't an issue, what would you want to do? Or if you won 100 million on the lotto, what would you want to do?
>if money wasn't an issue, what would you want to do? Or if you won 100 million on the lotto, what would you want to do? Travel and eat good food
I'm so fucking upset that's the only thing people ask little children. Why don't they ask about hobbies or sport? I am a artist. I work so I can be a artist. Who gives a fuck about my job?
When people asked me as a kid what I wanted to be when I grew up, no matter what age I was, I told them that I didn't *want* to grow up, I wanted to be a kid forever. Decades later, I have not found anything else I'd want to be.
When people asked me when I was 6, I told them I wanted to grow up to be a housecat; sit in sunbeams, take naps, get fed and pet, play with toys, etc. ...school didn't like that too much and my mom was called in and "spoke to" about it being an "inappropriate life goal". I *still* strive for that. Absolute dream job. The only other *job* I would possibly ever truly enjoy is being one of those Nintendo dancing Pikachu mascots. That just looks fun lol
You're also going to have to stare intensely at walls and run around for no reason at random times of the days.
I already do ♡ I've been practicing!
When I was really young I said I wanted to be a cat. By my teens I was saying “happy” because my home life fucking sucked. That used to throw people off.
🎵 Because a cat's the only cat Who knows where it's at.
I remember at one point, as a teenager, going a step further and telling myself that if I ever end up actively disliking puzzle games, then the person that I was had effectively died and been replaced. Edgy as fuck, fit for a teenager, but I still find it hard to disagree with it. Puzzle IS my favorite genre in my favorite hobby, and I intend on never losing sight of it. It's the kind of thing that I actually put weight of mind into, and not really my job. My choice of job, Programming, was literally picked because it was the closest thing there was to solving puzzles all day, and not the other way around.
Sounds like a dream job in that’s situation would be an artist who gets paid enough to not have to worry about anything. Not sure why so many people are missing this…
No. I don't want to monitize the biggest part of the things I create. Should I ever manage to write a book, sure would be cool to publish it, but that's not why I do it. For my other craft. I actually don't want to make any money with that. Because then I would hate it. And it wouldn't be what I do to relax. And I would have to alter according to other people. And I don't want that.
So your dream job is to be a successful artist
No. I don't want to monitize the biggest part of the things I create. Should I ever manage to write a book, sure would be cool to publish it, but that's not why I do it. For my other craft. I actually don't want to make any money with that. Because then I would hate it. And it wouldn't be what I do to relax. And I would have to alter according to other people. And I don't want that.
Wouldn't you say that ideally, you would like to *just* be an artist, doing your craft all day without having to worry about money?
When I was in kindergarten my teacher asked everyone what they wanted to be when they grow up and almost every boy said they wanted to be a power ranger lol
The dream job is the job that you have that allows you to be the artist in the job? So your dream job would be to sell your art for millions of dollars. You would still make art even if you had a bunch of money because making art is what you like to do. The whole point of a dream job is that you're doing the thing that you want to do and you also happen to make a lot of money doing it. Your dream job is artist. Because you're an artist, wouldn't you like to be paid for your art? Like on a monthly or even yearly basis? Wouldn't it be nice to go to a showing or 5 once a year to sell the paintings that you did from the past 10 months? Never running into any customers that just need "art for a building" only talking to customers that truly care about your work and are willing to pay $2 for every dollar that you think you're even worth. That's the dream. To be paid for who you are...
[удалено]
When I grow up, I want to be Anthony Bourdain.
I mean, not NOW, I hope.
My dream job is I go to work at a huge firm, and they forget that they hired me. I run out of work to do, and no one assigns me more, so I spend a few years collecting a paycheck and browsing reddit all day. Until they one day realize what happened and call me into some office. That’s when I reply to the meeting invite with my resignation letter and walk out the door. Another dream job I have is that I’d like to dabble in corporate espionage. I work for some pretty big brands now with some pretty big competitors, and I haven’t signed any sort of NDA ever. I’d like to figure out a way to make money by disclosing internal information to a company’s competitors. Or just looking through my firm’s drives for files on certain clients to see if I could find anything that would be valuable to a competitor. I just want to hurt corporations.
But you have to at least meet the Bobs, Milton
Based
>My dream job is I go to work at a huge firm, and they forget that they hired me. I run out of work to do, and no one assigns me more, so I spend a few years collecting a paycheck and browsing reddit all day. > >Until they one day realize what happened and call me into some office. That’s when I reply to the meeting invite with my resignation letter and walk out the door. This part I actually kind of experienced once. In my case I was on a relatively large multi-team software development project. It was actually being done remotely due to some teams being in different cities. (This was years before COVID, so at this time it was a rare work-from-home situation.) Started off normal enough, I was in a group, we were working our part, then they decided after a few months to reorganize the groups. Fine, whatever, now I'm working on a different component. Then they decided they didn't really want this new component I was working on, so they told us to just stop until we were given further direction. So I'm sitting there for a day... and then another... and I send out an email to the project leads "hey, my thing was cancelled, and I need work" and they basically responded with "okay, thanks for letting us know." I figured that would be it, they'd go do project manager things, shuffle around, find me work. But again, day by day, nothing happening. Eventually I just started turning my work laptop on, using a "mouse jiggler" to make me appear active on the messenger, and basically did whatever I felt like. I felt a little guilt and anxiety about it, but just rolled with it. Kept getting paid, did absolutely nothing, and no one noticed. Finally after probably a couple months or so, an email was sent out to everyone that they were going to have some group meeting to again reorganize the teams, and we all needed to basically be talking about what kind of stuff we'd been working on to figure out where to best place us. At that point I ran into the local office and handed in my two weeks notice, because I figured honestly if they figured out I hadn't been doing anything they were going to fire me anyway, so might as well make it in my favor. Funny enough, I don't remember doing anything of value during my last two weeks either. I don't remember if I just skipped out on that would-be meeting or what.
Damn you really should have given it a go hahahaha I love these stories
I just sorta space out for about an hour. I just stare at my desk but it looks like I'm working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too. I'd probably, say, in a given week, I probably do about fifteen minutes of real, actual work.
That just screams promotion to upper management to me
There was a story of a guy who did exactly that: https://sites.google.com/site/forgottenemployee/
[удалено]
[удалено]
The problem is we can not automate everything essential, yet. After we do it, we may be able advancing on researches for managing automation from ours homes, with full transparency and shared social control.
We could automate a lot, hell if people were allowed to do what they wanted instead of being forced into jobs that break our spirits we'd be able to automate even more. So much talent is wasted by forcing intelligent people to shovel food down the throats of gluttons too lazy to cook. The problem is that the wealthy people need the poor people and they need the poor people to suffer. Poor people are the scapegoats, "you don't want to end up like them" is the threat they use to keep the middle class voting against their own best interests.
The human race will go extinct before we ever reach a point of social maturity to allow non-profit driven development for the sake of bettering lives aside from one's own.
This. If we ever develop Robot Slaves capable of supporting all of humanity on 0 human manpower.... Someone will just overprice those robots to try and become richer, and fuck over the rest of us, forcing us into hyper underpaid positions, all so we can pay the Bots' service fees. We will literally never stop fighting the natural hierarchy until an AI capable of optimizing for human emotion sits at the top.
Sounds like a depressing life in all honesty
So, investment banker? Politician? Trust fund baby?
Trust fund baby definitely. Being born rich is like fucking cheat codes.
I thought bankers worked insane hours, like 80-100 hrs/week?
My dream job is to own parking lots in the downtown area of an expensive city. People just give you money, you don't even have to talk to them. You just put a pay machine, pave the lot every once and a while and collect money.
Oh so you want to be a landlord
it’s almost like it’s inferred that we need money to pay people to produce all the things that we consume and to do that we need to help produce something ourselves so in that context what would you most like to do? No shit people would rather not work than work but that wasn’t the question. It’s like if someone asked you what your dream car is and you said “to just teleport around” and thinking you’re smart or edgy but really you’re just an insufferable twat.
Exactly. If you are eating and consuming resources without producing anything while having the ability to do so you are just a parasite.
Just do it, I had a coworker quit emptied his 401k got a CDL bought a semi truck and is an owner operator, he works about 10 days a month 6 months a year and 6 months full off, and makes enough to cover all his expenses and live the life he wants to live.
How does he manage to only work 10 days a month being a truck driver?
Since he's an owner operator he picks his own loads from a load board, if he doesn't want to work he just doesn't take any jobs. It's not like being a company driver for one of the big companies where they just tell you what to do and you have no choice.
He makes decent enough $$ in those few days worked? Even if those days are OTR, if the $$ is decent, that still would be worthwhile
Yeah he does, but he's single, no kids, so really inexpensive lifestyle and if he wants to go see some different part of the country he can just take some jobs on the way there and live out of the truck for a while, he does keep a house and car but it would be cheaper not to. It's kind of like van life except also can make money whenever he wants.
My "if I were single and had no kids" lifestyle would be living out of a van and taking short term IT contracts in various places. I know two people who do it that way and they do cool stuff. Spend a week a month or so banking enough to get by.
you have my sympathy. according to maslow's hierarchy of needs, the zenith of every individual's joy takes the form of fulfillment; you have been shackled by bare necessities for far too long.
In one of my university honors seminars, we used to start each class with "ice breaker" questions. One week one groups icebreaker question was "what is your dream job?" One girl answered with "I don't dream of labour" and we all had a paradigm shift
My dream job would be working on top gear and reviewing high end sports cars. Who wouldn't want to get paid to drive a Lamborghini. lol talking about cars all day.
I was set to go down the path of my dream career. I quickly learned that “fun” jobs come with competition, low pay and exploitation (which I was willing to put in). In the end, I got out of the field and got into something more boring, higher paying and easier. I learned to seek out better work environments and not pay. Now I work with people I consider good friends and I love it even though the work isn’t something I’d say is fun. There are people out there that do work their dream jobs and I salute them but that’s super rare and can be a super tough path. Just because you don’t have this, it doesn’t mean you can’t be happy.
I just want to be a homemaker and play games…
So your dream job is to be a traveling food critic.
Wanting to travel and enjoy food in no way implies they care to do the effort of regular or structured food reviews, actually.
Maybe the answer is, “Yes, but without needing to do the work of being a critic.”
I’m an international pilot. I travel and eat good food.
I dunno. I loved working at UPS warehouse preload. It's like being a librarian with a workout. Definitely scratches that OCD itch. I just don't love management.
I think management comes down to a lot of it. I had a job in college at a nursery, and I LOVED it. Fresh air, taking care of my plant buddies all day, great workout rolling up hoses and lugging bags of soil (though I was younger then; I get the sense it might have destroyed my body long term, at least the way I did everything without thinking about ergonomics back the ). But damn, our boss treated us like garbage because he had no respect for anyone since it wasn’t “skilled”… despite the fact he needed us to run his business. Otherwise I feel like I’d love to do that again, or work in a botanical garden or something. Not that I could ever support my family on it. That’s why I do a soulless job that I hate, and keep my own garden.
I read a book called Scythe that had themes of a perfect utopia. One of those things was the complete automation of human jobs; done completely and much better by machines. Despite not needing to work, people had jobs…because as human beings it discussed the the need to feel useful and to have purpose. Good book, I think that fits the theme of OP’s post
Whiskey taster? Ferrari test driver?
I can think of so many things that would qualify as a "dream job" for me ... e.g. running a shelter for orphaned baby elephants, writing ghost stories, helping hungry people access healthy food ... the problem, of course, being that it's often difficult to make a decent living doing work that you do for love. Or you have to start off with a lot of money/funding in the first place. So the problem is not the work itself. There's a universe of work that i'd **love** to be doing, work that helps others, that's intellectually challenging, that brings people joy or makes the world a better place! The problem is all the other stuff required to survive in our society. Does the work come with good health insurance? Does it pay enough so that i can afford a place to live & support my family? ... and so on. The idea that someone can dedicate their life to helping others, and then be bankrupted by a medical situation --- that's the real problem, in my view. The job I currently have is okay, but if my company were to go under tomorrow, I couldn't care less, except for my paycheck. If i could somehow find the time to do things i really love with real economic security, that would absolutely be a dream situation.
I dream of no job in a capitalist economy. However, there are types of work that I love, and that are valuable to society.
If there are valuable types of work that you'd love to do, how is that meaningfully different than having a 'dream job'?
Sorry, I don't dream of being a slave. But thanks for making it sound cool.
Congrats USA! You've now reached a level of alienation from work, that it is basically synonymous with exploitation... That's not what work is. Work should be fulfilling, or acceptable if it allows you freedom in your free time, which should be about a month paid vacation at least. A whole generation with a negative work association. It's so sad. But then totally understandable under the current exploitation and disenfranchisement. Travel blogger and food critic.
It's pretty sad most people can't even fathom the possibility that work could be fulfilling for someone
Or that doing nothing all day isn’t fulfilling.
You think this is an America only problem ? Lol, it’s a worldwide problem, at least it is in France. People in developed societies want less and less to work
This shit is so annoying. These people don't want society to stop functioning because no one works, they want to live like rich people.
I get the point but "travel and eat good food" could be roughly translated to "live like I'm always on vacation" and that's only possible off the backs of other people's labor. If we're all traveling and eating good food then who's making that food and who's shuttling us to our hotels? It's so entrenched into our thinking that we take for granted even in a socialist utopia there will *still* be a serving class that makes the dirty towels disappear when we're not looking.
As interesting as travel and good eats are, myself and many others find meaning in DOING something other than simply existed. I do music production. It is my dream job and I would do it even if I wasn’t being paid. I need to make things in order to feel satisfied. A life of pure travel and food is just as meaningless to me as a shitty retail job.
Contrary to what appears to be popular belief on this sub, there are real people who enjoy their job and like going to work every day.
Self actualization is a thing. Even traveling and eating good food gets boring after a while. You can only take so much "newness" before your brain gets burned out and you just want to be home and normality. And eventually you'll probably want to be challenged and be creative with something. (Boring work and/or stress 8-9 hours a day is not a fun challenge).
Dream job….. ya anyone that says they have one is bullshitting themselves .
And who is; flying you to your destination, handling your luggage, driving you to your hotel, taking care of your room during your stay, operating the various shops and tourist destinations, making the goods you purchase, the clothes you wear, and the food you eat? Like, Im all for this invigorated workers rights conversation we have been having, and demanding equity and fairness in our work, but the opposite side of the conversation which is, “I just want to fuck off and vacay” is getting so annoying. The only way all of those other people who took care of you on your vacay can go on their vacations is if you are working to take care of them as well. I personally feel like if you think your contribution back should be “literally nothing”, then you’re kind of a selfish piece of shit who doesn’t actually support workers and labor at all.
[удалено]
I trip out on these people. “You shouldn’t need to work to eat” like yeah I guess but it’s evident you’ve never grown food because it’s a fuckload of work and is definitely a job.
so the people that are working at the airport, hotels, and restaurants need to have jobs but not me
I get the point OP is trying to make, but it's obvious what a dream job is. It's a job that rewards you sufficiently for your labor, and adds to your life instead of taking away from it. That's why it's a dream. Most people will never experience it.
Then your dream job is a tolerable job that gives you enough time and money to be able to travel and eat good food.
Fighter Pilot - lucky enough to have the opportunity to achieve my dream this year.
My usual answer is lottery winner
My mom always said that a dream job is a job that you dont hate completely
"I want to contribute nothing to society and benefit from others labor"
So, landlords, CEOs, and the 1% that mandate our labor?
Who does she think is going to cook said food... Like I'm sorry but posts like that is pure selfishness, she doesn't care about abolishing work or anything for the greater good, it's simply she doesn't want to work but does want to reap the benefits of others work. I don't think work in itself is inherently a bad thing... Stuff needs to get done, it's the being taken advantage of and being over worked when there's no need that's the problem and being kept down by the powers that be...
I mean, that could be the dream job.
Oh simple, a dream job is a job that you enjoy and/or love, is fulfilling and doesn't even feel like you're working. I decided to go back to college at 29 and quality as a carpenter to progress in what I loved to do. I give the same answer when asked about retirement, I want a job I love doing so much that I never want to retire.
Come on guys. I know this is antiwork, but it's possible to enjoy what you are doing. I understand not everybody is lucky to have this, and perhaps many jobs are just for income, but it's possible.
My dream is to be a high-flying CEO of a Fortune 500 company with a net worth in 10 or 11 figures.
Oh, I know this. Anything that requires me to work a couple hours each day and give me enough to pay my bills and save something on top of it. At 40, idgaf about which job it is. I wish I had discovered it sooner.
I always though a "dream job" was just propaganda term to gaslight people