I have two careers running side-by-side, both of which I love.
I am a database administrator and application developer, which I love because I’m a computer weenie. And I teach Taekwondo in the evenings.
I worked at a factory with no windows for 20 years. The last 7 years I was supervisor in the engraving room. Very high stress. I grew to hate that job to the point I had to make them fire me or suffer a nervous breakdown.
A year later I was hired to be a Meals On Wheels driver/delivery person. That job literally saved my sanity, so, yeah I can say I now love my job.
I’m “operations manager” of a small (4 full-time staff) radio station in eastern Colorado. My younger brother is program director and the ringmaster of the “Morning Circus.” We win awards every year with his show, of which I am a part during the 7:00 a.m. hour. Basically, I start the day by gathering together wire news copy from across Colorado and recording six morning newscasts for our station and our two sister stations 40 miles away. I get to use my journalism degree, but I’m not really required to do the heavy lifting of journalism. I get to use my incredibly sexy and authoritative voice to tell people what to think about. Then, for an hour, I go into the studio and tell fart jokes with my little brother and give away somebody else’s food and generally be a smart-ass and great guy.
For the rest of the day I write ad copy and create commercials using state-of-the-art technology; I putter around the station making sure the air-conditioner is running and the lights all work and the computers are working and we have plenty of office supplies, “paper products” and so on. If there are any deficiencies, I make a phone call and someone fixes the problem for me.
I also revise and create the forms and the visual aids our sales people use to sell advertising (again, using SOTA desktop publishing) and stuff like that.
And starting July 7, I will have my own show, the evening drive hours (2-6 p.m.) which I will “voice track” using our fantastic audio equipment, which means I’ll be able to go home at 2 p.m. each day and listen to myself on the radio.
Holy crap, I get paid for this!!
Sure I love my job. I’m a Project Coordinator / Warehouse Manager for a major corrugated box company.
Ever see the Box Factory tour on The Simpsons? Yep, there is really a yellow line and yep, we only make the boxes they are assembled at a plant in Chicago.
Ever see Mr. Brooks with Kevin Costner? That’s me.
All the fame and glory of being a box maker, what’s not to love?
Or maybe you’re … John Locke of Lost? :eek:
(Mr. Brooks just opened in Bangkok, in one cinema only. Any good?)
Well, there is this cool scar on my face…
Mr. Brooks is not the greatest but not too bad really, kind of like every other Kevin Costner movie.
Actually, a bit better than most of his movies, more in the vein of a Denzel Washington movie.
I’m an author at the culmination of a long term plan to spend all my time writing about stuff I really believe in - and make a living from it. I write natural history books for the mass market and online extension units for gifted kids, which are used by schools. Because of the good reviews for my last natural history book, I have just accepted a full time doctoral scholarship to write my next book and get a PhD as well! I can’t believe I am being paid to do something I would have done for nothing.
The scholarship isn’t big money, but I also do a bit of contract work running workshops for gifted kids using my online units and testing the material which is great because I miss the classroom. I also do some public speaking based on my books. And I do some magic (as in performing magic routines) in the workshops and talks.
So my life is varied and intellectually demanding but always has me deep in research and writing about topics I am passionate about. How good is that?!!!
I’m partners in a specialized machine shop. We do metal spinning. My friends grandfather started it an he used to make brass lamps. We still do some of that, the fun stuff is the antique repair and restoration.
The day to day industrial work is boring but it pays the bills. Making the reproduction brass parts for the antiques can be a challenge. Figuring out how the hell they made someting a hundred years ago and fixing it is satisfing. Having somebody bring you Great Aunt Agatha’s tarnished or broken old crap out of the attic and making it look fabulous so they will keep it in their house to use every day is cool.
Buying junk on ebay and redoing it and tripling your money works too.
I am a FileMaker Pro database developer and though I’ve gone through 5 employers in 10 years doing it, FileMaker development in general has consistently been what I do and I love it. If income were not a concern (independently wealthy etc) I’d still want to be doing it.
The separate jobs and employers and various aspects of those individual jobs have occasionally not been love-worthy: there was the boss who paid no interest to newly developed functionality and focused all his attention on how the screen looked; the boss who fell over himself in front of potential new customers (with me right there, mind you) apologizing profusely for the database and promising them changes that might not be consistent with how it had to work for our other clients; I had a project manager who would have me do projects and then at the conclusion come in an “pee on it”, demanding little meaningless modifications so as to put her mark on it; I had one clueless company co-owner who absolutely insisted on very bad structural changes, and the other company co-owner forbade me to use a windowshade, valuing the aesthetic appearance of the hi-tech office with useless gauze windowblinds to me being able to see what the fuck I was doing on my computer monitors. Most recently I had a CEO damn nearly impose a very ill-advised data migration scheme on me, although I finally got my way on that one.
But the job itself, doing the actual database development? Totally love it.
This year I started working for a company that provides and supports a web-based solution for Practice Management/Electronic Medical Records for medical practices. It’s still technically in the “start-up” phase (even though it’s been around for 8 years), so everyone does multiple jobs.
I was hired because I know medical billing, but I’ve been doing release testing, customer support, and training/implementation of new clients. I’m also helping redesign our billing module, which has been a lot more fun than I expected.
I enjoy medical billing (I’d like to stick it to the insurance companies and actually make them PAY claims as often as possible), but this job combines that knowledge with my love of computers & teaching.
And my salary is more than I’ve EVER made. 
I love my job.
wrong account
I’m a self-employed photographer, my job is fun and pays reasonably well, and there’s only about 400 hours or so a year where I have to be at a specific place at a specific time, leaving me about 8365 hours a year where I can make my own schedule. So, yeah, I love it.