I want to own a children’s bookstore, very very much.
I’m an animal caretaker and I love my job except for the low pay.
My dream job? Emperor of the Universe would be nice.
Hey, if you’re gonna dream, dream big!
I’m quite happy currently working in the aviation industry.
I think working abroad as ambassador for Canada would be a fascinating career.
An appreciation for nature and in general a love of the land has steered me into a career in forestry and agriculture. It’s been personally satisfying but not financially rewarding. And being a “boots on the ground” sort of guy, I’ve never really moved in those circles where the large decisions are made. I would not want to work in an entirely different field, but I do wish I’d aimed a little higher on the career ladder. Specifically, if I were doing it again, I’d shoot for an advanced degree in Geography and a career in land use planning or landscape architecture. Or just possibly in resource or environmental journalism.
SS
I’d try to learn how to grow truffles. There just aren’t enough people in the world that know how to grow them, and that is why they are so damn expensive. But this has not always been the case. The art of truffle cultivation was extinguished in the early 1900s by the two world wars.
I have never eaten a truffle before, but the idea of being a truffle grower is appealing to me for some reason.
Best-selling genre (horror/urban fantasy) author. I’m a writer now so it’s not a complete career change, but since the writing I do involves documenting software, I think it’s enough of one to count.
I also think I might enjoy being a coroner. I used to think I’d like to be a CSI, but I’m sure the real version isn’t nearly as interesting as the TV version (not to mention a lot more tedious, and I don’t deal well with tedium.)
I should have been a pair of ragged claws, scuttling across floors of silent seas. That, or something in IT.
Possibly, the issue is that anywhere there is actually something interesting to research, it is already snapped up by a recognized authority. The few exceptions are really, really, far away and I don’t have that kind of money for travel.
I’m one and I wish that too; people in general won’t leave you alone… I often hear “I have to work for living and why should you get away doing nothing?” (yes I do spend enormous amount of time staring blankly). Since I do nothing, I often end up doing endless favors for people “who’s busy working to make a living”… or I’m a horrible selfish bad person. “You are not doing anything, are you?” :dubious:
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I work in market research, and really enjoy it (particularly since changing jobs last year).
My fantasy careers would be a writer (swords-and-sorcery fantasy), a role-playing game designer, or a radio DJ.
My “realistic” alternate career would be meteorology. It’s what I’d wanted to do from about age 6, until around age 15, when I discovered just how much math and physics was required, and I chickened out.
A wealthy particle-physicist professor/rock star/TV personality with a swipe card to get into CERN.
Damn. That know-it-all Brian Cox stole my big plan.
Philanthropist.
I recently changed my career to one that is, apparently, my ideal job. It didn’t feel as momentous as it ought to have, though.
I used to be a website designer, but it grew away from me. I decided to turn to developing my hobby, and concentrated on learning 3D character modelling and animation.
It took a couple of years, but I am now a full-time 3D modeller and animator. I’m not sure if I could hope for anything better.
I don’t know, man, the stuff in Freakonomics is all pretty close by, but what made it different and groundbreaking was the approach - the revolutionary notion that “only because it’s close by, that doesn’t mean we know it well.” Different field, but one of the most important features in the work of an Agricultural Engineer professor I know is that he keeps testing “old farmers’ wisdom” which his colleagues despised - so far, the amount that’s turned out to be true outweighs the falses about 19:1. And one of the most fascinating chemistry articles I’ve read was on “why does pasta stick”.
Copy editor. I’ve always had a passion for language, and am utterly anal regarding grammar/spelling when the occasion calls for it. But I went to a science/engineering university, and was persuaded by my family and friends that computers were the future. So I changed majors before starting my first semester, and I ended up hating the career path and myself.
Also, if I’d known then what I know now about student loans, I would have chosen to attend a liberal arts school. Libarts majors were widely denigrated by students and even faculty at the school I attended… it just wasn’t a strength that the school was known for, and I was too big a chicken to break the mold.
I want to get my MD/PhD degree and then become a writer, making the fascinating history of disease, biological research, and medicine more accessible to the average person. But I don’t see that happening.
I would either be a writer or a professional bowler.
History professor.
Or archaeologist.
Or paleoanthropologist.
Or librarian.
Or bookstore owner.
Or writer.
Or, preferably, all of the above.