Sloan, the vaunted leader of GM for four decades and namesake of the MIT business school, was famous for his management style of “just attending meetings”. He made it his thing to travel around the country and solicit ideas from the salesman and managers at the dealership front lines, five or six a day, listening more than talking. This was negated of at the time. He set up six days of meetings a week, three for solving problems then and there as they arose, three for covering planned agenda items.
→ “job where you just go to meetings”
In my (cheeky) defense, I give you the following “example”. Granted, it’s just the combine, and I didn’t realize he’d call the guy “son”, but c’mon!
Yeah, that’s a good one.
How about being Snoop’s blunt roller? They have machines that can help with the job - all you really need to worry about is being ready whenever Snoop wants a joint (hint: he always wants a joint)
I’m a retired civil servant. About twenty years ago, a colleague was griping about how underpaid he was. He had a friend in the private sector who made twice what we did, doing nothing but Powerpoint presentations.
I told him:
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I don’t believe you (he was a bullshitter);
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Just because all your friend does is make Powerpoint presentations doesn’t mean his only skill is Powerpoint. He likely has vast knowledge of the company’s business. “All Einstein did was write papers and give lectures and interviews? Hell, I can do that!”
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If he really is making a princely salary with nothing but Powerpoint skills, he’ll be a huge nail for bean counters to hammer down in the next round of layoffs.
Until you have to do it, any job is easy.
We could likely have a thread with “jobs that ain’t as easy as it looks”!
OK, that’s my dream job. It would be a pay cut but I’m sure the benefits would make up for it.
I like the suggestion from @Shalmanese. I’ll pipe in with a real job that at one time was somewhat accessible and I think fits the bill. My dad worked for GM in a number of roles over the years. At one point, the job he coveted was a job as a sales rep for the service parts operation. At the time, 30 odd years ago, this was a six figure job with a company car and generous expense account to cover meals and golf outings.
The job was basically selling parts to new car dealers. Mind you, new car dealers must use the parts you are selling for any warranty work. And they must exclusively use the parts you are selling if they use the “Goodwrench” name. And, so far as I know, there are no GM dealers who use anything but GM parts on GM cars. So the sales came automatically. It was really more of a customer service role that involved occasionally listening to complaints about slow deliveries while having a nice lunch or golfing with dealership executives.
My dad never got that job and was eventually promoted to more senior roles where it would have been a step down. But he talked about the job he didn’t get for several years after.
Some do, some don’t. Getting elected is a lot of work. Actually being a senator doesn’t have to be. Your constituents care how you vote, but usually don’t pay any attention to the work you actually do or don’t do. Can anyone tell me what their two Senators have been up to during the last 6 months or so?
Of course, if you’re ethical, the pay isn’t that great. But good benefits.
Motivational speaker. Do one interesting thing in your life and get paid to talk about it. I’m looking at you, Rudy Ruettiger
Watch Commander at a NYS medium-security prison. I got paid good money and the amount of work I had to do was minimal.
Never badder than bad 'cause the brother
is madder than mad
At the fact that’s corrupt like a senator
Soul on a roll, but you treat it like soap on a rope
'Cause the beats in the lines are so dope
Listen for lessons I’m saying inside music
That the critics are all blasting me for…
Ah, but you had to work for those privileges, right? Your use of the word “Pensioner” sounds as though you live in the UK. I am assuming that you draw govt benefits for old age, as well as the money from your investments. I do the same, but did work to acquire all of that. Still, I am glad I did, and can now be as lazy as I like!!
My entire job is pretty much meetings, responding to emails, and making PowerPoint presentations.
It’s not that those things are inherently useless. Really what we are doing is designing and building fairly complex business processes that involve lots of different stakeholders.
The frustrating part is how companies will spend so much money on the bullshit stuff and yet will nickel and dime when it comes to the people who actually do the work. One company we worked with had one developer who had to report up to five different PMOs (insert Office Space reference).
How does $10 million for a few days of sitting in a room and talking sound?
In 1989, Bruce Willis had been the star of the hit TV series Moonlighting for a few years, and the year before had had his first big hit feature with Die Hard. When director Amy Heckerling wanted him for the voice of the baby Mikey in Look Who’s Talking, with a budget of $10 million, there’s no way she could have paid his going rate.
…so Willis (as became customary throughout his career) negotiated a favorable back-end deal for himself. In fact, his Look Who’s Talking deal was one of the most favorable in Hollywood history, because he got a reported 8 to 10 percent of “first dollar grosses”—meaning Willis would get paid a chunk of the box-office grosses before that money could be used for anyone or anything else. After that movie became the surprise hit of 1989, earning $140 million at the box office, Willis’ total take-home was a cool $10 million—for what was reportedly four days of voice work.
(That $140 million was the film’s domestic gross, and matched Die Hard’s worldwide gross. LWT’s worldwide gross was nearly $300 million.)
Celebrity voice-over work, especially for commercials, can be very lucrative, with six-figure paydays for a few hours in a recording studio. This article lists more than a dozen famous actors who have done commercial VOs, but only includes one payday: “[Morgan] Freeman was paid between $1 million and $2 million for being the voice of Visa.”
The only requirement for getting work like this is that you be an internationally known A-level star. So go for it!
The problem, IMHO, is that audiences might not realize the voice is that of a celebrity unless 1) the celebrity’s voice is absolutely unmistakable (Freeman’s might qualify) or 2) if they were specifically notified ahead of time via advertising.
I wonder how much Vin Diesel gets paid to say “I am Groot” about a dozen times for each Guardians of the Galaxy film…
Actually, some advertisers have determined that unidentified celebrity voice-overs work for them and are worth the six-figure price tags. Even if not explicitly recognized by most viewers, the familiarity of the voice apparently helps with the pitch. (Either that, or some exec really wanted to meet Julia Roberts.)
Backup QB. Chase Daniel has appeared in 74 games and completed 186 of 276 passing attempts in 13 seasons in the NFL (that’s 3.7 attempts per game appearance, i.e. his playing time is entirely garbage time), and has earned over $40 million. So he’s earned about $145,000 per passing attempt.
Internet “influencer”. Say shit on a website, people click “like”, ad dollars roll in. Or am I missing something?
Actually there is something you did not mention. They tape about a dozen episodes a day. They do the whole year’s worth in less than a month. The rest of the year she can devote to competitive ski jumping if she wants to.