Strange but realistic dream jobs?

In My Humble Opinion
1

Over lunch a group of us in the office were discussing the sorts of jobs we’d love to have. Not the pipe-dream jobs like Nicole Kidman’s masseusse or whatever, but the sorts of career changes we’d make if we had the money and/or intestinal fortitude. Most of my co-workers wanted to be florists, veteranarians, chefs, and things like that. When the conversation turned to me everyone was stunned and one or two of my colleagues took advantage of the shocked silence to question my sanity.

You see, I want to be a car dealer. I’m serious.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the job I have now and I have no plans to change careers. But if I won the lotto tomorrow, I’d take the money and buy a small Ford or Chevrolet or Chrysler or Buick dealership in a small town or medium-sized city. It would be heaven for me, I know it-I’ve been a motorhead since I was a kid and the idea of having a dealership that was all mine is sort of like an alcoholic’s dreaming of owning a bar. Since it won’t happen any time soon, I guess I’ll just have to grin and bear it though.

[sub][sup]But I’m still playing the lotto every week.[/sub][/sup]

So, how about it? Do any of you have career dreams that cause other folks to question your mental health?

Just curious,

Zappo

2

I’m very intrigued by the challenges of managing large datasets. Even among the digerati, this is kind of rare. While it doesn’t get quite the reaction that “car dealer” does, it’s still kinda out there.

3

but only in the winter

I’d like to be one of the guys that use Bobcats (you know, those teeny tiny miniature front-end loaders) to clear the snow from plazas and sidewalkS. Those cute 'lil thangs just look like so much fun - much more fun than a full size plow truck. I like snow, and I actually like shovelling it for a bit - but not all day! But if I can get a machine to do the physical work of it, while I sit in an enclosed cab with my thermos and my radio, it’d be cool. And I’d be helping people.

4

I don’t know the term for it, or even if it exists, so let me describe it to you. I want to work for either a television network or an ad agency and be in charge of which commercials get made/aired. At an agency, it would be greenlighting/shooting down proposals for commercials before production (and judging when they’re ready to air, if ever). At a network, every commercial would have to have my approval before we air it – after all, some commercials are terrible enough to drive some people to change the channel, and networks don’t like it when that happens to them.

Sure, it sounds kinda lame, but I think it would be fun, okay?

5

I always thought it would be way cool to be a Justice of the Supreme Court. I like listening to the extended reports about Court hearings on NPR, and the idea of asking high-priced lawyers pointed questions and exposing the holes in their cases just thrills me. You know:

Justice Zut (peevishly): “You mean to tell me that your previous statement was not completely correct?”
Justice Zut (incredulously): “Do you truly believe that the defendant should have the burden of proof in this case?”
Justice Zut (archly): “Are you sure that word means what you think it does?”

Does that count? I’m not a lawyer or anything, so it’s probably strange, but on the other hand it’s probably not realistic, either.

And, IMHO, I think this belongs in IMHO.

6

Yes, your dream job exists, but it’s really just a small component of being a VP Operations.

Me, I’d like to be a Blacksmith. Or a Painter, or a Fiction writer.

Or a professional duellist.

7

Depends. Were your parents married when you were born? If so, you can’t be a car dealer. :D:D:D

8

I’ve always thought being a flavor chemist (well, since I saw “Unwrapped” on the Food Network on Monday) or a LEGO (or any building toy) engineer would be soooo cool…

9

I don’t know about that. My parents were married when I was born, and I’m currently a lawyer. :wink:
Zut, I have to agree with you that being a Supreme Court justice might be fun. You get to have all of the fun and your clerks do the heavy lifting (research, opinion drafting, and so on).

kalashnakov, you’re welcome to come over to my place and shovel the driveway any time you want. And if you like the Bobcat, I’ll get a tractor so you can mow my grass, too. :slight_smile:

Keeping the faith,

Zappo

10

Yeah, people look at me funny when I tell them my dream job is to do disaster relief, or public health in refugee camps. I would love to work for the ICRC (international committee of the red cross), and spend my vacations with MSF (doctors without borders). I think I get the reaction I do because that sort of work isn’t the sort of thing that will make me rich, you know? Plus, it will be pretty hard, sometimes dangerous work.

Unlike some others who only dream of their dream jobs, I’m going after mine. At long last, I start nursing school next week, and my goal is to have my dream career up and running within five years from now.

11

I want to be a world designer.

This dream job exists, but unfortunately in pieces scattered among several different fields, not as a perceived whole.

So what is world design? It is the art of designing fictional worlds or milieus, in which to set a movie or book or game. Unfortunately this does not seem to exist as a defined specialty.

The closest thing I could find as an actual existing spacialty was ‘set design’ in live theatre. But that was not quite it.

A time at animation school revealed that the bulk of classical animation was actually ‘acting with a pencil’, and wasn’t precisely what I wanted to do. However, a part of the course called ‘layout’–essentially the design of backgrounds–was close. We had to animate a section from ‘Hansel and Gretel’. I set it 500 years in the future in California, and I had far more fun designing the location, its history, and the characters that would inhabit it, than doing the actual animation.

Another thing that come close are game design, both video and role-playing. But here again, the job world seems to mix the design of the game world with the design of the game itself.

Then there’s the conceptual design behind movies. There are coherent fictional universes behind Star Wars, Star Trek, and many others. Designers (such as Syd Mead) then realise visual designs to present these universes in film.

There are the shared-fiction writing groups, such as alt.devilbunnies. I had great fun designing my part of that fictional universe.

So, Dopers (especially those with experience along these lines): does ‘world design’ exist as an actual job anywhere?

Can I fill out my resume and apply for such a job? Or will I simply have to continue to do my own art and create worlds as an example to show what I mean, while working another separate job to pay the rent?

12

My world design page:
http://www.sunspace.org/en/en-b-worlddesign.html

13

I wanna be a Roadrunner! Beep-beep-zip-BANG!!!

Actually, I think it would be fun to be a Zamboni driver. I watch that guy with envy between periods…

14

Dream jobs…well, I think being the host of the show Lonely Planet would be pure awesomeness. I mean, getting paid to go places like Fiji and Morrocco AND being on television? I’ve also often thought that it would be really fun to type fortunes for fortune cookies (I’m not even sure if they have specific people to type them or anything, but I’m assuming that that they do) but only for a few days or so, otherwise I would go insane. I could definatly have quite a lot of fun with that…hehe.

15

I think a great (but somewhat evil for my purposes) retirement dream job would be a Canadian senator. By that time, things could change, but right now they have it pretty sweet. First, you’re appointed, not elected; meaning all you need to get in is to be buddies with the Prime Minister. You can go until at least 75 years old, and end up with one hell of a pension… not that you’d need it making $85,000 per year (which has been upped substantially just recently when the government gave themselves a 10-20% raise which took just 3 days from first thought to being passed). You get office privilleges, a research budget, full travel expenses, what amounts to a 4-month yearly vacation while parliment is on holidays, and don’t have to do any real work. You just go along with whatever bills are put in front of you… just say “yes” and your job is practically guarenteed. You can spend months out of the country “on business” while really sipping drinks on a tropical island at the tax-payer’s expense, and since you’re back in the shadows, almost nobody in the public knows you even exist and consequently won’t complain… most of the time. Check out this page on one of our most evil-hearted senators and one of the very few to ever be removed. I like the line where it mentions his work record - showed up 12 times in 8 years. While this is probably not the type of job the thread was meant to bring up, I still think it would be a “dream job” when I start feeling cynical :p.

16

There is a vacancy for a bra-fitting assistant in my nearest branch of Marks & Spencer.

I have sent in my application form.

17

If money was not an issue, I would love to own a video store. Not a big chain store, just a small Mom-n-Pop one (ok, just a “Mom” one…). I would carry every movie imaginable, and spend all day talking movies with everyone that came in.

Ah well, back to my Spanish lessons :slight_smile:

18

If my dream job happens I need to hire you. The nature of my job would have a need for it that would probably never end.

I want to run a massive sci-fi online RTS/RPG where each player is a ship captain in an ongoing sustained universe that never stops (kinda like a cross between everquest and privateer).

I have tons of notes, ideas, ponderings on file as to how I would want it to run.

Bring in sunspace to provide cool new places for our players to visit and explore.

Then again I would want ans astronomer or two as well as some physics gurus. I want to make the environment as real as possible so if people want to try and do something crazy like trick high G manuvers along the fringes of a black hole we would have some idea of how to make the ship behave.

19
20

I’d like to work in forensics or perhaps criminal psychology. Yes, all my childhood heroes were crimefighters.

And congratulations, ** missdavis102**, on following your dream. Welcome to the most challenging, frustrating, heartbreaking, and rewarding field in the world. (And remember, the real way to a win a patient’s heart is with a warm blanket. Never fails. :wink: )