# What would you rather be doing? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 21, 2008, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915 "2008-11-21T21:38:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Toxylon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/f05b48/32.png) [@Toxylon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Toxylon)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/21 "2008-11-22T13:47:34Z")
A participant in a living, educational Stone Age Community, with enough paid to support my family (_I_ would need very little money). Throw in some stints at archeologial sites and subsequent writing, and I’d die a happy camper (occasional two weeks in the autumn woods, clad in buckskin, eating pemmican around the fire is just not enough). ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/22 "2008-11-22T13:57:04Z")
Bibliographic instructor in an academic library, or alternatively, a corporate trainer who specializes in teaching the ropes to newly arrived foreign workers who may or may not speak English very well. I would teach them the basic technology involved in the company, help them with their English, and work with them to fill out paperwork, find apartments, get their kids into school, and all the other stuff that makes these guys’ lives hell the first few weeks after they step off the plane. I’m not at all sure this position even exists anywhere, but I’d love to do it or something like it. I’m taking steps. I’ve gotten back into database programming (which _every_ bib. instructor should at least be familiar with nowadays), and I’m applying for grad schools to get my masters of education to supplement the MLS I already have. I’m hoping for something like the above, but truth be told I’d just be happy with getting out of the library I’m in now. We’ll see. ---
**Author:** ![Linty\_Fresh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Linty\_Fresh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Linty_Fresh)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/23 "2008-11-22T14:02:43Z")
> [@SSG\_Schwartz](#): > > For me, I would love to teach inside a maximum security prison. I don’t know why, but hard core violent criminals have always interested me, and I would like to help them maintain their humanity which some people seem to forget they have. Forgot to add that this would be an awesome job. I met a woman who used to be a prison librarian. After listening to her ramble on about it for 30 minutes, _I_ wanted to be a prison librarian. I’d say go for it. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/24 "2008-11-22T14:38:10Z")
I used to have my dream job. Now I finally am 100% certain what I want to be when I grow up … Retired. ---
**Author:** ![Mrs.Cake](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/2acd7d/32.png) [@Mrs.Cake](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mrs.Cake)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/25 "2008-11-22T20:22:25Z")
Money aside? I’d love to own and run a revival movie house. I don’t have nearly the time to watch all the great, not-so-great, fun and fascinating movies, shorts, cartoons, etc. that I;d like. It used to be one of my favorite things to do - there’s nothing like seeing this stuff on the big screen as intended. I’d also have 25-cent popcorn nights. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/26 "2008-11-22T21:54:59Z")
I’d love to be a clever travel writer, like Bill Bryson or Tim Moore. I’d love to have a publishing company hand me a credit card and tell me to go have fun in Peru or something and spout about it afterward. Or, like Rick Steves without all the suck. Mrs Cake–that sounds like a riot. I’ve been to a bunch in the northwest like that (with beer and pizza/burgers, of course).Why doesn’t that business model spread faster, damnit!? It would be so awesome in college towns. ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/27 "2008-11-22T22:45:28Z")
Write, edit, and proofread for a living–and sell a screenplay now and then. ---
**Author:** ![Gukumatz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/74df32/32.png) [@Gukumatz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gukumatz)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/28 "2008-11-22T22:53:51Z")
Being the creative director of a video game. While the business I am getting educated in, filmmaking, is endlessly satisfying to me, I have always felt video games are the superior medium because of user-generated enjoyment. Almost everything in a film is “put there” and the cleverer, more adept at catching things or more intellectual you are, the more you get out of it. But in a game, you _create_ moments that entertain yourself given only a sandbox to play in. For instance, for example, a Left 4 Dead match I played recently with three friends. I posted this recently on my website, so I’ll just quote myself. > [@](#): > > We were on the roof of the last mission in a campaign, holding a helipad against a pissed-off zombie horde while waiting for rescue. Being the designated sniper/molotov character (I.e. Tank watcher) I was handling the mini-gun on the roof while the others had the staircase and two attack vectors respectively. Two minutes left on the clock and everything is scratching by without anyone dead yet - and then Louis gets yanked off the tower by a Smoker, collapsing our entire left and bottom flank, since the minigun won’t rotate or depress that far. Bill and Zoey pull together in the middle while I get up on a high point and scout for Louis. > > I put a cap in the throat of the smoker and I see Louis getting up on his feet - not badly hurt yet, but he’s shouting over voicecom that he’s nearly out of ammo and a horde is rushing on him from behind, fast. We’re all literally _screaming_ into our microphones for him to bust ass backwards and get back here ASAP. > > And then time just slows down, my scope pops up and - boom, headshot. A zombie hand lifts a bottle to the air in Zapatian revenge - the arm gets picked right off. A hunter gets a M-14 burst in mid-air and gets flung off the platform, plummeting to it’s death. Another zombie takes it in the throat as Louis ducks to avoid another Smoker. As he runs pell-mell towards us, still twenty yards away, two zombies gets nailed in one shot. Fifteen yards away and Francis does a flying pump-action shotgun kick into the horde, landing straight behind Louis and keeping the bastards at arm’s length. Ten yards and a molotov whizzes by his ear and catches a zombie in the face. The right-hand half of the horde collapses in an explosion of pissed-off lemmings on fire. The left-hand half gets torn into a pink mist by the re-revved minigun. Louis is on the ladder as Francis pistol-whips a rabid zombie desk clerk into submission. We’re back together, but the final wave is here and we’re facing in each our direction, back-to back and we’re all pretty much down to pistols and our swinging cods. We get a split-second pause and hear the heli pilot shouting on the radio to get our asses out of here. > > And we do. We don’t even break formation. We keep walking, each pointing in each our direction, calling off reloads on the com as they come. A tank almost breaks up the party but goes down to the party’s last molotov and sustained pistol fire at an arm’s length away from Zoey. > > And then we’re home clear. And there was much screaming and rabid laughter on the com. That kind of experience can only be brought together by factors that can’t be controlled, but only facilitated. And that’s why I want to be a video game designer when I’ve told the stories I want to tell in film. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/29 "2008-11-22T23:16:29Z")
When I grow up, I want to be an education specialist in international development. I’d work with governments and NGOs in developing countries to improve their educational systems and help coordinate social programs to encourage attendance. I’m working on getting there. Check back in a couple years. ---
**Author:** ![j666](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de0a6/32.png) [@j666](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/j666)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/30 "2008-11-22T23:42:26Z")
I have the perfect job for me; I just wish I had a better boss … When I retire, I would like to tutor highschool kids to do what I do; the world, or at least most businesses, would be much better off if there were more people like me. That is, if they can get along with the boss; someone else will have to teach them to do that. ---
**Author:** ![WormTheRed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/bbe5ce/32.png) [@WormTheRed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WormTheRed)\ **Post date:** [November 22, 2008, 11:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/31 "2008-11-22T23:45:22Z")
I’d want to be a SCM for a Fortune 500. Handling the supply chain from the mines in Whereveristan to the finished goods being sold on 5.th Avenue. Making all that happen, at the best, fastest and cheapest way possible, would be a hoot! It might even happen. I’m still young and working myself up the chain. ---
**Author:** ![chacoguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@chacoguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chacoguy)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/32 "2008-11-23T00:03:01Z")
I’d love to be a professional raft guide; as long as I didn’t have to actually take any whiny, clueless guests downriver. It’d be just my buddies and me doing laps on rivers all over the world like those surfer dudes in that movie “Endless Summer” ---
**Author:** ![hobscrk777](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a6a055/32.png) [@hobscrk777](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hobscrk777)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/33 "2008-11-23T01:08:47Z")
I have to quote office space here. I agree with both the bum and the main character. I’d either do two chicks at the same time, or absolutely nothing at all. Seriously, if I could still somehow live comfortably, I would do nothing but lounge around all day. I don’t understand people that feel compelled to keep busy with some occupation, even if they had enough money to support themselves without working for the rest of their lives. ---
**Author:** ![UltraVires](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/ecccb3/32.png) [@UltraVires](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UltraVires)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915/34 "2008-11-23T01:59:25Z")
> [@SSG\_Schwartz](#): > > What would be your dream job, you know, the one that the guidance counselors used to talk about where it’s not really work if you love what you do. I don’t mean something like becoming a Super Bowl MVP, or President unless you are already a talented athlete or active politician. > > For me, I would love to teach inside a maximum security prison. I don’t know why, but hard core violent criminals have always interested me, and I would like to help them maintain their humanity which some people seem to forget they have. > > That’s mine, what’s yours? > > SSG Schwartz Is money a concern in this exercise? Or since we are dreaming anyways, does it not matter that our dream job might not pay enough to support a family? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-would-you-rather-be-doing/473915.md?page=1)