My little brother had a cool job when he was at Gannon University. He sat at a desk, studying. If anyone approached where he was sitting, he’d tell them they couldn’t go through the door he was sitting in front of. The door was chained closed and padlocked. He never found out what was beyond the door.
Porn star.
I’ll do spell-checking (it seems I’m compelled to do it regardless). And in my spare time I’ll pet lonely cats and dogs.
Got fired from my last job anyhow.
I’ve had a few corporate jobs that were dead easy in terms of skills and responsibilities. The issue I usually run into is other people frustrating me. For example document reviews that are nitpicked to death, or when I was a programmer and the end users wanted X, no change it to Y, no X was better, actually Y is better, etc. until I lose my shit.
My online shop is actually pretty fun and easy. It’s not making a LOT of money but as of last November it’s pulling in a steady income enough to sustain itself, so that’s nice. I can coast on it now (with the income from my day job and my husband’s income) or I can work harder to improve it. Up to me.
I hate to break it to you but those kinds of programming jobs don’t exist anymore. They’re not like they were when i was one, either. I used to do a lot of prototyping, which is you develop something and give it to the users, then make changes based on their feedback. That was gratifying (except for what I mentioned above). These days I’m wondering if our developers ever get fed up and quit because they have to do so much more documentation before they can start coding. It varies by company but the ones I’ve seen have to analyze the business need and write up an analysis document. In that, they literally write the code they’ll need and put it into the document. (I would rather just put that code into the system and start testing, thankyouverymuch.) After that they might have to convert that analysis document into a design document. Or a BA does that but then the developer has to review it for correctness. I think they spend twice as much time writing documentation than they do coding and unit testing.
If it was chained and padlocked, what did they need him for?
I’m pretty far removed from the actual coding these days. I wouldn’t say my job is “easy” in that anyone can do it. Actually most people probably can’t. Most people are probably uncomfortable with just being dropped into a strange company and being told “help us fix our problem!”
But 90% of what I do just involves a lot of talking to different people, gathering a bunch of information from lots of different perspectives and then making some recommendations that I mostly don’t give a shit if they implemented.
I also vote for (probably unsuccessful) travel blogger.
I think the “easy” part would really end up meaning “no real responsibilities or stress” if it came right down to it for me.
I mean, there’s LOTS of stuff that would be great, if I didn’t have to really make a living at it, or be under someone else’s thumb or schedule for how/when to get it done. Being a researcher, or some kind of reviewer, some kind of writer, or vlogger, or whatever would sound great, if I didn’t actually have to make those things work in a business/financial sense, or deal with people saying that I have to do it by X time, or in X way, etc…
I prefer the idea of going out for a number of months and getting lots of information, photos, footage, etc. to work with. Edit it at the end, picking the best.
To contrast, my brother was walking in a nature area one day and ran into a photographer. He was patiently sitting there with a very expensive camera. Bro chatted him up and discovered the man was sent to get a photo of a particular critter. He was just waiting for one to show up. If it showed up in 5 minutes and the guy got his footage, he got the rest of the day off. But it might not show up for 8 hours. Any number of other photo worthy subjects might appear but he couldn’t get distracted…he knew what he was there for and he better not miss it.
That sounded like slow death to me.
Martial arts instructor. I did it for a while in college, for beer money mostly. Not necessarily easy, but a hell of a lot of fun.
I couldn’t actually do it, because it is not easy - you have to attract and retain students, collect fees, etc., and the other boring details of actually keeping things running. Plus you have to work nights and weekends because that’s when people are free to train.
The other gig might be the one where I just generate reports all day long. There was such a gig two or three companies-that-I-worked-at ago, where all day long you would get requests for a report of “all X with characteristic Y between date 1 and date 2 above a certain threshold” and then you knock out the query, format the results and ship them off.
No doubt I would get bored with anything easy sooner or later. But now I am not working at all, and that is more boring than any job.
Regards,
Shodan
Alphabetizer. Very soothing no matter what the context.
I’ve always found it to be best to be the “big fish” in a “small pond”. Being an accountant can be fine, if you’re the only accountant. Being a dentist would be fine, if you’re not in a practice with 5 other dentists.
Do something interesting & positive, but without other people constantly needlessly needling you all the time. The other day, one of my coworkers started in on me about my filing system. They’re MY files. Nobody else uses them. When I die, someone will just haul them out & burn them. Why does anyone else care what system I use?
I worked for 20 years on the night shift - and that was great, because I was able to just get on with the job. I’m not sure what crime I committed to lose that spot, but maybe I’ll be able to return one day, post retirement.
I’d manage a cannabis dispensary and I’d be damned good at it. I have all the requisite skills and know shit from shinola about the product. Likewise, I’ve considered setting up as a consultant compliance officer for the recreational warehouses–now that OLCC is not giving anyone time or a warniing for noncompliant items but just yanking the license I’m thinking there’s a good niche to be carved. Going around telling people how they’re fucking up–right up my alley!
Alternately, doggie daycare or a very early morning shift 3-4 days a week running a set delivery route up and down I-5 in a box truck. Load and unload with a forklift and just cruise along at the speed limit otherwise, listening to music and talking to my doggo, who would come along because he digs car rides.
I plan on retiring soon and pursuing an acting career. I will surely try for speaking roles, if the gods are willing, but I would be perfectly fine with extra work. Show up, hang out on the set, chat with the other extras - then every once in a while walk or sit or stand where they tell you to. Yep, that’s the ticket.
I met that guy in Portland, OR while doing a road re-alignment survey. Got to be in the control shack and pull the huge, original brass lever that actuated the turntable for the railroad swing bridge. Best job in the world if you like privacy and reading and daydreaming.
Well, one of my gigs was with a security company that did security for banks and I subbed in for a while at a bank ops center, 11 pm to 7 am. 11 saw a couple nice ladies show up to do some sort of computerized reports, they left around 3. We also had a cleaning crew come in to do the non-bank part of the building [it had a bunch of offices] that left around 200. People started trickling in around 600.
In the hours I worked, I had to walk 2 rounds [ old school key clocks to mark specific areas checked] and make sure places were lockedup or unlocked as needed. I had to make sure any alarms were responded to [don’t ask me about the charming time I had to hold a couple youngsters at gunpoint til the cops showed up or the time of the hurricane where instead of being evacuated to a shelter, I sort of tool my personal shotgun and my issue sidearm and lived in the op center for 4 days, though the OT pay was sort of spectacular <and I got to rummage in the bank caffeteria kitchen for food!>] and the occasional monitoring of work crews working overnight - floor cleaning, repainting, replacing an air conditining system.
It isn’t just sitting around being bored.Though in their defense, they did sort of put the op center in a slightly bad area of Norfolk …
This would be on a horse farm. The guy doing it now doesn’t go out to check on the horses, check the building, or anything. He’s basically there to tell people that try the door that everyone’s gone, except no one shows up at 10 p.m. trying to impulse buy a thoroughbred.
My dream job would be sampling the fish population in various lakes and streams using rod/reel/tackle.
Op-ed columnist for a major newspaper. Write 700 words twice a week and get paid a bunch of money for it.
It was a work-study job, and my brother loved it. He never asked.
My gf looked into converting part of our barn into an indoor/outdoor dog kennel and opening a doggy fat farm. Overweight dogs would be boarded for one to four week periods, during which they’d be fed a reducing diet and exercised daily (walked in the woods).
Looking at it as a business plan was discouraging. Even charging a little more than people would likely pay, there wouldn’t be a very good return on the investment.