Running the Florida Association of Legitimate Italian-American Businessman, but I screwed up the final interview. Also Paulie Two Guns ratted me out.
Stranger On A Train, I could not agree with you more.
Where I work, the people that have earned my respect are the ones that have done the shitty jobs and are willing to do them again when they must. And, if I do get to run my own establishment, that’s the kind of manager I want to be.
I’ve been a bar-back for a few months now, and boy do you learn a few things. Hopefully, in the next couple of weeks I’ll be a bartender. There’re a couple of training sessions going on and I’m very, very excited. Wish me luck.
Bartending is a tough job–you have to stay on your feet, there’s little or no opportunity for reprieve or escape from obnoxious customers, people will try to cheat you in various ways, and you get slammed at the oddest times. On the other hand, it’s the best job in a restaurant and usually the one that gets the most tips. Given your experience, I guess I don’t have to advise you to tip your barbacks well so they’ll take care of you when the chips are down. Being a barback is the best experience for preparing to be a bartender.
Stay away from the dope, don’t catch any diseases, and good luck.
Stranger
I’m with the OP: director.
It’s not really a fantasy, either. I don’t want fame, or fortune, although that would of course be nice. I just want to be an indie film director, writing and directing films with complete artistic control.
I’m headed to college for science or engineering, but everyday, with every film I watch, I become more and more interested in films. I’ve written several shorts all in my head, I know all the steps of film production fairly well, and I spend most of my spare time watching and studying old films.
The question is, am I willing to spend my entire lifetime poor and penniless and infinitely happy, or would I rather be warm and clothed but bored as hell?
Kitten tamer. I wish someone would pay me for that!
It’s also a matter of being willing to sacrifice every other interest or hobby you might have and most interpersonal relationships. Obsession (and I am pretty sure that success—or even survival–in Indie filmmaking demands obsession) means that everything and everyone else takes second place. There’s never time nor passion enough to get everything done, so you can’t be spending either anywhere else.
I am working my dream job: teacher at a school where I am a crucial part of a strong, vibrant community. But to do that, I’ve had to become obsessed, and the cost of that is much, much higher than just the difference between my current salery and what it would have been had I gone to law school.
Back in the late 40s, early 50s, my husband’s dad and uncle were into this. They’d put kites together very painstakingly…each detail just so. They’d work on it all night and then wake my husband up at 5:00 am and they’d go down to the lakefront to fly them.
They’d glue broken glass to the string and have kite battles…trying to cut the other guy’s string with the glass!
See…I knew I was onto something! 
I am hoping to try it on a small scale once we retire. There can never be too much beauty in the world.
So… like a forest Ranger or something? 
My dream job is reading the whole thread before responding.
Aside from that, writing. However, I would love to drive around the country and visit strange and crazy places and write an column in a paper about my activities. Sort of like in the opionion section of the papers, but a weekly spot about how I was attacked by rabid squirrels and how I met this wierd couple that was married in Vegas and spent their honeymoon as hitchikers.
Working actress
or
Working writer
right now, working on both
Jessica, you seem like a nice girl and you also appear to be intelligent. Posts (like the quoted above) are what tend to discomfort the casual reader. It is off-topic, crowding, and disrespectful the OP’s question. Besides, do you really want swarms of strange men contacting you? I assure you this only turns out icky.
But hey! You’re still in tourist mode! You are allowed to piss people off for 30 days, after that, you’re fair game for pit material, unless of course you are a complete ass.
Stick around, you seem interesting and the townies here, well…it’s cool.
Oh yeah, it’s twenty bucks or so to join, but 2 hours in the subway with a cup and record player playing Day Dreams on a Winter Road should do it.
I’d like to work with 20th century cultural artifacts, but in green and pleasant surroundings instead of airless flourescent archives or roach-blown industrial loft spaces. If I could restore 78 records at Dumbarton Oaks or run a jazz repertory orchestra in Stanley Park, I’d be one happy guy.
My best friend and I wondered about this in our teens, and I have yet to come up with a better answer:
Assuming you could make a living at it, a hotel critic. Get paid to eat, sleep, and bitch. It’s like regular life, only with more travel.
Perfect!
hm, well, there IS always a little thing we like to call the SDMB where we could ask for advice on where to get things of this nature done. i’m sure someone around here has done it. gotta chase your dreams, right hon?
nah, there was no offense. your actions were just construed as “Attention seeking”, which doesn’t matter if it was true or not. just do as you do.
as far as i know, flirting isn’t ruled out…after all, i did some earlier in the thread…or at least made reference to a past flirtation.
shrug
in the eyes of the beholder, i guess.
a noble goal. too bad we’ve got to wait for “when we retire”, huh?
keep us (or at least me) posted on how you’re doing on it if/when you decide to get ‘r’ done.
(yes, i deserve punishment for the last three words)
President of this Quiet Earth.
Pulp novelist.
Rocket scientist.
(I could probably do the second two after becoming the first, now that I think of it.)
Step 1. Hunt up a directory of literary agents, and peddle the manuscript like hell to a bunch of these.
Step 2. ???
Step 3. Profit!
I’d love to coach cricket in an American high school, thus satisfying my love for the game, my missionary zeal and a nagging desire to find out what life is really like on the other side of the pond. Unfortunately, any US school could certainly lay hands on a better-qualified coach than me without breaking a sweat. 
I kinda have my dream job–I teach philosophy 8 months out of the year, and write philosophy the other 4. If I had to change professions, I would like to be a lawyer for a decent cause.
[hijack]When we start the “You know you are a nerd when…” thread, “You crush on Adam and/or Jamie from Mythbusters” has got to be in the top 10." I’m sorry, but that’s just the way it is.[/hijack]