Dream jobs

I understand that many of us do not have jobs, and I know that those who do (myself included here) struggle a lot with them. This got me wondering about what dream job(s) we can think of, or even hope to do one day. It may be inspiring and help some of us find something that allows forum users to get a job or get a better-suited job.

I will put down some thoughts to get the ball rolling. My main priority is to be away from an office or busy environment.

1) work from home permanently doing some kind of PAYE employment for salary certainty. this would ideally just be for 2-3 days a week. if money was not a constraint then I would not do this work at all, and I would do something more fun like a gardening job in the summer, maybe become a landscape garden designer, write novels and short stories professionally.

2) design board games 1-2 days a week.

3) volunteer at a charity in a non customer-facing role 1 day a week.

4) maybe a part-time bike mechanic and/or frame builder 1 day a week. i can't afford the training costs and time needed to get the qualifications to do these things now but maybe in the future.

A 'portfolio' career is my ideal because I can get bored doing the same thing and this also allows me to think in terms of escapes - when things get too much doing job X I can flee to safety with job Y. I think this mental trick would be very beneficial for me.

How about you?

Parents
  • I would love to be a watchmaker or some other delicate craft but I sometimes get shaky hands, especially when nervous, and so in practice I could not do this. the idea is wonderful though. being a maker, creating something, just sounds so nice and rewarding.

    i have realised this is actually a very helpful but frustrating exercise for me. the things I want to do are really nothing to do with the qualifications and experience I have, and what I am good at - with the exception of the board game design I suppose. I have three quantitative-based degrees from universities, am a reasonable logician and coder, have been published twice in good academic journals, but all i really want to do is make simple things like bike frames and create nice landscapes in gardens. perhaps I am running away from a world that is scary and challenging and I am too old and tired now to keep dealing with it.

Reply
  • I would love to be a watchmaker or some other delicate craft but I sometimes get shaky hands, especially when nervous, and so in practice I could not do this. the idea is wonderful though. being a maker, creating something, just sounds so nice and rewarding.

    i have realised this is actually a very helpful but frustrating exercise for me. the things I want to do are really nothing to do with the qualifications and experience I have, and what I am good at - with the exception of the board game design I suppose. I have three quantitative-based degrees from universities, am a reasonable logician and coder, have been published twice in good academic journals, but all i really want to do is make simple things like bike frames and create nice landscapes in gardens. perhaps I am running away from a world that is scary and challenging and I am too old and tired now to keep dealing with it.

Children
  • degrees from universities, am a reasonable logician and coder, have been published twice in good academic journals, but all i really want to do is make simple things like bike frames and create nice landscapes in gardens

    Perhaps the grass is always greener but I too have the same issues.  Qualifications in things I cannot use.  I sometimes spend hours crocheting because it gets me to that zone of nothingness.  I watched something that may be useful.  The person was saying that for an Autistic person to decompress, they needed to do a "special interest."  This is what I've been doing unintentionally.  I'm glad everyone is posting here as it's given me more ideas on what I might like to explore as hobbies or distractions....