Published on 12, July, 2020
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?
My former job - scientific researcher in molecular biology - was fairly ideal for me, a lot of problem solving and practical work with the hands, plus designing experiments and writing papers was creative. The problem for me was that the created product was intellectual, rather than physical. Most of my ancestors were craftsmen, creating physical objects, iron founders, engineers, gunsmiths, potters, stone masons, watch makers etc. and because of this I think that I always really wanted to make things. In an ideal world I would have liked to have been either a sculptor or a blacksmith. I am artistic and the small amount of forge-work I did at school I enjoyed - hitting red-hot iron is great fun.
have you considered taking up hobby electronics? Soldering isn't quite as dramatic as forging metal but you do get a physical product at the end. And its a lot cheaper to get into.
I do have a soldering iron, but my memory of A-level physics has tainted my attitude to electronics, I'm afraid. I have made scale models in the past, but having both adult daughters at home at present there is no room for me to pursue this. It is necessary to have desk or table space that is not disturbed for weeks on end.
I want my own shed! I have the unit in the garage, but there's there's certain junosequois (not good at French) about sheds...
So build yet another shed.