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?
In all seriousness though, I've been very torn over this subject. Pre-diagnosis I had a reasonable career, if chequered after I decided to leave mod. Its been p45s all the way since... I've found offices difficult spaces due to the politics aspect.
I also had difficulty with authority... management don't like that...
The one piece of advice that really stuck... My mum had been an admin and receptionist throughout her career, and she'd pointed out right at the start of my career that its admin staff you need to keep on side, not so much management, as you never know when you'll need a favour and you don't tend to ask that of management.
Every Friday I'd actually buy the admin team a chocolate bar each. Just as a gift to "bank" me some brownie points. This helped smooth issues for me on many an occasion, if I needed admin support for instance, and helps the willingness to free up meeting slots in diaries...
Since MOD I've had jobs in a few areas, but predominantly in accounting/bookkeeping type roles, which you'd think would be an ideal fit on paper... I don't find them very challenging though and also find them a bit rigid. There's not the freedom to think for oneself.
I was starting to lose hope a bit, settling for warehouse work at £9/hr, for a 4hr shift... with a 1.5hr round trip to get there by bus at a cost of about £9... it just felt pointless.
I like this thread, especially for the array of ideas. I have run my (licensed) distillery, and am quite keen on the self employment route, but you obvs need a product or service to offer. I did find, the distillery at least, was a lot of red tape and licensing paperwork, and have since discounted a return to food/beverage products as a result.
I notice that a lot of the comments relate to jobs/interests that are hands on or reference skills. Knew thing I'm looking at if building split cane fly rods. A custom bamboo fly rod can, in the mid range, be between £1,000 and £1,500. I also consider it to be fairly recession proof. The rich who ten to buy them also dont tend to be as affected by a recession... perhaps a misguided view?
I have started contemplating professional style jobs again, but I get dragged back to the self employment aspect as you're accountable to yourself, which seems far less stress than being accountable to someone else. It remove the need for mindreading as it were. I definitely think in my case, I'm looking for a job that takes a passion/interest/hobby, as well as a level of skill, and somehow I add value. My search continues though...