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?
Thanks everyone for joining in the discussion, some really interesting thoughts. I've made a bit of progress in identifying things that I like doing, and hopefully this helps others. Bit of a random list below, basically a brain fart so sorry for lack of structure!
I like repetitive tasks. Always like modelling, coding. Software programmer may be a good one but I don't have a portfolio of work. I could I suppose start doing some in my spare time and record it on GitHub but it seems daunting to go for this at the moment.
Being a maker, self-employed, seems v attractive so long as I don't have to get work through one of those per hour freelance websites. The intense competition and regular submission of CVs etc. would destroy me. Small number of high quality jobs would be ideal for me, where I can be left alone to concentrate on the task. Maybe cap number of jobs per year and have that public on my own business website, updated regularly. Haven't figured out what I would make yet, but bear with me hahahahahah!
I very much like the idea of writing stories for the Black Library, part of the Games Workshop / Warhammer company. I could put together a catalogue of work there and submit it and see what happens?
I need to find a job where there aren't formal barriers to entry, as in a specific degree or work experience, because I can't meet that at this stage of life. Software programming, web design, writing seem good for this!
I get where you're coming from. It's tough.
I often think having a job would be great, but, meh.
Self-employment is great if you have discipline and motivation. I suffer from a lack of both, haha. I do people-centric work, and would like to work with people more, but I don't like being around people that much. Unfortunately, most things require some form of interaction with people.
Some technical / analytical /scientific work appeals to a certain extent, I tried in my youth, but it just didn't fit with my make up. Free spirit artist suited me much better, and allowed me to experience failure more quickly and more often, hahaha.
My issue is I tend to be process driven, but without an end goal most processes are somewhat redundant. If I think about it too much, which I am wont to do, many goals are also somewhat redundant.
What I would suggest, and it looks like you're already on that path, is find a niche craft / skill / product etc. Make it good, be good at doing it, specialise.
The downside of specialism is it's only valuable if people actually want it, but if people do want it the rewards can be pretty great.
Then the tough thing is finding that audience, marketing/branding, and so on and so forth, and motivation, ugh motivation...
But there is something satisfying about actually creating something.
Couple of links that may be of interest to anyone generally:
Crafts Red List (list of dying out skills):
https://heritagecrafts.org.uk/redlist/
Alison (Catalogur of freebie courses I was pointed to by DWP):
https://alison.com/
Last link, you have to pay if you want a proper certificate. But that's a pay on completion issue and I seem to recall it's like £15 for an e-copy but may vary.