Dream Job
I was reading something over on Get Rich Slowly (I just can’t remember which article it was, I visit the site every day) that basically asked readers what their dream job was. Dream job was defined as the job you would do if you weren’t getting paid. It reminded me of my series of posts on “All the Money in the World.”
For those of you that didn’t read them (ahem), it was a cool exercise because after wondering what I would do differently in my life if I had enough money for my grandkids to be wealthy, I asked myself right away, “Why don’t I make those changes anyway?” Most of them had little to do with money—I could easily incorporate them into my life now. But of course it’s scary to think of a less stable life so I haven’t made any huge changes (except for buying a Wii and getting a HUGE TV).
But back to the idea of what job you would do for free. Would I do my last job for free? Hell no. My current job? Maybe. It makes a HUGE difference when you get all stressed out and anxious about work but at the end of the day you can honestly tell yourself, “you know what, I think what I’m doing is actually going to help people with their finances and with their happiness.” It’s a big deal and I don’t think someone who has never felt it could truly understand.
I know now what that’s like and—live having and watching HD TV—I don’t think I can ever go back to the way I felt about my last job. I wish I could say something like “doing it for the money,” but I really wasn’t getting paid all that much back then. I don’t want to turn this into “I detested my old job” because I really didn’t. The job itself was just OK, the pay sucked, but the people I worked with on a day-to-day basis are what kept me there for two years. It was like coming to work with your friends. No stress, lots of joking around—it was almost like being in college again. So now there is a little more stress (launching a new site will do that), but in the end I’m happy with my decision.
But again, I’m digressing. What is my dream job? Specifically, I don’t know. But I have some requirements:
- Must be fun: Coaching baseball would be fun, so would creating new and original ads for companies.
- Must work with great people: This one is a crapshoot—it’s almost impossible to tell what this will be like until you settle in and get to know people (and vice versa). At my last job it took me over a year to meet the person that would become a good friend of mine regardless of the job. Weird huh? It took him being assigned to sit behind me for us to both go “he’s just as crazy as I am.”
- Must be helping people, somehow: Coaching, again, accomplishes this. Teaching people how to manage their money so they don’t get scammed does too. Or teaching them how to invest their money so it grows and provides a better future for them and their family—that’s what I’m doing now.
In the end, I feel lucky to know the feeling of having a job that satisfies those altruistic feelings we all have when we’re young. Hopefully I won’t forget what it’s like to not have that and that’ll keep me on the right path.
As long as I can still come up with the rent money, anyway.
[image found via kimandjason.com]
April 18th, 2008 at 7:33 am
My dream job is centered around flexibility. I would love to do something that offers the flexibility to spend more time with my kids. For some reason, society seems to think that moms are the only ones with that goal in mind, but it is just as hard for me to leave my kids in the morning as it would be for her! Eventually, I would love to take my passion for writing to do something more creative, something more worthwhile, than what I do now from 8-5. Not sure what that looks like just yet – maybe a book, maybe Frugal Dad, maybe another blog. Who knows?
May 8th, 2008 at 5:54 am
[...] Something Finances hosted by The Locomono Website. My story for that one is about getting your Dream Job. One of the posts in this carnival got me thinking about my own investing and how I rarely write [...]