The coolest jobs?

[jeff kushner]

We all have a choice of what we do to while away the days when we are between 16 and 65 or so.

Like many here, I gravitated towards the animal-jobs.......maybe a zookeeper, forest ranger or a "Merlin Perkins on steroids" kind of thing? Then I chose to leave home a bit earlier than most so I began as the youngest manager Howard Johnsons ever employed at 17 years old. I was proud but a Restaurant manager took 60-80 hrs a week, for a couple bucks an hour when you broke it down...a dead end for me. .

Most of what I wanted to do required college. This is where I hit my "wall"....college wasn't going to be in my wheelhouse, I didn't have the patience for it. So, loving nature but being the type that would not excel in school, I elected to travel to those places and let whatever job I had pay for it. A "work-around" of sorts. I learned a trade, tried nearly every position in a Construction office then landed on my X for my career. I have enjoyed it and I consider myself to be extremely fortunate. I don't believe in regrets and I don't regret not going to school, that was my choice so I'm ok with the results.

I am also super happy to see those that did get their dream jobs and the jobs I would have liked to have tried!

Clearly, this is aimed at those here who have or had a pretty cool job. I give kudos and respect to those that buckled down and put in the pain to get to where they wanted to go!

So, I get paid to guess....not a bad gig if you think about it, someone actually pays me to guess! Not only that, but my skillset is IN DEMAND! I always thought this was the biggest scam of my life because they pay me to "work" and I don't! LOL

I had a friend of mine whose job was to fly to cool places to scout locations for TV commercials......she had a pretty cool job. Had another girlfriend who was Chief of Staff to a certain Hawaiian Senator. She had a pretty cool job too, but not one where she could be honest so that kind of kills that one for me. Another was a VP for Raytheon and she got to babysit the Universal Soldier initiative and go around the country demonstrating it's capabilities. She even let me try it at Andrews AFB...cool stuff.

So, what is your dream job?

 

[Neal]

Ummm.....CPA! It's pretty neato. I'm having like a lot of fun everyday.

 

[Tom]

If you guys knew Neal personally...

 

[zovick]

We all have a choice of what we do to while away the days when we are between 16 and 65 or so.

Like many here, I gravitated towards the animal-jobs.......maybe a zookeeper, forest ranger or a "Merlin Perkins on steroids" kind of thing? Then I chose to leave home a bit earlier than most so I began as the youngest manager Howard Johnsons ever employed at 17 years old. I was proud but a Restaurant manager took 60-80 hrs a week, for a couple bucks an hour when you broke it down...a dead end for me. .

Most of what I wanted to do required college. This is where I hit my "wall"....college wasn't going to be in my wheelhouse, I didn't have the patience for it. So, loving nature but being the type that would not excel in school, I elected to travel to those places and let whatever job I had pay for it. A "work-around" of sorts. I learned a trade, tried nearly every position in a Construction office then landed on my X for my career. I have enjoyed it and I consider myself to be extremely fortunate. I don't believe in regrets and I don't regret not going to school, that was my choice so I'm ok with the results.

I am also super happy to see those that did get their dream jobs and the jobs I would have liked to have tried!

Clearly, this is aimed at those here who have or had a pretty cool job. I give kudos and respect to those that buckled down and put in the pain to get to where they wanted to go!

So, I get paid to guess....not a bad gig if you think about it, someone actually pays me to guess! Not only that, but my skillset is IN DEMAND! I always thought this was the biggest scam of my life because they pay me to "work" and I don't! LOL

I had a friend of mine whose job was to fly to cool places to scout locations for TV commercials......she had a pretty cool job. Had another girlfriend who was Chief of Staff to a certain Hawaiian Senator. She had a pretty cool job too, but not one where she could be honest so that kind of kills that one for me. Another was a VP for Raytheon and she got to babysit the Universal Soldier initiative and go around the country demonstrating it's capabilities. She even let me try it at Andrews AFB...cool stuff.

So, what is your dream job?

DENTIST!

Been doing it for 56 years now, and it's never boring. There is always a new problem to solve for a patient.

I still work 1 week per month for the fellow who recently bought the practice which I started from scratch in 1973 in Sharon, CT, a town of 3000 people in the most rural part of CT (the NW corner of the state in the Appalachian Mountains).

I have treated four (4) generations of some families now.

 

[SinLA]

Man, I feel like being a dentist would be a TERRIBLE job! That's what is great though - one person's terrible job is another person's dream job

 

[Yvonne G]

I was a telephone company employee. The most enjoyable job I had working for Ma Bell was as their Joint Pole Engineer. Doing research to find the correct pole to match that pole in the field to the pole on the record was very satisfying. By the time I retired the records were in much better shape than when I started. Then after retirement I contracted back for several years doing the same job. But I certainly don't miss working - not the work or the people, just the $$$!!

 

[PollyAda]

I work for local government in education (special educational needs), and spent time in a variety of education settings prior. Having taught Art, I am finding that I miss the creative group dynamic. I am far less motivated to engage in my own creative projects now that I am not encouraging kids to let loose and make something each day.

If the pressure to make a decent income was taken away, then I think my dream job would be to run a small therapeutic centre of some sort. Art therapy with animal therapy. Perhaps a recipe for disaster!

 

[ZEROPILOT]

I've worked at a few motorcycle dealerships over the years on the side.
But I pretty much had the same employer for 37 years. Until I finally retired. As a mechanic. And eventually foreperson for the local school board.
It was fun.
Mostly.
I'm actually looking to get back in for a few more years now. Out of absolute boredom

 

[Tom]

You guys don't really want me to play this game, do you? I'll just sit this one out.

 

[Blackdog1714]

You guys don't really want me to play this game, do you? I'll just sit this one out.

I have seen you on TV and Dog is more handsome!!!

 

[jeff kushner]

Thanks Tom, funny Kudo's and the respect is there though brother.


It's neat to see what folks say........a lot of people put their life's work as a sum, into prospective......and it's obviously rewarding when you have many years at a career to look back.
I'm not sure those that move from job to job ever get that satisfaction? When I speak to Expats for example, they often tell me that they "did a lot of things". I get it, that's their choice too though.


Another thing I see is that many jobs have evolved. They aren't the same as when we began. When you are doing it, you don't notice that they are bringing in a new crew every 20 years with young folks taking over for us. So the traditional work model was "self-refreshing" so to speak. We are seeing it change on a wholesale case today as many industries are evolving faster then folks can accommodate it but that will all shake out one way or another in the next few years.


Another interesting aspect is that in some way, we all have a connection to each of these jobs in some way....Kevin Bacon's 6 degrees of separation?


I dated Robin, a Ma Bell employee
Our CPA screws us
Mom taught special needs classes for 35 yrs
School sucked
I crashed motorcycles
AND I had 11 root canals done when my teeth went missing in a game............all broken off....Zov will love that,

Oh, and for Tom, my alligator nipped me once.....

Miss anyone?

 

[KarenSoCal]

I've had an eclectic series of jobs, only some of which were cool. I worked in a hospital for 19 years, starting at the tender age of 20. Then I branched out...truck driver with my husband (the happiest 5 years of my life, by far); caregiver for my ailing parents, another 5 years gone; part time chauffeur, first for a business man who had businesses he visited often. He had one in Cincinnati, one in Toronto, and one in Augusta GA. I drove him at night in a Prevost motor coach that once belonged to Charlie Sheen. Then I drove an elderly couple wherever they wanted to go...sometimes it was to dinner with guests in Baltimore, or to or from the airport when they went to their home in FL. We went in their outfitted van...I drove, they had hors d'oeuvres and cocktails.

After that came my coolest job..I was a licensed pyrotechnician and driver for a professional fireworks company. I had a crew and we would do small professional fireworks shows, of course on 4th of July, but also for anniversaries, birthdays, bar mitzvahs, weddings...most any celebration there's someone who wants fireworks.

After we came to CA and stayed, we worked one summer at Lake Elsinore for the city-owned campground there, either in the office checking campers in, or at the boat launch collecting fees. I loved the boat launch, watching folks trying to back their boat trailers down the launch ramp, or get swamped when they moored at the pier on a windy choppy day. They would keep the stern toward the waves instead of turning around and heading the bow into the wind. I would tell the driver, usually the husband, he should turn, but many of them would tell me to go jump in the lake (they weren't the words used, but you get the idea-this is a family forum). While he was gone getting the truck and trailer the boat would swamp and sink right there, often with the family in it. I must admit I enjoyed the reactions on the men's faces when they returned. Constant entertainment! 😂

And finally, the next summer we worked as site monitors at a construction site in Phoenix, making rounds of the 7 building project to make sure no one stole the copper or anything else during the night. That was a fun job, but also a bit scary when a drunk driver would drive onto the site and I had to convince him to leave, or a person would walk onto the site and either me or Pete had to confront him. Those encounters made the job interesting 😲.

 

[Tom]

I have seen you on TV and Dog is more handsome!!!

That is SO true!

 

[SinLA]

My background is as varied as where I have lived. Grew up in NJ and started out studying anthropology in school - primates as an undergrad (Atlanta), Neanderthals for a masters (Chicago), and then doing forensic paleopathology for a PhD (Chicago & Indiana) but I hated academia so left part way through. Since I had a background in science and publishing from my college extra-curriculars I went into educational publishing (DC) and then eventually moved from the content side to the business side, moved out west and got another ridiculous degree while working for a think tank (CA) and now I run the business office for private schools located hundreds or thousands of miles away from me. My life and job were far cooler when I was younger, but I guess the advantage of being old and boring is I now have a tortoise, lol

 

[Neal]

You guys don't really want me to play this game, do you? I'll just sit this one out.

Have you worked on any good movies lately?

I remember the time my wife and I were watching a show and we see this guy in a grocery store standing next to a racoon. My wife yells, "hey, that's Tom!".

 

[TammyJ]

I really hardly have the time to tell you guys about my jobs, seeing as I have to get packed for this trip to Timbuctu to try to locate any last surviving blue-tailed hopping acapanthrits. But just to make this short, I have spent my whole life traveling to the most amazing, exotic and dangerous wild places ever...and still doing it, for loads of US Dollars to boot - it's a blast!!!

 

[TammyJ]

I really hardly have the time to tell you guys about my jobs, seeing as I have to get packed for this trip to Timbuctu to try to locate any last surviving blue-tailed hopping acapanthrits. But just to make this short, I have spent my whole life traveling to the most amazing, exotic and dangerous wild places ever...and still doing it, for loads of US Dollars to boot - it's a blast!!!

Dream on, Tammy. At least you do THAT very well!

 

[Blackdog1714]

Honestly I truly do miss mowing lawns in summer and shoveling snow in winter in Ohio. Life was so much simpler since surprise growing up sucks!

 

[Cathie G]

I think my favorite job has been being retired. At least I have time to do it now.😉

 

[Tom]

Have you worked on any good movies lately?

I remember the time my wife and I were watching a show and we see this guy in a grocery store standing next to a racoon. My wife yells, "hey, that's Tom!".

No big movies lately. Its all been streaming TV, photo shoots and commercials. Its always slow in June, but this strike just killed it. The writer's strike is still going and now we have the actors striking as well. We will survive, but it ain't no fun paying lots of big bills when there is no income coming in.

The trainer that owned those raccoons was from AZ. They didn't want a real actor in there next to the animal, so they put me in there.