People toss around the term "dream job" awfully lightly nowadays. You hear someone talk about being a chocolate taster, or a race-car driver, or a video-game tester and suddenly people around you are all chiming in that one of those would be their dream job. But in reality, almost no job is all it's cracked up to be, and a lot of what makes a job your "dream job" is not so much the perks of the job itself, but your attitude and aptitude for the work.
However, looking into that last statement in greater detail is really not what this post is intended to be about; instead, I want to give you a list of some of the professions I, growing up, might have answered to the question:
What is Your Dream Job?*
Age 5: Fireman, Policeman, Astronaut, King
Age 7: Archaeologist, Astronaut, Writer for Nintendo Power magazine
Age 9: FBI Agent, Astronaut (What can I say, I was big into space!), President of the USA
Age 11: FBI ("Female Body Inspector" – I think 11 was when I realized the ladies were the most fascinating subject in the entire world)
Age 13: Doctor, Professional Baseball Player, Fighter-jet Pilot
Age 15: Chemist, Biologist, Surgeon
Age 17: Professional Runner, Doctor, Lawyer, Submarine Captain
Age 19: College Professor, Engineer, Any job that would enable me to sleep until 11 AM every day
Age 21: Bartender, Pizza Delivery Guy, Radio DJ
Age 23: Engineer, Computer Programmer
Age 25: Engineer, CEO of a large corporation
Age 27: Engineer, Coffee Taste Tester
Age 29 (Now): Father, Husband, … and maybe … an Astronaut
*My dream jobs did not focus on compensation at all – assume that any/all of the above were earning me enough money to keep me financially solvent, and my reasons for selecting them as my dream job(s) were purely for other reasons.
Now it's your turn. What was your dream job when you were younger? What is your dream job today?
[NaBloPoMo 2008 - #15/30]
