I’m currently a housewife with one son out of the house, and another just turned 17, so he won’t be around forever, either. Well, I hope not, anyway.
I wish I were a librarian. That was always my dream job when I was growing up, and I did work at the local library when I was a teenager, before I moved to Europe. It was great and I loved it there. I felt like it was my natural habitat. Lately, I’ve been wishing I could go back.
1. I am currently going to law school full time as a single mom (both jobs!).
2. I would love to work with the Gates Foundation or something similar to help with international aid in human rights, medical, health, building stronger communities, etc.
1. I’m a director-level web analytics consultant. This is odd, considering my life ambition was to be a stay-at-home-mom, and 3 years ago I was.
2. Author.
I’m a teacher.
My dream job would be to be a teacher, of interesting and complex and culturally-relevant topics, to students who would always do the reading and participate in class.
I’ll settle for being a kept poet in case my first choice dream job is, in fact, just a dream.
1. I’m paid to research and write Mormon history.
2. See above.
1. Attorney — Solo Practitioner (work at home, with virtual office for meeting clients, doing social security disability appeals)
2. Hmmm. realistically what I’m doing, only a little more of it . Pie-in-the-sky: I’d like to organize and operate a “Zion House” for disabled and otherwise indigent adults. It is impossible for disabled folk to get by on disability benefits, and some sort of sharing or pooling of resources has to be done, together with life-skills learning.
I’m an SAHM perpetually on the verge of being driven mad by my four-year-old and two-year-old and dropping out of my eternal graduate program.
My dream job is to be a reader. Writing is hard work. Reading is where the pleasure is.
1. Graduate Student (Computer Science) [on track to enter academia or industry]
2. self-sustained homesteader on 20 acres of land
1. Graduate Student (i.e., I spend most of the days reading and writing things not related to my dissertation, and then do dissertation stuff in a mad dash just prior to deadlines.)
2. Graduate Student.
1. I’m currently the HR director for a medium-sized business. I will be a stay-at-home mom in the future when I have more kids (first on her way!!!).
2. My dream is to organize and manage humanitarian aid projects around the world.
1) I’m a Youth Services Librarian
2) A Youth Services Librarian that makes a little more money 😀
My current job is an instructor in art history at a state university. My dream job would be to work full time for Khan Academy creating free and open online art history resources and courses.
1. Software developer at the Church History Library
2. SAHD. Would trade places with my love in a heartbeat. Failing that, efficiency expert, though I’ve little idea what that exactly entails, it’s just attracted me since reading Cheaper by the Dozen.
1) I’m a union organizer.
2) My dream job would be to be a union organizer in a society that is not ridiculously anti-union and anti-worker, where we’re not always the teeny, tiny little guy fighting against a monstrous global power. Sigh.
ZD Eve, if I could get paid to read…… Well…. Suddenly an 80-hour workweek doesn’t sound so bad.
1) I’m temping right now to make ends meet while I’m between jobs. My temp gigs usually involve answering phones. This is so not what I went to law school for.
2) My dream job is to be a law professor, but at this point, I would settle for anything that won’t make my brain atrophy.
1. I currently work in an academic library in a staff position. I boss student employees around, help people check out books, deal with faculty who want to keep books forever, and track down people who lose their books.
2. I would love to go back to being a SAHM and spending my day reading, writing, and cooking. I like being lazy. But, my other future plan is to be a librarian and I’m going back to school this year to get an MLS and hopefully move up the ladder a bit. I’m not sure yet if I want to continue in academic libraries or if I want to go back to public libraries, but I’m one of the few people I know who doesn’t want to be a youth librarian or work in children’s.
1. I work in payments fraud prevention at a medium-sized tech company.
2. I have no idea. In one dream world, I’d get paid for reading and maybe occasionally writing snarky reviews. In another dream world, I’d get paid to learn languages. In yet another dream world I’d teach math (or English, or languages) at an international high school. And in the most realistic dream world (meaning, probably sometime in the next few years) I’d leave my medium-sized tech company and go work in payments prevention at a small startup, preferably one focused on solving remittances for immigrants. (If anyone knows of that startup, let me know!)
1) Adjunct research faculty, 10 hours per week, working from home for a university in another state.
2) Office job! I want to work with and around people. Really, I want my current job plus teaching one class a semester plus an office with nice people for me to work in. That would be ideal. I had that as a grad student for the 2010-2011 school year and it was lovely. I’d even like that salary back!
1. SAHM who knits for pay and works very slowly on a knitting book.
2. Can you get paid to protest? Because I would totally take that gig. I’m also rather good at clever protest signs and catch phrases. Find me a good cause and I’ll peaceably assemble for you!
But really, if I could get paid to knit, I’d be so happy. There are professional knitters who get paid to knit patterns for designers. But it’s not something you can really live off of.
Ohh… Someone pay me to knit protest signs!
TopHat, that is actually a not insignificant part of my job.
For example, tonight I am leading a flash mob for workers’ rights. For work.
And tomorrow I am marching on a picket line. For work.
Let me know if you want to talk. 🙂
I posted before your second comment. I do not knit protest signs for work. I just make regular signs and walk around with them yelling. It’s pretty great.
I teach law. Which means I spend 6 hours a week teaching, 6 hours a week on class prep, 6 hours a week on research and writing, and 500 hours a week in committee meetings.
Ideally, same job, just say cut the committee meeting time by maybe a third?
I’m a teacher and researcher.
I’m pretty much living the dream, though I’d like a huge discretionary budget to travel and research, and very few deadlines. Or only self-imposed deadlines. And I’d like to be based out of the Pacific Northwest, cuz it’s awesome.
1. Medical student
2. Astronaut
1. I work for one of the big 3 here in the Detroit auto industry as a plant specialist resolving issues and concerns between our plants and suppliers sending parts to the plants, and attempting to get into grad school for my MBA.
2. I would love to be a professional Mormon commentator and have a career combining that and the Mormon Studies field. I’d love to do our goofy Mormon Expositor podcast as a profession, even daily. As of right now, it’s probably the worst-paying part-time job out there 😉
Nat Kelly- I do love reading about your activism on FB! I’ll have to ask you more about your job sometime.
Thanks for all the responses! It’s fun to see what everybody does.
To answer my own questions:
1) After way too much education in a highly unmarketable field, I recently decided to go back to school and study something practical but fun (computer programming).
2) I’m not sure. Maybe a theologian-in-residence.
1. Chemist
2. Full time Seminary teacher
No really. I’m making six figures and I want to teach seminary.
1. Graduate Student
2. GIS Analyst/GIS Consultant. I want it so bad!
1. SAHM
2. SAHM who spends her day reading, writing, and cooking. (Who invented that unicorn?)
1. Registered Nurse
2. Writer; counselor. .. whathaveyou.
1. Myotherapist. Okay, my licensing says massage therapist, but I specialize in pain relief/management and injury rehab, so myotherapist is more accurate. Since I believe in treating the whole person, I also work with energy imbalances. This has earned me some colorful nick-titles, which would probably be out of place on an LDS blog ;).
2. I love what I do… my professional life is ever evolving. What could be better? I also love what I’ve done, including 20 years as a SAHM and *a lot* of school. So dream job? In process.
Ooh, this is fun.
1. SAHM. Definitely not my dream job.
2. I agree with Eve that it would be lovely to get paid to read. Since that’s unlikely, I’m hoping someday I’ll get paid to write. In my fantasy world I’d get paid enough to write that I could pay someone else to clean, cook, and get my children to school. That would be lovely.
1. Professor: I do like to research and teach, but the ever increasing expectations and responsibilities can be soul-sucking.
2. Abbess, and I would invite Lynnette to be the abbey’s resident theologian and computer programer.
Abbess, and I would invite Lynnette to be the abbey’s resident theologian and computer programer.
That sounds fabulous–sign me up!
1. Research Coordinator for a psychiatric clinic.
2. Own a bakery/coffee shop and also run some sort of fantastic non-profit like the Sseko Sandals company – I LOVE the idea of empowering women through creativity.
1. Aging homemaker
2. DJ with my own radio show!
1. University administrator
2. Writer
I crunch numbers for a big bank, predicting mortgage defaults.
I would love a job where I get to crunch interesting numbers. My first choice might be sports-related numbers, but there are so many interesting questions out there that can be answered with data that I don’t want to limit myself. I just want to do analyses where I’m always eager to get the results, because I’m genuinely interested in them.
1. Accounting Professor
2. An Astronomer’s computer programming sidekick
1. Psychotherapist in private practice
2. Psychotherapist (this is a midlife career for me, I love my job!
1. Environmental Scientist at government agency
2. University Instructor (no research duties)
I’m currently a housewife with one son out of the house, and another just turned 17, so he won’t be around forever, either. Well, I hope not, anyway.
I wish I were a librarian. That was always my dream job when I was growing up, and I did work at the local library when I was a teenager, before I moved to Europe. It was great and I loved it there. I felt like it was my natural habitat. Lately, I’ve been wishing I could go back.
1. I am currently going to law school full time as a single mom (both jobs!).
2. I would love to work with the Gates Foundation or something similar to help with international aid in human rights, medical, health, building stronger communities, etc.
1. I’m a director-level web analytics consultant. This is odd, considering my life ambition was to be a stay-at-home-mom, and 3 years ago I was.
2. Author.
I’m a teacher.
My dream job would be to be a teacher, of interesting and complex and culturally-relevant topics, to students who would always do the reading and participate in class.
I’ll settle for being a kept poet in case my first choice dream job is, in fact, just a dream.
1. I’m paid to research and write Mormon history.
2. See above.
1. Attorney — Solo Practitioner (work at home, with virtual office for meeting clients, doing social security disability appeals)
2. Hmmm. realistically what I’m doing, only a little more of it . Pie-in-the-sky: I’d like to organize and operate a “Zion House” for disabled and otherwise indigent adults. It is impossible for disabled folk to get by on disability benefits, and some sort of sharing or pooling of resources has to be done, together with life-skills learning.
I’m an SAHM perpetually on the verge of being driven mad by my four-year-old and two-year-old and dropping out of my eternal graduate program.
My dream job is to be a reader. Writing is hard work. Reading is where the pleasure is.
1. Graduate Student (Computer Science) [on track to enter academia or industry]
2. self-sustained homesteader on 20 acres of land
1. Graduate Student (i.e., I spend most of the days reading and writing things not related to my dissertation, and then do dissertation stuff in a mad dash just prior to deadlines.)
2. Graduate Student.
1. I’m currently the HR director for a medium-sized business. I will be a stay-at-home mom in the future when I have more kids (first on her way!!!).
2. My dream is to organize and manage humanitarian aid projects around the world.
1) I’m a Youth Services Librarian
2) A Youth Services Librarian that makes a little more money 😀
My current job is an instructor in art history at a state university. My dream job would be to work full time for Khan Academy creating free and open online art history resources and courses.
1. Software developer at the Church History Library
2. SAHD. Would trade places with my love in a heartbeat. Failing that, efficiency expert, though I’ve little idea what that exactly entails, it’s just attracted me since reading Cheaper by the Dozen.
1) I’m a union organizer.
2) My dream job would be to be a union organizer in a society that is not ridiculously anti-union and anti-worker, where we’re not always the teeny, tiny little guy fighting against a monstrous global power. Sigh.
ZD Eve, if I could get paid to read…… Well…. Suddenly an 80-hour workweek doesn’t sound so bad.
1) I’m temping right now to make ends meet while I’m between jobs. My temp gigs usually involve answering phones. This is so not what I went to law school for.
2) My dream job is to be a law professor, but at this point, I would settle for anything that won’t make my brain atrophy.
1. I currently work in an academic library in a staff position. I boss student employees around, help people check out books, deal with faculty who want to keep books forever, and track down people who lose their books.
2. I would love to go back to being a SAHM and spending my day reading, writing, and cooking. I like being lazy. But, my other future plan is to be a librarian and I’m going back to school this year to get an MLS and hopefully move up the ladder a bit. I’m not sure yet if I want to continue in academic libraries or if I want to go back to public libraries, but I’m one of the few people I know who doesn’t want to be a youth librarian or work in children’s.
1. I work in payments fraud prevention at a medium-sized tech company.
2. I have no idea. In one dream world, I’d get paid for reading and maybe occasionally writing snarky reviews. In another dream world, I’d get paid to learn languages. In yet another dream world I’d teach math (or English, or languages) at an international high school. And in the most realistic dream world (meaning, probably sometime in the next few years) I’d leave my medium-sized tech company and go work in payments prevention at a small startup, preferably one focused on solving remittances for immigrants. (If anyone knows of that startup, let me know!)
1) Adjunct research faculty, 10 hours per week, working from home for a university in another state.
2) Office job! I want to work with and around people. Really, I want my current job plus teaching one class a semester plus an office with nice people for me to work in. That would be ideal. I had that as a grad student for the 2010-2011 school year and it was lovely. I’d even like that salary back!
1. SAHM who knits for pay and works very slowly on a knitting book.
2. Can you get paid to protest? Because I would totally take that gig. I’m also rather good at clever protest signs and catch phrases. Find me a good cause and I’ll peaceably assemble for you!
But really, if I could get paid to knit, I’d be so happy. There are professional knitters who get paid to knit patterns for designers. But it’s not something you can really live off of.
Ohh… Someone pay me to knit protest signs!
TopHat, that is actually a not insignificant part of my job.
For example, tonight I am leading a flash mob for workers’ rights. For work.
And tomorrow I am marching on a picket line. For work.
Let me know if you want to talk. 🙂
I posted before your second comment. I do not knit protest signs for work. I just make regular signs and walk around with them yelling. It’s pretty great.
I teach law. Which means I spend 6 hours a week teaching, 6 hours a week on class prep, 6 hours a week on research and writing, and 500 hours a week in committee meetings.
Ideally, same job, just say cut the committee meeting time by maybe a third?
I’m a teacher and researcher.
I’m pretty much living the dream, though I’d like a huge discretionary budget to travel and research, and very few deadlines. Or only self-imposed deadlines. And I’d like to be based out of the Pacific Northwest, cuz it’s awesome.
1. Medical student
2. Astronaut
1. I work for one of the big 3 here in the Detroit auto industry as a plant specialist resolving issues and concerns between our plants and suppliers sending parts to the plants, and attempting to get into grad school for my MBA.
2. I would love to be a professional Mormon commentator and have a career combining that and the Mormon Studies field. I’d love to do our goofy Mormon Expositor podcast as a profession, even daily. As of right now, it’s probably the worst-paying part-time job out there 😉
Nat Kelly- I do love reading about your activism on FB! I’ll have to ask you more about your job sometime.
Thanks for all the responses! It’s fun to see what everybody does.
To answer my own questions:
1) After way too much education in a highly unmarketable field, I recently decided to go back to school and study something practical but fun (computer programming).
2) I’m not sure. Maybe a theologian-in-residence.
1. Chemist
2. Full time Seminary teacher
No really. I’m making six figures and I want to teach seminary.
1. Graduate Student
2. GIS Analyst/GIS Consultant. I want it so bad!
1. SAHM
2. SAHM who spends her day reading, writing, and cooking. (Who invented that unicorn?)
1. Registered Nurse
2. Writer; counselor. .. whathaveyou.
1. Myotherapist. Okay, my licensing says massage therapist, but I specialize in pain relief/management and injury rehab, so myotherapist is more accurate. Since I believe in treating the whole person, I also work with energy imbalances. This has earned me some colorful nick-titles, which would probably be out of place on an LDS blog ;).
2. I love what I do… my professional life is ever evolving. What could be better? I also love what I’ve done, including 20 years as a SAHM and *a lot* of school. So dream job? In process.
Ooh, this is fun.
1. SAHM. Definitely not my dream job.
2. I agree with Eve that it would be lovely to get paid to read. Since that’s unlikely, I’m hoping someday I’ll get paid to write. In my fantasy world I’d get paid enough to write that I could pay someone else to clean, cook, and get my children to school. That would be lovely.
1. Professor: I do like to research and teach, but the ever increasing expectations and responsibilities can be soul-sucking.
2. Abbess, and I would invite Lynnette to be the abbey’s resident theologian and computer programer.
That sounds fabulous–sign me up!
1. Research Coordinator for a psychiatric clinic.
2. Own a bakery/coffee shop and also run some sort of fantastic non-profit like the Sseko Sandals company – I LOVE the idea of empowering women through creativity.
1. Aging homemaker
2. DJ with my own radio show!
1. University administrator
2. Writer
I crunch numbers for a big bank, predicting mortgage defaults.
I would love a job where I get to crunch interesting numbers. My first choice might be sports-related numbers, but there are so many interesting questions out there that can be answered with data that I don’t want to limit myself. I just want to do analyses where I’m always eager to get the results, because I’m genuinely interested in them.
1. Accounting Professor
2. An Astronomer’s computer programming sidekick
1. Psychotherapist in private practice
2. Psychotherapist (this is a midlife career for me, I love my job!
1. Environmental Scientist at government agency
2. University Instructor (no research duties)