Early Retirement Extreme Forums

Suddenly you are free to do anything you want. Does that include work? If so, tell us about it. Dream jobs are typically hard to find. I figured we could keep an eye out for one another.

The job opening that motivated the post was this one: http://www.trektravel.com/employment/be-a-guide/

Mainsail trimmer on a Volvo Ocean Race boat! Forsooth, I'd even settle for the "multimedia guy"-position on the boat

Seriously though, I'd need a resume of winning races and national titles three feet long to even get considered. That's the problem with dream jobs for me. They tend to require putting in some serious time first.

However, this thread is a good idea. I think the social capital built within this forum is rather very good (this is after all how I got my current job), so lets hear it.

I image working in a technological role for someone like SpaceX as being pretty awesome. Or somehow helping develop new/more advanced space stations. I don't have a specific position in mind though, or know whether I could actually be useful lol.

Let's expand this to volunteer positions as well.

Jacob, last week I was speaking with a friend who is a volunteer at the San Diego Maritime Museum.

http://www.sdmaritime.org/volunteer/#sail_crew

He volunteers on the Sail & Maintenance crew. He was talking about the intricate woodworking and metal work that needs to be done on the old wooden ships. He said they have an all volunteer shop that churns out rigging, sails and wooden pieces made in the traditional manner. They maintain many old ships and are building the San Salvador from scratch:

http://www.sdmaritime.org/san-salvador-build/

It just occurred to me that volunteering at one of these museums might be a good way to acquire the skills you want for free.

Not my dream, but maybe one that will resonate here.

I have a family member who loves astronomy and found a position working with the Keck telescopes that basically paid in telescope time. He was gutted he couldn't apply due to financial needs.

My personal ERE job is to go from employee to entreprenuer and small time VC, without worrying (especially DW worrying) about replacing our current job cashflows.

Also, more time and energy to spend on developing our (OK, mostly the bank's for now!) raw property into a food/energy/income generating asset.

A small farm to grow and raise food. That's all.

Novelist.

NOLS (National Outdoor Leadership School) Instructor...but that also happens to be my plan to get to ERE! Adventurer would be cool too.

Volunteer at the HRA Pheriche Aid-Post for a season. Weather is horrible. Altitude makes life miserable. There is no heat. Wind blows through the drafty building as if it is a tent. Food consists of lentils and rice for the entire time on post. They require volunteers to be physicians.... ugh! Med school can't be that hard, right?

@Ego - Thx, I'll keep that in mind. We might do an extended stint in area within the next 5 years. Got family <500M from San Diego. The boatbuilding school I'm looking at charges some $12000 for an AAS degree (which can specialize in tall ships). Would be nice to circumvent that. I got enough degrees already, I think :O)

@workathome - SpaceX had a hiring list of different positions a yard long last time I looked. There are competing companies to SpaceX as well, especially Orbital Sciences, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pr ... _companies.

@theanimal - During our quest for housing, we came across a farm (affordable to us) in NY with 250+ acres of hunting land (including a big lake) that was listed as being of interest to outfitters, e.g. guided hunting trips, survival stuff, outdoor school. Any interest in that? That is, you would be the expert/guide, we'd split the profit.

Stumbled upon this wooden boat-building class coming next month: http://www.mysticseaport.org/event/trad ... uilding-2/

Animal, I took the NOLS Wilderness First-Aid course last month. I enjoyed it so much I decided to go for the Wilderness EMT. I would love to do the entire course through NOLS but it is a little too expensive for me to justify (to my wife ) so I am going to do the EMT portion at our community college (costs about $350) then do the NOLS Wilderness add on. NOLS is a great organization.

@Jacob- Yes, I would be interested in that. @MBGI actually inquired a little while back whether or not I would be interested in starting my own guide company/service. Either of these would work perfectly along with NOLS because a full-time instructor only works 25 weeks of the year.

@Ego- Good call! NOLS is indeed great. I think I told you I'm looking to do the Wilderness First Responder soon. I just need to find somewhere to take it.

jacob wrote:Mainsail trimmer on a Volvo Ocean Race boat! Forsooth, I'd even settle for the "multimedia guy"-position on the boat

Seriously though, I'd need a resume of winning races and national titles three feet long to even get considered. That's the problem with dream jobs for me. They tend to require putting in some serious time first.

However, this thread is a good idea. I think the social capital built within this forum is rather very good (this is after all how I got my current job), so lets hear it.

A guy I went to school with does this for a living. I have no idea if he has a specific role however I think he also gets paid reasonably well for sailing.

http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/news/5 ... Dhabi.html
http://www.abc.net.au/olympics/2000/pro ... SSITER.htm

I really have no idea if I have a dream job. I like trading and data science but there is a lot of work involved and I don't like corporate environments especially if you are stuck behind a desk most of the day.

I'd like to be a travelling surfer who doesn't compete.

Event coordinator (incl scenario building) for international/regional emergency management exercises. That's not necessarily post-ERE though:)

firefighterjeff wrote:Plus you can sneak into Canada if TSHTF.

I'm now trying to imagine a problem for which "run toward Canada" is a potential solution...

firefighterjeff wrote:@ Ego
That's a neat ship they are building. Did you catch the price? At 6.2 million that seems a bit steep.

I just reread the article. That is a lot of money. In the article they mentioned that volunteers from the local blacksmith guild are doing a lot of the work. I had no idea we had a local blacksmithing guild. They hold blacksmith and wheelwright classes on Saturday afternoons. Looks like fun.

http://bandyblacksmith.org/index.php

I'd love to be a luthier, working high end, vintage acoustic instruments. I have some skills in the field, but not enough. First I'd need an apprenticeship with a master craftsman, and I intend to find one when I am financially independent.

GandK wrote:

firefighterjeff wrote:Plus you can sneak into Canada if TSHTF.

I'm now trying to imagine a problem for which "run toward Canada" is a potential solution...

Drought

An author.

@ffj - I have (lots of "fishing cabins"), but it's MI with all its pension liabilities and what that could do to RE taxes. These states scare me (not that I'm afraid ;-P ): NY, CA, IL, MI. Also it's cold. But yes ...