Poll: Fun or Enjoyable Jobs you've had

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LiquidSapphire
Posts: 510
Joined: Thu Jul 28, 2011 6:40 pm

Post by LiquidSapphire »

I thought it'd be fun to create a list of jobs that people loved, enjoyed, or had fun with throughout their lives. Could be a good source of information for people to look into when they are entertaining Semi-retirement or even just something to do when they are FI.
I was a tour guide in a cave as a teenager. It was great; I spent a lot of time hanging around with other tour guides waiting for tourists to show up, and the tourists were generally nice people who asked basic questions. Very carefree and low stress. Also low pay, I made minimum wage with a rare tip.
I was also a part time tutor for a tutoring franchise; you taught their curriculum to the kids that came in. It was pretty easy, although some of the kids, on their bad days, were handfuls, but the sessions were only 1 hour long per kid, you had 2-3 kids per hour. It was very part time, I think the most you could work was 2 3-hour shifts each day in the summer, it paid something like $10-12 an hour.
Also here is a CBS article about 8 jobs that most people think would be fun, but really probably aren't:

http://www.cbsnews.com/8334-505125_162- ... stroy-you/
They are:

Advertising Account Executive

Public Relations Officer

Commercial Airline Pilot

Architect

Senior Executive

Newscaster

Photojournalist

Stockbroker


JasonR
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Joined: Sun Feb 20, 2011 12:00 am

Post by JasonR »

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Last edited by JasonR on Sun Mar 17, 2019 7:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ralphy
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Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Iowa

Post by Ralphy »

I'm sure it's not for everybody, but I still think pizza delivery is a fun part-time gig.
Pros - lots of free food, semi-independent (lots of time away from store), majority of income paid in cash, low stress
Cons - late nights, dealing with drunk people, being outside in bad weather, menial tasks like dishes/cleaning
...............
I tutored Econ 101 and 102 through the University student center for a semester back in college, and I hated it. Most of the kids had their fees paid or subsidized by someone else, and had little interest in being there. It basically amounted to baby-sitting for about minimum wage.


Spartan_Warrior
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Joined: Fri Dec 02, 2011 1:24 am

Post by Spartan_Warrior »

I've never had a job I would consider fun, unfortunately, but the closest was probably being a library page. The work itself is menial, pay generally minimum wage, but at least you're surrounded by books, and in my case the supervision was minimal enough that I could take a break from shelving and do my own thing (reading/writing) at least some of the time. Once you get up to manning the checkout desk, you have some extra "benefits", like the ability to erase overdue fees from any account...


chenda
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Joined: Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:17 pm
Location: Nether Wallop

Post by chenda »

I've never had a fun job either, though I did some receptionist work where I had little to do all day except sit on the front desk, which meant I could spend most of the day reading.


Fiddle
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Joined: Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:14 pm

Post by Fiddle »

After i graduated from University I worked as a Street Fundraiser on behalf of charities in city centres across the UK.
Maybe not the 1st choice for an introvert, but i learned how to be an extrovert while in uniform and the benefits where numerous: Work with energetic charity minded people, talk to random interesting people in the public, be outside, travel the UK and N.Ireland with transport and accomodation paid for by the agency, have as much unpaid leave as i liked (becasue a tired demotivated fundraiser is unproductive and can bring the team down around them) and the pay was bonused so the more people i signed up to the cause the more i got paid.
The only problem with the work is burnout. Burnout from receiving rejection, for every 10 people asked to stop and talk 1 will and for every 1 person who is interesting and enjoyable to talk too there are more who arent. Also living with high energy extroverts 24/7 becomes tiring too. Other than that, great work.
This is one option i have in the 'maybe maybe' category once i achieve semi ere.


DividendGuy
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Joined: Sun Dec 05, 2010 9:58 pm

Post by DividendGuy »

@Ralphy,
Just wondering, what kind of money is there in part-time pizza delivery? I always thought it'd be fun to do that. I love pizza, I don't like waking up early and I like driving. The only problem is trying to figure out what you're "actually" making after wear and tear on your car and gas is figured in.
I've always thought you can pretty much count on about $9/hr after all expenses are figured. Is that accurate?
It seems like a fun semi-ERE job.
Thanks!


LonerMatt
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Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:49 am

Post by LonerMatt »

Tutoring and teaching I find incredibly rewarding and fun.


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jennypenny
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Joined: Sun Jul 03, 2011 2:20 pm

Post by jennypenny »

I used to work at the Historical Society. The job could be boring, but sometimes I got to see some of the treasures they had. It was cool seeing a draft of the Constitution complete with scratch outs and rewrites in the margins (all marked so you knew if it was Jefferson suggesting the change or whomever). It was interesting to see "God" in, then out, then in.


Debbie M
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Joined: Fri Aug 20, 2010 10:03 pm

Post by Debbie M »

My best job was as an assistant camp counselor at an overnight Girl Scout camp in the woods where canoeing was the exciting thing you do. They taught us canoeing, tie dying and other fun stuff the first week.
Then we had new kids every week or two--it's great when your priorities are: #1 - safety and #2 - fun. So, I hated enforcing the no-running rule (and had to make sure no one was looking when I was running), but otherwise it was great. But we mostly never had to make people do things they didn't want to do.
It was challenging to find something for everyone to do if they were in charge of cooking or firebuilding, but I did it. Once when my group was in charge of cleaning latrines, they liked it so much that they said they always wanted that for their chore. I told them they could probably talk the other groups into letting them. It was fun to say things like, "Don't worry; we don't lower you down into the latrine--we just sponge off the outside of it, sweep and mop the floors, and clean the sink.
The other three summers I worked there were not as fun. It was more fun learning the best way to do things the first summer. Like "hill" (nap time), I decided the best way to was to tell everyone to pick a tent, any tent, and stay there the whole time. Do anything you want, but be quiet enough that if someone wanted to sleep, they could. Most of the good ideas were not mine--I got to learn them the easy way.
Also, I got to take a class in lifesaving, which was a lovely break from the kiddos.
The pay, well. We got a very small amount of money, especially when you consider that we got 3 hours off each day, were on call overnight, and worked all the other hours of the day. Plus we got room and board. Oh, I gained so much weight. Some of it was muscle though.
And of course the job's no good if you don't want to be away from home all summer!
**
I got to be a building monitor in college, which let me study, which was nice. I wouldn't call that a fun job, though.
**
And I've had a few jobs where I got to explain to people afraid of math how to do the math they needed to do for their jobs. I love doing that. And they get so appreciative. Even worshipful.


aussierogue
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:02 pm

Post by aussierogue »

greatest job in the word is a "linesman" at a Port Facility.
In Australia these guys sit in a hut all day and read magazines and do weights. Then when a ship either comes or goes the bell rings they jump in a Tarago drive to the wharf and help untie/tie the ropes (lines) of the ship connecting to the wharf.
They need to be on call and do shift work but gee its an easy 140k per year!
Patient transport (one below ambulance officer) looks pretty cool too. Drive people back and forth between hospitals, rehabs, homes etc..
A cheufeur to execs is also cool i would imagine. I used to hire a guy every time i arrived back in oz who wld pick me up from the airport and take me to the office or home. Paid a small premium, He had many clients all word of mouth - nice car, civilised conversations...not a bad gig.


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C40
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Post by C40 »

I worked at a Chevy dealership one summer about 10 years ago. $10 per hour at the time. This job was pretty fun, and extremely easy. My job was called a "lot technician". I washed cars, reorganized how the cars were parked at times, and sometimes drove cars to/from a warehouse or to go put gas in them. We had 20-30% of the day to hang out and shoot the breeze. The closest thing to stress was when we had 2-3 cars waiting to be washed (but there was not really any need to hurry)... or not being able to find keys for a car (but we could just go have the parts guy make us one). It's a particularly good job for someone who likes cars. I got to drive all kinds of different cars. Took a new convertible 'Vette out for a couple hours one day on my last week of work.


Ralphy
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Joined: Wed Jul 21, 2010 11:41 pm
Location: Iowa

Post by Ralphy »

@DividendGuy -
Really depends on where you work. I've talked to some guys who worked at national chains (Papa John's, Pizza Hut, etc) that probably netted about what you guessed. I usually make a bit more than that.
Wherever you work, you usually have three forms of income -

- wages

- tips

- some form of vehicle compensation
I get a paycheck for minimum wage ($7.25/hr), and I take home my tips in cash (usually $8-10/hr). Keep in mind, I usually only work weekends, where there's generally a lot more business, so my hourly tip income is higher than someone working during the week.
Vehicle compensation varies between stores. Some pay you a percentage of your order totals. I get paid a flat $1 per delivery, which last year worked out to $0.36/mile. My rough estimate is that it costs me about $0.30/mile to drive my car (1999 Chevy Prizm), so I usually consider vehicle comp and vehicle expenses a wash. After each shift I take that $1/deliver comp and put it in a little box, then pay car expenses with that cash.
I think it's a great job for part-time income. I can usually cover my monthly minimum expenses with 3 Saturday night shifts per month. Right now I'm about 30% toward my target ERE nest egg; sometimes it's tempting to walk away from my day job with what I have saved so far and just semi-ERE and deliver pizza on Friday and Saturday.


mikeBOS
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Post by mikeBOS »

I was a marionette puppeteer for a while. We did kids-geared fairy tales during the day and artsy fartsy and/or crude humor stuff at night for the adults. That was kind of fun. Kind of like being an actor but without all the stage fright. And lots of down time between shows to talk with other interesting people who all had their own artsy side projects going on.


Chad
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Joined: Fri Jul 23, 2010 3:10 pm

Post by Chad »

For two summers during college a buddy and I worked for my small town's Recreation Department. I worked 35 hours a week and ran all the recreation sports leagues (baseball, basketball, volleyball, tennis, 5k's, bike race, etc.) and had a team in every one. We also ran a 2-3 hour playground time for little kids 3 days a week, which was actually fairly fun...kids are great in small doses. We had little if any supervision and the only thing that sucked even a little was we had to mow 2-3 ballfields a week. Basically, just my buddy and I playing sports all day.
@Debbie M

No running at camp for little kids? And, we wonder why this country is fat.


palmera
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Post by palmera »

I am/was the first 2 jobs on that this.
Had I known it was so terrible, I would have just sucked it up and gone into accounting/banking making 50 - 200% more in salary then ERE'd.
Sigh.


Jan in MN
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Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2011 6:20 pm

Post by Jan in MN »

Summer park ranger - lots of exercise, fun people

Ran a summer reading program for kids at the local library


aussierogue
Posts: 379
Joined: Thu Nov 10, 2011 1:02 pm

Post by aussierogue »

I actually just got a job (today)
15 hours per week teaching a certificate in business to international Students here in melbourne. 39 bucks per hour. Ill work 2 mights 5-10 pm and one afternoon 12 till 5 pm.
15 18-24 year olds from brazil, pakistan, india, England and Thailand. These guys are in Australia and generally take these courses in order to extend their visas. So many dont actually turn up to class...hehe....should be interesting.
Other good thing is campus is a 5 km (15 minute) bike ride from home.
In order to teach these guys i needed to get a qualification that took 6 mos and cost 1,500 bucks. did that 2 years ago online.
All good ere i reckon. lets hope it turn out ok...always need luck!
cheers

aussie


LonerMatt
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Joined: Tue Sep 20, 2011 3:49 am

Post by LonerMatt »

Didn't know you were in Melbourne, for some reason I always though you were a Sydney-sider.


mikenotspam
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Oct 20, 2011 4:05 am

Post by mikenotspam »

My personal one is not accessible by most, and also can be somewhat stressful depending on the situation, but that stress is largely alleviated with time and experience. So, playing piano. I can't wait till I'm ERE or semi-ERE to just take the time to enjoy it while making decent money for it, without the nonsense business side of things consuming your life.


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