What is your ideal career?

Discussion Open Forum
1

Well I accidentally erased my original post, and I’m not going to type everything out again. Suffice to say that my ideal career involves buying a house and some land in Oregon or thereabouts, sitting out on my deck sipping coffee while the sun rises and writing the next great American novel.

I’ve already written a novel, and it’s not the next great American novel, but if it gets published at all I’ll be incredibly happy.

So tell us about your ideal career. It could be anything from teaching to finance to running a gelato stand in Capri. But it’s got to be some kind of career. This isn’t the “what I would do if I was rich” thread, it’s the “my ideal career” thread.

2

I would be a greeter at Wal-Mart.

3

Once upon a time: university prof. But most university profs spend far too much time chasing grants to churn out poorly written research to keep from sinking in a publish or perish environment; I’m far more interested in sharing ideas: in being a teaching prof, in help other produce and share excellence. Now, I enjoy editing academic papers and contributing in that way. Coaching’s a blast too. Would that I could, I’d get degrees in Economics and Cognitive Science, but while I might do one, both would just be indulgent. Path I’m on feels pretty good right now.

4

I would like to be paid to do sinopaleographic research, writing and teaching. I’ll admit that I’m afraid I wouldn’t enjoy it as much as I do now. When something becomes your paid duty, you might not get as much pleasure out of it as when you do it as a hobby. I know a sinopaleographer, and she told me that it’s often just a burdensome job like any other. The hoops and BS you have to sit through are still there.

But I think I’d still go for it, because I’d be able to get a lot more of the research done than I do now.

Hmm, do I want to fix someone’s broken grammar for several hours, or explore the bronze-age relationship between 冎 and 歹 ?

Easy choice.

5

6

A guy who looks at naked runway models as they are changing.

7

Anybody who knows me knows exactly what career I want to do the rest of my life.

I’ve known it since I was 5 years old, what my future career was.

Problem is actually making money at it. So I have to settle as an English teacher in Taiwan, which I am competent at, and I hate.

The problem is that almost nobody can do it well, 99.9% fail and only a small percentage produce anything worth reading. Maybe I should just give it all up and just suck up my pride, and become an investment banker. I have the brains for that type of job - don’t you businessmen kid yourselves that it takes the IQ of Einstein to do your jobs, all it takes is an average guy with a little bit of drive. If that’s what I really wanted to do, I could do it, easily. But to me, that would be admitting failure. If I can’t make doing what I want to do, even if I were President, I would be a failure.

8

It sucks to be a failure. To be a loser.

I could do a million other jobs and do those jobs well, or at least competently, but I can never do the one job I actually give a toss about, worth well. I am no Hemingway or Faulkner. I can’t hack it. That is my failure. I guess I should just give it all up and get my MBA and be a soul-less hack working for some multi-national corp…I’m way too much of a middle-brow loser to ever make it as a writer. I have to be much more of a sarcastic, cynical asshole to be the next Chekhov or somebody…the last time I read a Chekhov short story, I was like, “I should just give it up…no way in 100 years of struggling will I ever write a story 1/100 as good as this guy.” There is no way I could ever possibly approach that level of artistry and achievement…so I might as well give up. Anything I ever do will always be mediocre, at the very best. I am very aware of my human limitations. I am no genius. At the best, I am mediocre. I am somewhat competent. I guess, at some point in our lives, we all have to admit that to ourselves. You aren’t a Picasso. You aren’t a Mozart. You are just you, mediocre as you are.

9

World dictator? Comic book writer? Rock star? Indian chief? Cult leader? Man-whore?

I’d like to write pop songs about love. Well, people would ASSUME they were about love, unless they listened closely to the lyrics.

Or maybe a special diplomatic envoy to the Caucasus. I mean, what’s the worst that could happen?

10

Well, that assumes that you knew shit about writing pop songs, or running a government bureacracy, neither of which you have ever given evidence of being competent at.

How many chords do you know? Do you know enough to put them together to make a song?

That’s what I thought. You don’t.

So many people think that writing a song, or scripting a movie, or whatever, is so EASY, but they don’t know SHIT about it. A guy like Screaming Jesus doesn’t have the first clue how to join A to E, but he thinks that he can write a hit song.

11

[quote=“Quentin”]It sucks to be a failure. To be a loser.

I could do a million other jobs and do those jobs well, or at least competently, but I can never do the one job I actually give a toss about, worth well. I am no Hemingway or Faulkner. I can’t hack it. That is my failure. I guess I should just give it all up and get my MBA and be a soul-less hack working for some multi-national corp…I’m way too much of a middle-brow loser to ever make it as a writer. I have to be much more of a sarcastic, cynical asshole to be the next Chekhov or somebody…the last time I read a Chekhov short story, I was like, “I should just give it up…no way in 100 years of struggling will I ever write a story 1/100 as good as this guy.” There is no way I could ever possibly approach that level of artistry and achievement…so I might as well give up. Anything I ever do will always be mediocre, at the very best. I am very aware of my human limitations. I am no genius. At the best, I am mediocre. I am somewhat competent. I guess, at some point in our lives, we all have to admit that to ourselves. You aren’t a Picasso. You aren’t a Mozart. You are just you, mediocre as you are.[/quote]

This pretty much sums up how I feel about myself a lot of the time. I was in law school and doing well academically. I never showed up for class without briefing a case and ready to be called on (a major part of law school). But I knew if I continued I’d be burdened with a huge debt, and would be forced to work as an attorney to pay it off. By the time I finished paying it off I’d be in the middle of my career and would be hesitant to chuck it all and write a novel. I knew if I was going to write my novel, I had to get out of school and just do it. And I did. But having been embroiled in editing and rewriting now for two years, and having serious doubts about ever getting it published and even more doubts about it selling well, I wonder if I should just go back to law school or get my MBA.

I’ve determined that I can’t just give up. I’ll finish the rewrite, try my hardest to get it published, and take it from there. School and that boring job will still be waiting for me if I fail.

12

I knew there was a reason I always liked you, Gao Bo Han. You are a true Russian (err, Southerner).

(That’s a joke. I am fully cognizant of the literary parallels between classic Russian and the American South novels.)

13

I spent two years in Taiwan writing a novel while I taught ESL. I finally finished it in 1996, and sent the first couple of chapters off by mail to various agents. I got the same response from all of them: thanks, it’s not for us.

The only person who actually read my whole novel died a few years later.

As a first effort, my novel was deeply flawed. It was trivial, too blatantly informed by my own experience, and I didn’t have the writerly wherewithal to pull off the intentionally far-fetched premise. I thought I would chalk it up as a learning experience, but a funny thing happened on my way to writing a second one–I lost my desire and interest, especially in light of the fact that I had become very well acquainted with how miniscule the odds were that it would ever see the published light of day. I have the beginnings of four or five second novels somewhere on my hard drive. Some of the ideas even seem feasible. A part of me holds out hope that someday I will recapture the desire to finish one of them.

Maybe someday. I suppose my current career as a translator means I’m a writer, as I do push out thousands of words every month. I quite like the lack of pressure, as you never start out with a blank page in translation. That’s someone else’s problem.

14

Freelance travel photographer and writer…

15

[quote=“porcelainprincess”]I spent two years in Taiwan writing a novel while I taught ESL. I finally finished it in 1996, and sent the first couple of chapters off by mail to various agents. I got the same response from all of them: thanks, it’s not for us.

The only person who actually read my whole novel died a few years later.

As a first effort, my novel was deeply flawed. It was trivial, too blatantly informed by my own experience, and I didn’t have the writerly wherewithal to pull off the intentionally far-fetched premise. I thought I would chalk it up as a learning experience, but a funny thing happened on my way to writing a second one–I lost my desire and interest, especially in light of the fact that I had become very well acquainted with how miniscule the odds were that it would ever see the published light of day. I have the beginnings of four or five second novels somewhere on my hard drive. Some of the ideas even seem feasible. A part of me holds out hope that someday I will recapture the desire to finish one of them.

Maybe someday. I suppose my current career as a translator means I’m a writer, as I do push out thousands of words every month. I quite like the lack of pressure, as you never start out with a blank page in translation. That’s someone else’s problem.[/quote]

PP, check out this link:
washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy … Found=true

Then, look up Mr. Goldblatt on amazon.com. You are probably already familiar with him. I’m a big fan of hihs work.

He’s getting older, 60ish now. Have you thought about getting into literary translation? Given your background, it might be the right fit.

16

Then after I retired:

17

Toe Save: carrying some guy’s golf clubs around for him? No thanks, you can do better than that. :wink:

It doesn’t have to be such a huge debt, not if you attend a state school, many of which (like my alma mater) are perfectly good. And, as an attorney it shouldn’t take long to pay it off, unless you go into rescued stray dog law or something like that.

Good for you. :bravo:

I come from a family of writers and always figured I’d write a book some day, but (a) I have no idea what my first book should be about and (b) it’s too damned difficult anyway. Yes, my legal job is very difficult and involves lots of thinking and writing, but I don’t have to think up hte ideas, for the most part, as I am writing in response to issues that arise, which in a way seems a lot easier to me. A novel – wow – that sounds tough.

Law’s a terrific profession. Despite my occasional grumbling, I love my job, I love my work, I love my career, I feel extremely fortunate to have such interesting and challenging work that both pushes me to grow and at the same time gives me a thrill out of working on big cases, using my skills and getting results.

One of the great things about law is that there are so many completely different fields of law: criminal prosecutor or defense lawyer, civil trial attorney, environmental lawyer, tax lawyer, estate planning, in-house corporate law, intellectual property, mergers & acquisitions, banking, etc. They all involve careful thinking, reading, speaking and writing, but they are all very different, so most anyone who enjoys those skills can find a particular field that suits them.

As for the MBA, when I was in college I thought the business majors were losers – they just chose a mickey mouse degree because (a) they had no particular “real” academic interests and couldn’t think of what else to major in, (b) it seemed like an easy major and (c) it would lead to money. I no longer feel that way. I work for a large company now and have come to realize business can be very interesting and I would love to earn an MBA (but probably won’t as I may be too old now). If I were still in my 30’s I probably would.

So, I think getting either a law degree or an MBA could be a great start of an interesting and rewarding career.

As for dream job, that always makes me think of my old friend Bob Cogen, a naturalist who quit practicing law in america after many years to move full time to Phuket where he had a business taking people out scuba diving, sailing, kayaking, etc. I believe he may be completely retired by now, but here’s his dream business:
indepthadventures.com/

He, incidentally, was the one who first got me to travel to Asia.

18

Quentin, that notorious disrespecter of other people’s dreams, wrote:

[quote] Well, that assumes that you knew shit about writing pop songs, or running a government bureacracy, neither of which you have ever given evidence of being competent at.

How many chords do you know? Do you know enough to put them together to make a song?

So many people think that writing a song, or scripting a movie, or whatever, is so EASY, but they don’t know SHIT about it. A guy like Screaming Jesus doesn’t have the first clue how to join A to E, but he thinks that he can write a hit song.[/quote]

I figured I could just copy the chords from some other song, and change the melody around a little. Actually, I planned to focus more on the lyrics side. (“Woo woo…yeah yeah…louie louie”) But I did play the trombone in high school, so that gives me an advantage, even if I can only read bass clef. Anyway, the important thing is to get famous first, then I could just like, pay lower-level musicians to sweat all the detail work.

I too have authorial aspirations, though I’m quite sure that the opus I’m most proud of being-about-to-write will have a rather limited market. (The mass market has no taste, anyway. You think Tolstoyevsky would get published today?) My plan is to appeal solely to the world’s intellectual elite, in hopes of being remembered into the far future alongside the other immortal classics.

I even have a secret plan to win the Nobel Prize. It involves translating my work into various north European languages (well, not me personally–my legion of fans would presumably do this gratis), which is where a lot of the judges are from, and also pretending to be from some ethnic group that is underrepresented among Nobel Prize winners, yet politically compelling. (Do you think they’d check on this?) Then in my acceptance speech I would announce my world peace plan–so they’d have to invite me back next year, to give me the peace prize. (And so on with medicine and economics and whatever the hell the other ones are.)

So that’s my career plan. I guess I’m just a Renaissance Man born in the wrong era (unless we count Buckaroo Banzai).

19

The death was unrelated to the reading, right? :laughing:

HG

20

[quote=“Tomas”]PP, check out this link:
washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dy … Found=true

Then, look up Mr. Goldblatt on amazon.com. You are probably already familiar with him. I’m a big fan of hihs work.

He’s getting older, 60ish now. Have you thought about getting into literary translation? Given your background, it might be the right fit.[/quote]
I translate commercially in the fields of science, engineering and law. Which is a lot easier than literary translation. Last year I translated part of a terrible and, not surprisingly, unpublished Chinese novel written by the girlfriend of a Western business prof living in Shanghai. I got my standard fee. When the trial chapters were done I told him I wouldn’t be able to do the whole thing. He was gracious about it. That dampened my enthusiasm for literary translation somewhat. It was also very difficult, as I needed to race to my dictionaries every sentence to figure out what all those flowery adjectives were.

Nevertheless, I do harbour ambitions in that area.