Your Dream Job

Coach Jon

This year appears to be zooming by, we are already in February! I feel as you get older, time definitely goes by quicker. When I was a kid, I used to dream about what I would be doing as an adult. My dream job was to be a paleontologist and discover cool dinosaur bones! That changed of course when I was an adult.

We would like to know what your dream job was as a kid, and whether that stayed consistent as you grew up. Let us know!

Coach Kristina

When I was a kid, my dream job was being a long haul truck driver. Driving had a lot of appeal to me, in part because I wasn't allowed to do it yet. Additionally, back when I was a kid, being a trucker was a solid middle class job, and truckers were seen as the knights of the road.

I did get to drive big rigs when I was active duty, and could have pursued a CDL with hazmat certification if I'd wanted to. However, after I retired from active duty and started looking into trucking more seriously, I discovered that it would be pretty hard to make a living doing it. A lot of truckers get paid by the mile rather than for their time, and many trucking companies use owner/operator deals to push the costs of repair and maintenance on the drivers.

RobWilk

As a kid, back in the early 1980s, I always coded software (really simple things) for fun…. I did imagine myself doing that as an adult, and for a brief while i did do that professionally. Unfortunately, I wound up having a reaction to a medicine (an opiod pain pill, possibly for treating pain from a brain aneurysm found later) that caused temporary extreme behavior problems, and I wound up hooked on psychiatric meds — which for a male effectively causes impotence (the prescriptions lower testosterone), which has a funny way of killing all sorts of motivation/drive. Fortunately, I can get social security payments since without a drive i am effectively disabled from working. This post got ugly, unfortunately, but I still have some software skills from my background, and still sell and maintain an app! (it had one sale yesterday, I made $4-5 from it! woo hoo, mostly the money is for stuff like keeping the app online [apple charges $99/year + I have to maintain a support website so domain registration, hosting, etc.).

DannyB

@Coach Kristina my granddad was a trucker, my dad and uncles were truckers and several of my cousins ended up as truckers, but only one was long haul. The rest were "local" drivers, logging, bulk commodities like gasoline, sand and gravel, cement, asphalt, etc. I never wanted to be a driver myself, but what can I say, I spent 11 years behind the wheel of a big rig as a "local" LTL driver most of that time driving for a wholesale building materials company. Our territory was northern and central California and western Nevada. Lots of 12 - 15-hour days, clocking in at 4 or 5 AM and clocking out at 6 - 9PM. Winters in the High Sierras meant "hanging iron" and summers were HOT. I had a CDL and was rated for doubles and triples with hazmat certs.

However, my dream job was being a minister. Finally made it to grad school and spent the last 28 years before retiring as a pastor and a few years as a Peds Hospice chaplain.

SRC54

I suppose I had my dream job, which was teaching in a small residential military college/prep school in rural Alabama. Of course, like all "dream" jobs, it could have its nightmares. Will there be enough money to keep it open, for even a tiny salary increase, and what tortures will administrators come up with? (Note: many people seemingly cannot stand it if you seem to enjoy what you're doing. It's the way of the world to which Danny as a minister can attest). I ended up leaving for higher income after 20 years. My other jobs were fine too. I enjoyed them all, but I think I was cut out for a semi-monastic life. It was nice having a closer bond with my students and the other instructors who mostly lived on or adjacent to campus.

26 years have now passed since I left, but I still remember it fondly. Almost everyone is gone that I knew, many gone from this earth alas.

UrsulaA

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a teacher. I imagined myself teaching math or lecturing to a class and had my stuffed animals as my attentive pupils. Briefly, I wanted to be a singer (my voice is decent). I ended up working in finance as an adult and training or mentoring people on ocassion.

Flopbot

Was, is, and always will be learning to fly and becoming a pilot.

Coach Natalie

I think growing up my dream job was to be a writer! I took some creative writing courses but ended up not pursuing this field. Luckily, I get to write help articles for Quicken Simplifi users now! Not quite the same, but I still like it. 🙂

Flopbot

@Coach Natalie , us users greatly appreciated the help articles you write. Thank you!