I wanted to be Prince, but somebody beat me to it!
Posted on 01/26/2007 2:07:25 PM PST by shrinkermd
More than four out of five U.S. workers do not have their dream jobs, which most people describe as work that is fun, according to a survey released on Thursday.
Salary was one of the least important requirements of a dream job, cited by just 12 percent of respondents in the survey by CareerBuilder.com, an online job site, and The Walt Disney Co , which is holding a contest in which winners can get a chance to work at a Disney theme park job for a day.
...Fields with the least number of workers with dream jobs were accommodations and food services at 9 percent, manufacturing at 9 percent and retail at 10 percent.
Among major U.S. cities, workers in Boston had the highest incidence of feeling they have their dream jobs, at 37 percent, followed by Sacramento at 26 percent, San Francisco at 23 percent, Philadelphia at 22 percent, Salt Lake City at 20 percent, and Dallas and Portland, both at 19 percent.
...Asked what they had wanted to be as adults when they were children, 22 percent of people surveyed said firefighter, 17 percent said princess and 16 percent said professional dancer. An equal number of people -- 14 percent -- wanted to be cowboy or president.
(Excerpt) Read more at yahoo.reuters.com ...
As compared to who? I mean, compared to workers in what other countries?
I would guess compared to their own expectations.
Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.
- Theodore Roosevelt
That's odd--looking at restaurant/accomodations and retail workers, it appears that you need a university liberal arts degree to work in those fields. Odd that someone would spend 4 years getting that degree only to find out they don't like pondering the eternal question, "Cash or Credit?"
The grass is always greener, etc.
When I discarded my career and did that, while it is intensely rewarding (Not necessarliy $ wise..) one quickly finds that they have total profit/loss accountability among many other things.
Then they find they are genuinely working for the worst bastard they ever encountered. They look in the mirror, ask for a raise, and are told "NO", in the RUDEST terms.
So.. Last Labor Day, I was working, and the next day the friendly UPS guy showed up to collect the stuff I was shipping. We talk. he said, "You worked yesterday?"
"That's right..Oh, you guys are Teamsters, I forgot."
"I have not had a Union job for thirty years..I was IBEW when I was at Raytheon..But now, there is no one to deal for me, and that PR**K I work for worked me all weekend, fourteen hours a day to get this stuff out."
He looked scandalized and indignant, and full of pity..then recalled I was a Sole Proprietorship, and died laughing.
But it's not really a joke-You will see.
I just left a "dream job", but it was more like a bad dream.
I wanted to be Prince, but somebody beat me to it!
It's true. My dreams of being the masseur to the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders, alas, never came to be.
When exactly did work turn onto a hobby for enjoyment?
Perhaps I started this and I may be the only one, (I hope not). I started a career 35 years ago that I really do love and would not want any other career ever. My work is serious but it is fun to me and I look forward to going to work every day. It is exciting and challenging.
I have no plans to retire by choice as I like what I do so well that I plan to continue as long as I am physically and mentally able to do so. I wish everyone could enjoy their work and be as successful and happy with it as I am with mine.
Some people REFUSE to grow up!
Work isn't always FUN!
When I was a kid, I wanted to either be a Texas Ranger, an Army Ranger or a New York Ranger.
So 40 years later, I play ice hockey, was in the military and live in Texas. That's about as close to my dream job I will get.
If pressed into an honest response, most of the 'dream jobbers' would want a job that started at 10 AM, broke for lunch from 11 AM to 1 PM and closed out the work day at 3 PM.
"Ha! Beat ya by 14 seconds!"
I guess I shouldn't have typed the comment at the top.
Uglybiker... Hmm...
Is your name Roach? He's the ugliest biker I know.
Dream jobs are only dream jobs until you get it. Like free beer tomorrow.
I love to fish, hunt and ride horses, but I don't think I'd like to do any of those activities every day, much less have my family's welfare dependent on my success!
Whenever I start feeling sorry for myself at work, I think about my grandfather descending into a Welch coal mine six days a week, and my uncle who died of lung disease from the mines when he was 19. By their standards, I AM in a dream job!
Cultural assumptions contained in this poll:
a) Work is the new religion
b) Guilt results from not "achieving" salvation through work
These cultural assumptions are not shared by everyone, thus the head-scratching.
Good book on this topic (and others): Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There — by David Brooks
For those with no time to read because work is killing them, here is a poem:
Don't worry if your job is small,
And your rewards are few.
Remember that the mighty oak,
Was once a nut like you.
—anonymous
Gary Wright had no idea what he was creating by singing "Dream Weaver" back in the '70's.
I love my work and my job. I am dumbfounded at the amount of money I make for doing so little.
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