Something that's been bugging me...

My friend asked me this question a while back...

What is my dream job?

And I didn't have an answer for him. I know that I'm not in my dream job, that's for sure. But I didn't know what it was. His is to open a gaming and hobby store. He said we could run it together, and I think that would be great, but is that my dream job. I mean it's still retail. I guess selling in things that you love can't be all that bad though. I think the problem with this question has to deal with how I was raised. I come from a very practical household. Whenever I discussed possible career opportunities, is was centered on benefits, salary, and how I'd build a life with it. Jobs that were near impossible to achieve were never really considered more then the pipe dreams that my parents said they were.

In trying to answer this conundrum, I tried to think of the best part of every job I've had.

Fast food-Break (nothing useful there)

one of the "marts"- The one day I worked in Electronics, that was actually semi-fun

Toy store-Actually I really liked this job except for the end of day straightening, and the fact that they fired me for not being able to do the work of four people after two days of training.

Kids restaurant-Fiddling around with the games, making sure they worked OK was alright, but busing the tables, and cleaning the kiddie tubes wasn't.

Movie theater- I didn't mind this job actually, stayed at it for 4 years after all. I liked ushering the best, cause we got to kinda work on our own schedule as long as we cleaned the theaters in time. Actually, I take that back. I liked hawking the best. For a brief period I would go into the theaters with a tray of snacks and drinks, trying to get orders that people might not have wanted to wait in line for. Did I like carrying a heavy tray of food and drinks, heck no. Was it embarrassing, hell yes. But, you know what, again I got to work at my own pace, I managed all the money and even created my first spreadsheet with Excel to do this. I liked the responsibility of it. I like proving I could make a success of this. But what I really liked, is that over time, I kinda made it like a little show. I made jokes, had little sales pitches designed to get laughs from the rest of the theater (remember, I'm talking pretty loud here). I really liked that connection with an audience.

Video Store-The only thing bad about this job was the lack of future and horrible pay. All in all it wasn't a bad job. I got free movies, and got to talk about them all day. I hated the fact that we had to straighten every night though. Some managers were worse then others when it came to straightening, but I was horrible at doing it so it just became something I dreaded.

Waiter- This job was one that I didn't entirely loathe. I mean sure there were irate customers, and co-workers that were annoying sometimes, but on the whole the places where I worked were really fun sometimes. I would put on accents on different nights, and just serve tables like that all night. People would come in asking for the Irish waiter or the English waiter. Again, once I got the mechanics of the job down, I tried to make a show out of it.

Car Rental- This job sucked period end. The only time I enjoyed this job was when I drove the cars around the Island picking people up. Let's just put it this way, some days I'd have to sub for the car washer guy. Sitting in a garage and washing filthy cars was a day I looked FORWARD to, that's how much I hated working here.

Current profession- While being the best job I've ever had, and giving me a sense of accomplishment and pride about my skills and my education that has been unmatched in any other job....I'm not happy here. The people are harsh and jaded. The job is also rapidly heading towards the "do more work for the same amount of money" stage.


So what have we learned:
I like working on my own schedule
I like entertaining people
I like to find the fun in my job
I like working around things I have an interest in
I dislike excessive paperwork and straightening

So from that list, it seems like I should either be a

A)Performer of some kind-Makes sense since I really like to sing and act, not that I can do either well enough for people to pay me to do it.
B)Own my own business like a gaming or computer/tech store or something
C)Writer- as I like to create stories...not that I can do this well enough for payment either. I have some good ideas though sometimes.

*sigh* So, I'm going to end here today.

Does anyone out there know what their dream job is, or better yet, has there dream job?