Ten Things I would Like to be When I Grow Up.

1. A shoe designer. I am so going to do this one—just as soon as I finish, or maybe start, my PhD. There'll be time, I'm sure. How great would it be? I don't think I need to explain my passion or interest or fascination with the humble shoe—let alone the ostentatious one!
2. Song Lyricist. I need to be able to go to my grave knowing I have penned some pithy lines. Songs seem the best forum for this. Poetry is too obscure and too proper—I'd like something almost a bit cheesier.
3. A Dream ——(?). I have not worked this role out yet. Or how I will make a living. Not analyst. Not internet psychic. It's the content of the dreams that fascinates me, but I don't really want to actually get inside people's noggins. Not psychoanalysis. Research of some sort. Creativity of some sort. I am working on a definition.
4. Architect. When I had to go to the careers counselor in high school I would always read up on what I thought I might like to be one day. Being a systematic type of person, (annoyingly, due to my high number of planets in Virgo), I would start reading the job guide at the beginning, becoming rapidly bored by 'b'. Architect always stood out in the 'a' section. I do love buildings, interesting, beautiful, quirky buildings. It would be a noble thing to be: an architect.
5. Bear Grylls; Kevin McCloud; Alain de Botton. Why are they all men? I would love to have the kind of jobs these men have. They travel the world doing quirky things that I love to do: perservere; architecture; wax lyrical. I am not sure I would want to be on TV, but the rest is envy producing.
6. Writer. Possibly, it could be considered, maybe, sometimes, I am already one. 'Being' one when you grow up though would entail being able to confidently call yourself one. It would also be more career-like if you could get paid to do it.
7. Neckwear Artist. I would so love to tell you the name of the company I will have when I am a neckwear artist—but it's the old 'I'll have to kill you' thing because I haven't registered it yet and I don't want anyone to pinch it. Neckwear will include knitting, sewing, body jewellery, corsetry, socks and other things that may come close to your neck. What? P—— at work can put her leg around her neck, if she is wearing a sock—neckwear! It's a no-brainer.
8. Mythbusters Scientist. This is the answer to a long debated question. Ooh, no, I'll put the question on the question list. You have to find that to know what it was. Mythbuster scientist is the answer.
9. Covert Operative. I wait everyday to be headhunted into this career. The problem is I don’t want to work for ASIO. I would rather be a KGB spy or a French Foreign Legion spy. This is probably a dangerous thing to say in the current climate. I don’t want to be on a side, but that is a little hard in the spy game, and my sense of loyalty precludes being a double agent.
10. Book store owner. Forgot that I ever wanted to do this and that great plans and schemes—one silver, bullet shaped one of which I still harbour as a great possibility and a great amount of fun. Can’t say more, but look out for it in a street near you if we ever get off our bots and do it.

Ten Jobs That Seem Like Someone is Just Finding Something for You to Do.

Ten Jobs That Seem Like Someone is Just Finding Something for You to Do.

1. Advert. People in the States are paid to be advertisments. Nothing big-budget. Stand on the corner of a large intersection with a sign that says: 'All-you-can Eat Buffet Breakfast $4.99'; 'Subway—That Way'; 'Disney T-Shirts, Half Price'.
2. Fancy advert. Because there is so much advertising around, creativity is required. This employee has to dress in a cow suit, with half a football as a hat, stand on two poles, in the grass, at the side of a major roadway, to entice us to eat his boss' pizza. Was that in the job description when he applied?
3. Bellboys. Is it the standard of hotel we stayed in, or is the bellboy becoming less of a career option? Some people still prefer to pay someone to carry their bags. These people need my help regarding efficient packing. Read my book—'You Won't Need That'—in stores soon.
4. Cold Bouncers. When it is blizzarding outside, economics suggests turning off the automatic door, and getting one of your employees, sufficiently rugged-up and heater-equipped, to open doors only when absolutely necessary. Like regular bouncers, the nasty ones make you wait in the cold until someone leaves, before allowing you to enter.
5. Hostesses. I have been in the restaurant game. I always thought the hostess had the cushiest job. She sits on a chair, looks pretty (okay, that can take work) and then occassionally shows someone a table—if they're in a restaurant, if they are in the twenty-first century, I think they possibly know what a table is and the function it performs—and gives them a menu. Then, back to the chair. I'll warrant, when it's busy they also have to write things and call out your name. I still maintain they must be someone's niece.
6. Clarifiers. The man I saw in this position waits at the head of the queue of an attraction. When you get to him he clarifies with you what sort of a ticket you are going to purchase. He then directs you to the cash register where someone sells you the ticket. Someone is being fooled if they think this means you spend less time at the register. It just means the lady at the register waits longer between clients.
7. Pedestrian Safety Officers. You are thinking Lollypop Person's, and that they are important employees. These are not Lollypop Person's. They work busy New York intersections and advise you when to cross. Only thing is that the time they tell you to cross usually coincides with the time when the white/green man is displayed. There may be the odd person in the world that does not know that green or white means go and red means stop, but when the red man was displayed, they chatted amongst themselves and paid no heed to those who either didn't know or chose deliberately to go against the man. It's either a silly job, or, they are bad at it.
8. Emergency Callmakers. Shhhh. Don't tell anyone that these people exist. But I am not sure if their job is the ridiculously silly one, or whether that moniker falls to the person for whom they create emergency calls—the calltakers. Their silliness in mutual. Regarding either, I don't understand why. Don't even ask me. I'll just sprout conspiracy theories—but if you need proof, ask me one day about the Holden Merino.
9. The night shift of the guy who sits beside the rail tracks and puts charges on the tracks so that when the train goes past it warns the workers ahead that it is approaching. There are no trains at night. This job would have definite merit in places where there are trains at night—I don't at all question that. The absurdity of this job is location orientated.
10. Retail staff at Anaconda. I am sorry to the few staff members we found who were helpful and in some way acting like people who serve customers, service customers, or, at least, sell stuff. But there were definitely a few who had been given a job just so they could say they had a job, could wear a black and orange t-shirt, and could pay tax, but who in effect performed no single useful function. Not even when you physically gave them your whole wallet in a desperate attempt to be able to walk out of the shop with a purchased item.

* And just when I thought I could never find another job for number ten, i found another number ten, so here is number ten, take two: 10.1 Any government job where you ‘carry on as normal’ while the in-coming government decides on whether your unfunded project will go ahead or be scrapped.