What was your favorite job?

For a summer I dated a girl whose dad sold rugs in parking lots. If you lived in New England at that time you know the guys I'm talking about. There were a bunch of them, who all bought rugs from the same supplier and set up large displays.

The girl's dad set us up with our own rug display in a parking lot somewhere like an hour away. Every Friday he'd drive us out there and leave us until Sunday. We would set up the display in the morning, work all day and break down the display at night. We slept in the truck on top of the rolled up rugs.

I think that was one of the best summers of my life. In between customers I'd play my guitar. The money was great to an 18 year old, and only required 2 days of work. I'm very social and liked selling. And on top of it all, I got to spend all that time with someone I was crazy about.

Auditing hung and underground utility lines, and related and low-voltage equipment.

Almost as disproportionately paid as tech, if not more, depending on your niche.

Great exercise, engaging. Flexible schedules and methodologies. Can be performed on a bicycle or e-bike(!!).

If you know what geocaching is, imagine being paid to do it!

If you've ever wanted a well-paid career that you're in control of, that's a good one - if you can get it.

This is one of a short list things I'm very interested in starting for myself.

If you're intrigued, and are or could be US-based, let me know; I'd love one or two likeminded partners for stability!

In high school I worked in a Fotomat booth in the parking lot of a grocery store. It was at the end of that era when people would still drop off film to get developed and pick it up a few days later. So, it was not busy at all and I was in the little booth by myself for my shift. I did my homework, read a lot of books, listened to music, and skateboarded around the booth. It was great.

As for your specific question, I would suggest any company involved in energy infrastructure or food production/agriculture. They are hiring across the board and you would probably have a strong impact. I would avoid any frontend development, social media, or AI. AI may hot right now but I predict the turnover will be very high and the companies unstable. If you are genuinely invested in a new career, pick an industry outside of the normal tech channels.

Honestly, my "favourite" job was working at a small independent computer store in the mid 2000s.

I've never been great at talking to people, but I felt useful there. Often elderly people would come in asking for a bit of computer advice and as a company we sold ourselves on our honest advice so it never felt like I was trying to sell anything – I was always just helping people the best I could.

There was no pressure either. I knew what I had to do... I made the store look presentable when it was quiet and helped the customers in whatever way I could when it was busy. There was no stress and lots of gratitude.

It was minimum wage though, and I've obviously had "better" jobs since, but if I could get paid what I do now to just help people with general computer queries I'd love that. Work today is definitely more interesting intellectually, but far more stressful. There's enjoyable aspects of the challenges, but it's enjoyable in the same way a workout is I guess.

To answer the question I think you're asking though, it takes a bit of time. In my experience it's less about finding interesting companies to work for and more finding companies with interesting problems that need solving. There's plenty of boring jobs at interesting companies. And of the most interesting work I've done in my career has been at companies most people would consider boring.

Another thing to consider is that even an interesting job can be boring depending on the project you're assigned. The interesting projects tend come when a company trusts you enough to work on something interesting. For that to happen you'll either need experience doing similar things at other companies, or prove yourself at the company you're working for. If you're a good software engineer though there's no reason that couldn't happen within a couple of years.

The only advice I can really give is to apply for companies working on problems you find interesting and who appear willing to provide opportunities for you to grow. With a bit of time and luck eventually you'll end up working on something cool.

Jeff Bezos has been quoted as saying his favorite job, or one he learned the most from, was working the breakfast shift at McDonald's in high school. He allegedly can still crack dozens of eggs like a pro.

I currently found my way into a data analytics job within a pretty big oil company and it suites me well… but I would still claim my favorite job was manual labor (plumbing on new homes and the like). Something about doing something physical and feeling like I really accomplished something.

I was way out of my element but I really learned a lot from my co workers.

It was actually my second/third job into my career. I got #2 and #3 at the same time. One was working from 8 AM to 5 PM and the other was from 6 PM to 2 AM. I was working these two jobs like this for a year and a half. Position for both was web designer. On the weekends, I'd do web design freelance work. Managed to pay off my student loans in 2 1/2 years ;)

This current one, I'm still working and fighting for it everyday of my life for the past decade. I'm good at what I do and I do it well. I get to build landing pages for a variety of known and unkonwn companies. It allows me to be creative and I'm always working on something new everyday.

One day, a boss approaches me and tells me, "I want you to create a product that will 'wow' our clients and be different from what we are currently selling. Can you do it?" Took me a few hours to get the concept of it, but I designed a product that my company sells for $15,000 a pop, and usually takes about 10 hours to complete which includes design time and client changes, and is very popular among pharmaceutical companies.

That was the pros... a bit more about the cons... story time!

Unfortunately, while the job itself has been very enjoyable, especially because I got to work with my then-wife at the time, working with different bosses over the years has not been so pleasant. I've had a total of 6 bosses try to do it.

At one point, four bosses were trying to fire me all at the same time. They just didn't like me for whatever reason, and were trying to find every excuse to get rid of me. They should have all been fired on spot for wasting company dollars to have pointless weekly meetings with me (all four of them on the phone). Fortunately, they couldn't seem to find the justification to the HR department on an actual reason so after I caught on that it was only being used as a scare tactic, after doing the most ass kissing I'll never do again, it all stopped for a while. When you continously bring the company in over half a million dollars a year, that kind of adds some weight to your stay.

That is... until another boss arose and decided to have a go at it. For years, I played the game with him, knowing he wasn't going to be the one to get me fired. His boss is the one who hired me and once COVID-19 hit and we all were working from home, I made a minor mistake and he threatened my job, for the thousandth time. At this point, I was over it. I didn't mind being gone from this job if it meant I didn't have to work with him anymore.

So I said to him, "They let go of over 200 people from our company this past month, so if you're going to get rid of me, I urge you to do it now. All I want is one year paid salary which is reasonable considering I've worked here for so long and the fact is, I'll just file for unemployment and extend it for as long as I can beyond the 6 months they'd give me. If you come back with my exact offer, I'll sign whatever document you give me and I'll be gone. If you come back with anything less, we have no deal. Don't talk to me unless you really need to until then."

Four months go by. I waited patiently. No word from him about the offer and he hadn't spoken to me at all. And then a meeting was called. Today was the day. My day. I knew it was coming. All the bosses were there. Except him. Apparently, he'd been fired. Another boss gone. A total of five bosses now who had tried to fire me either left the company, were transfered to another department, or were fired.

And I've since had two more bosses since him... one left the company, she was not really an issue, and now I have a new boss, a former co-worker of mine, and she has tried several times, even making me fill out a "employee improvement plan", which I'd passed. Several more attempts have been made by her... she's starting to slowly get it, though I'm still working with her on it: maybe just work with me instead of resorting to trying to fire me?

The reason her job is stable and good is because of the work I do, so getting rid of me for someone else ain't going to be as easy as she thinks. Again, it's hard to justify getting rid of the senior web designer when they continue to bring in $500,000 year-after-year. Maybe it's not all about the money to all companies, but then again, maybe it is. However, I'm not doing anything to spite anyone. I can't seem to avoid every boss trying to fire me... and it seems to only be me. I've put that to the test too.

Moral of the story: if you love your job, you'll do what you can to keep it, even if that means.. just doing your job.