Find your dream job…if you can!

Friday, September 14th, 2012

I really do like my job. The good parts far outweigh any downsides (like writing rejection letters. I know, worse to be on the other end but honestly, I don’t like doing it!)

A sorceress at work. This looks like a nice set-up to me...

I’m sure, though, that I can’t be the only person who has a ‘fantasy job’ ie something they would be doing in a world where the constraints of reality don’t apply.

Sometimes this might be a real job and it’s probably not as glamorous as it sounds. Think of the classic 5-year-old’s list: astronaut (fun but also hard work and long periods in cramped quarters), sweetshop owner (you still have to do accounts and you probably get sick of sweets after a bit), detective (lots of paperwork, real life horror and you don’t always get the bad guy), pirate (generally frowned on by law enforcement, plus it doesn’t actually involve fluffy, harmless pirates plus lots  of rum, headscarves, booty and cute parrots.)

But there’s also the real ‘fantasy list’ ie jobs which probably don’t exist – handy, because there aren’t so many real-life drawbacks. I’m good at this. I started off (at 5, mind you) wanting to be a witch, then decided sorceresses had more fun with better clothes. Then there was the last ‘vampire books’ phase (very different from now – children’s books, and mainly funny vampires – Vlad the Drac, The Little Vampire etc). so I wanted to be a vampire (I even gave up garlic bread for a while).

These days, I just have (slightly) more age-appropriate ones. Today, Jasper Fforde (@jasperfforde)’s tweet about the Goliath shop led me to a Jurisfiction t-shirt (want!). For those of you not in the know (and you really should be, because the Thursday Next books are amazing), Jurisfiction is the agency that polices the BookWorld from within – stops characters going rogue, clamps down on mispeling vyrus outbreaks and plot infractions, leads anger management classes for Wuthering Heights characters. How cool a job is that?! Closer to home, there’s neuroscientist/historian/supernatural expert Zuleika Rathbone in Attica author Elizabeth Edmondson’s Devil’s Sonata. Again, it doesn’t exist (though it’s a bit closer than Jurisfiction agent), but I wish it did…

So what’s your dream/fantasy job?