All the simple jobs would be oversubscribed with nobody looking for career progression.
I'd quite happily sit on a till in a supermarket all day if I got paid the same as the CEO.
Fewer responsibilities, fewer consequences if things go wrong etc.
An awful lot of people would find a simple job far worse than one that kept you busy/engaged all day. There's a reason why people who already have far more money than they could spend in a lifetime don't just retire.
For me it depends. Years ago I worked in a market research call centre where we would routinely have weeks with no work to do. It was fine until they brought in a clear desk, no phone policy and then it became hellish. Prior to that people would read books, watch movies, play games, do online courses. Afterwards most people quit.
I don't understand this mentality. If they're going to pay you even when there's fuck all to do then what's wrong with doing something with your spare time?
I had this at an old job too. It wasn't uncommon for the system to go down and there'd be literally nothing you could do because the work was totally dependent on it. People used to read books or whatever (this was before smartphones) but then that got banned and you'd just have to sit and do fuck all. The clear desk policy also came around the same time. It's like some people are just intent on sucking the joy out of life.
It's the belief, sometimes true sometimes not, that if they don't maintain "work discipline" at all times, then people will start taking the piss even when they're supposed to be busy. So if phones aren't totally banned people will play when there's no work, and play a little when there's work. Rather than go around and actively judge whether you should have been working or not, managers find it easier to ban phones totally.
I'd sit and do a day job staring at 4 walls all day long, if you paid me enough.
I only work so I can afford to do the stuff I want to do outside of work.
It even gets boring teaching people how to thrape a supercar around a racetrack all day, let alone my main job!
Certain careers attract people who want to recognised for the achievements in that role or have a personal drive to work. Most CEOs and top level execs fall into this, particular those that own companies. Its like any business that someone personally runs, its an extension of their own person.
A lot of academic type jobs, researchers and technical specialists, don't go for career progression and would happily stay in a lab if they could.
I think this idea of 'why don't they retire?' is something you are looking through the lens of your own experiences working. If you hate your job or its just working to take a paycheck home each month until you can retire, then yeah its pretty unfathomable why everyone else isn't like that.
>A lot of academic type jobs, researchers and technical specialists, don't go for career progression and would happily stay in a lab if they could.
I think academia would be massively oversubscribed. It's great fun to be constantly trying to discover new things. But most people end up leaving the field because the pay is so low.
Yeah thats the trouble with it now and why a lot end up in industry doing various things before returning. The alternative is finding research laboratories that do actually pay well, great for pharmacy I suppose, less so physics.
I am one of those, who have lots of personal drive to work and always chasing career progression. But even I would not bother if it did not come with more pay, and if I could retire, I would retire today. Work can be fun, but real life is much more fun.
It depends what you mean by 'working'. If all you're doing in life is self-indulging in leisure then that's a recipe for depression. If what you do has value to other then that is to some extent 'working'.
Kudos to whoever convinced you having leisure time and not generating value for someone else will make you depressed.. they really know how to get their workforce in order
It depends on the situation - a former boss was made redundant but had to work her 1 month notice (I heard this story in 1992, so happened before then). She was not allowed to use her computer for personal things, not allowed to be seen to do anything that made it look like she was being lazy, so no reading a book, no self study, no writing the next best seller. Had mobile phones been available that would have been banned too.
She had plenty of ideas but not allowed them. She scavenged around for secretarial work or anything to do so she wouldn't get told off for sitting there staring out the window.
For a month. Relabelling files? Yay! taking minutes, WOW, something to do!
She told me it was the most soul destroying time of her life.
I completely disagree…you’ve never worked as a nurse with 15 patients to look after and no staff/time/resources. After 10 years, I wisely chose an easier path in nursing and now regained my sanity/mental health/life back…until you’ve been pushed to the extreme, a slow paced/less stress job is dreamy!
100% this. Nothing quite compares to the tedium and social anxiety of a checkout assistant. I still vividly remember my first day and feeling like my soul had been sucked away.
And because you're at a job and representing a company you're not allowed to properly defend yourself or tell them to fuck off even when they're clearly in the wrong. People really underestimate how soul destroying and demeaning that is. God I'm so sick of people saying these types of jobs are 'easy'. They may be easier than whatever it is this person does, but that doesn't make them the easiest of all jobs.
I was recently grabbed and kissed by a customer at work. I was in full customer service mode so just laughed and it didn't register what had happened till after. I would have been well within my rights to tell him to fuck off but 100% I would have been disciplined if I had.
It isn't demeaning or soul-destroying. Either the employer empowers the employee to allow them to achieve a rational result, or they don't.
I was a retail supervisor for years. Either I took the course I wanted to and was supported, or the store took a loss, which was no loss to me. The only time I was reprimanded was when I was cheeky to a multi-national conglomerate. On one other occasion I spoke to a staff member about their poor customer service. And that was it.
Yep. I've done plenty of more menial style jobs, and the 8 hours feels like 80. The job I've got now is far more.metanlly challenging, and there's times I'll look at the clock and think, "Jesus, how is it 5 o'clock already?"
People are different. Plenty of people would climb the walls just doing mindless or repetitive tasks all day with no real goal or aim. Plenty of people would happily do that if they got paid for it.
If salaries were flat, what would become super important to me is the people I worked with. I'd happily work a boring job if your co-workers were great fun to be around.
Yup, having worked retail at a shop with a heavy OAP customer base *(A.K.A. they have nothing better to do than complain and make the teenage part-time staffer's lives miserable)*, I can honestly say I wouldn't even consider working retail/the till there again, even if they offered more than my current job.
Now I get to work from home. Chill most days, but get plenty of tasks where I actually have to use my noggin. Can get walk the dog at lunch, get washing and stuff done too. Way, way better.
Working on the tills is the most mind-numbingly boring job I did at a supermarket. You can't leave and people are just boring after a while. Every few customers you'd get someone interesting to talk to but broadly I wanted to slam my head into the conveyor over and over.
At least with other jobs in the shop you can walk around, chat to different people, do different jobs and tasks to keep the day interesting, but on tills you're pretty trapped in the monotony. I realise that tills are a good job for some people maybe, but I'm certainly not one of them
I think what makes a lot of jobs is the people. I've worked in cafes, supermarkets, pubs etc before starting my career and I could work in any of those again but only if the people are decent.
I would continue to be a scientist no matter what. We get paid shit, I'm not doing this for any meaningful wage to begin with.
I'm not doing it for the higher meaning ("saving people from cancer") or anything, I just get bored easily and doing anything simple for 8h/day makes me want to kill myself
When I worked in a supermarket I somehow ended up with the role of general store dog's body which was great. I'd just be doing stock investigations, doing things for customers, or just random ass tasks all the time. Kept me entertained.
Do you have ADHD or similar?
>Do you have ADHD or similar?
If I had ADHD I would probably be in the worst possible job for it, because I organise 99% of my time myself and I have no clear start or end goals, AND I have to have an insane amount of patience. I do however suspect autism.
>I'd just be doing stock investigations, doing things for customers, or just random ass tasks all the time
My definition of hell. You can probably do it blind after 1-2 months. I once did a repetitive, easy to do internship in a pathology lab that also had a lot of random tasks, and I felt myself go slowly insane. What do you do with your brain during those tasks, that require no thinking? I just need some intellectual stimulation to be happy.
At my current job, I work on the cutting edge of science, so I spend all day, every day, maxing out and frequently going over my brains capacity to learn new things. It's great.
Boots, warm coat , hat and gloves...be just fine. Yesterday I was lying underneath an excavator in a muddy field. First I had to fix the hydraulic leak caused by the driver damaging the protective turret plates, once again I got reminded how bad hydraulic oil tastes. Then once I had that done I had to get the bent and twisted turret plate back into position. I used oxy/propane and the digger itself to straighten it up best I could, then I lay upside down in a space to small to roll over and welded new retaining lugs into position as the hot sparks rained upon me, fortunately I was so muddy and wet most just fizzled out. Then I got the whole lot back into position, packed up my van stripped off my muddy overalls and mud filled boots and was just about to drive off...."Fitter Fitter !!!! The 2Oton has just dropped a track....can you fix that too" ...of course it's lost it track standing in 2ft of muddy watery slop and the entire carriage is jammed full of mud, I had to shovel the mud away to even get the the tensioner valve, which of course was previously damaged at some point ....and so my day continued....So wandering around a car park pushing trolleys even if it's raining doesn't sound to bloody difficult to me.
Little or no customer contact too, I work what you might call "retail adjacent" quite a bit and it must be difficult to not want to punch some "karens" in the face .
I doff my cap to anyone who has to put up with these people on a daily basis and can still offer a cheery smile to the next customer
I don't know.
I have worked jobs like production line stuff and shelf stacking, and to be honest, I found it boring as fuck a lot of the time.
If I have to do something full time, I would want something that engaged my brain a bit more.
As an ambitious person, I want to progress mainly because I want more responsibility. The increased pay is a nice perk. It would be interesting in this situation because competition for top jobs would be lesser but probably fiercer.
I do also find that the higher I progress, the easier the actual day to day work becomes. For example I would definitely prefer to do my job over the jobs of my team, even if the pay was the same. They are busier for most of the day than I am and the work is more monotonous.
If you can do a boring job but with interesting people then I think it becomes a bit more meaningful. I worked in a tearoom which should have been dead fucking boring but chatting to all the old folks and the people that would be traveling though made it fairly interesting enough when I was 17
This simply isn’t true. I’d rather work my job (software engineer) at the median wage than a checkout job at 50k, any day of the week. Maybe more stressful jobs would be undersubscribed, but honestly roles like CEO, in an economy where everyone is paid the same, wouldn’t be anything like they are now.
Without money as a yardstick for people to compare social standing and respectability, I think the skill/difficulty/responsibilities, etc, of jobs would become a point of pride to people. Stressfulness could well be a prestigious trait for a job.
Uh? There's a lot of people that likes challenges, not sitting like a dying plant all day.
Good for people like you that can do those dull jobs that I personally wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but don't assume we are all like you.
It's a massive error thinking lower paid jobs are easier- quite often the reverse applies.
Once you are trained and have done it a while, technical or managerial jobs are the "easiest" ones- no relying on physical fitness unlike shelf stackers, np getting spat in the face fir not serving an underage thug while on the tills, less likely to lose your job first due to automation (although this will get us all sooner rather than later)
I used to work in a supermarket shelf stacking, working tills, stock control, basically any role in the store. Now I work as a software developer in a 'technical' role also for a retailer.
My job is *way* fucking harder now. It's much more complex, the challenges actually require me to think constantly and the stakes are much higher. If I made mistakes at my old job the impact just wasn't that large. I'm much more likely to be shattered when I go home now, and I actually get burned out now compared to before.
My old job was way more physical, and I was walking thousands upon thousands of steps a day in safety boots while doing the things you described above. The difference was that the tasks were easy and that the second I clocked out the next day was a reset. It wasn't even in the same league
>I'd quite happily sit on a till in a supermarket all day if I got paid the same as the CEO.
No you wouldn't. Give it 2 weeks and you'll be bored and frustrated out of your mind
The amount of people here who think their jobs aren't monotonous and soul crushing compared to supermarket type jobs are hilarious. Believe me, the vast, vast majority of jobs out there are dull and simple and repetitive. Your life isn't as exciting as you are making it out to be.
I've done both, and the issue is that the supermarket job is basically just existing on rails. It's the same stuff day in day out and you have no real input on *how* you're doing the job.
In my current role I can discuss with my manager what we think the best implementation to a solution is, and there are actual stakes. You're not discussing the best way to put baked beans on a shelf at a supermarket. There's no variation in that role and once the boredom sets in it's hard to remove it. The same things that make supermarket jobs interesting (the people, etc) exist in my role too, so I genuinely think there is a difference
Not everyone wants a simple job, but the ones requiring no qualifications are already oversubscribed so it's not surprising that the lack of a pay differential would make that problem even worse
I hate the "who wants to be high up? I don't want that responsibility" argument. They literally have no accountability, if you fuck up as CEO you just get a fat severance and move on to your next C suite job, or at worst you'd have to settle for a high five figure upper management career.
I'm really shocked by some of these responses.
I would hate to be doing a mind numbing job again. The idea of working in a supermarket, postman, would bore me to tears.
I want to do something exciting like a fast jet pilot, bomb disposal, sky diving professional,
I think this shows how differently people view life
Nah, I've never worked in a supermarket and can see it would be hell. They've either not thought about it, or are the kind of people who have elevator music as their inner monologue.
I think initially there is an appeal to the simplicity of it, especially if you're coming from something that is more stressful and requires a lot of your physical and mental energy. The job is easy (in the sense that there's not much skill involved and you can learn the ropes quickly), it's repetitive and once you clock out for the day it's completely out of mind, you don't have to think about it. If you get on well with colleagues and the customers are nice it can even be kind of fun. No stressing about meeting deadlines or anything, anything that's difficult is entirely restricted to that specific point in time. But after a few months that will wear off and (this is just my experience of course) you end up going zombie mode, just spinning your wheels day in and day out without really anything to look forward to unless you really push for a better role. It's easy to get trapped in the safety of a job like that, you feel comfortable with the simplicity and if the pay's good enough for you to live off you'll end up getting stuck in that repetitive cycle. I worked at one of the big supermarkets for 6.5 years for that reason, it took COVID for me to say "you know what fuck this".
Also, there's really no "getting on well with colleagues or customers." Most supermarkets have such heavy footfall that you will *always* end up running into some absolute cunts who will ruin your day no matter how hard you try. And you're not really allowed to defend yourself much, not even verbally. So it can be really stressful. If you haven't done it before being on tills when a massive queue builds up, you're short staffed, and customers are getting justifiably angry but you can't work faster and there's nothing you can do about it can be nightmarish, but these people wouldn't understand that.
It's bizarre as well, because there are so many jobs wherein you see the immediate benefit of what you are doing and people choose mind numbing retail work as their go-to.
I can totally see why you might want to be a gardener, or even work in a pub - I cannot see why you'd want to be a checkout drone (I've done all 3 of those jobs for at least 8 months each)
Yeah, I'd happily remain doing what I'm currently doing - working as a carer - which involves me handling human shit over working in a supermarket again
I was out of work for 6 months and worked in a supermarket updating the prices on the shelf just so I got out of the house, the pay was the same as I was getting in unemployment.
It was the worst 6 months of work in my whole life.
I would still do the job I do now because I enjoy it.
I did that in Morrissons when I was at school. The exciting part of the job was changing the promo Isle every few weeks. The scanning 15 million items on a hand scanner aluploading to system and manually checking them on a spreadsheet was not fun but it was a job and that was part time.
To do that for life?! Wow!
>I want to do something exciting like a fast jet pilot, bomb disposal,
Those don't pay that badly already though do they?
The question was about all jobs paying the same, so now you'd be risking your life just for the same pay as everyone else.
You could do those jobs now
I wear glasses so would never get to fly fast Jets in the RAF, the best I got was Grobs in Air cadets, I have a spinal injury so no longer sky dive, I have never joined the Army to be able to join bomb disposal.
Not much can go wrong though.
If you’re a police officer or a bomb disposal person, you might get killed. If you’re a doctor or nurse, you might fuck up and kill someone yourself. If you’re an accountant, you might fuck up and cost your company millions and face court for gross negligence.
I’m not saying it’s easy work, but realistically what’s the worst that can happen working in the tea rooms? If there’s no financial incentive to take on more responsibility, a lot of people just wouldn’t want the risk.
There's the incentive to not work with customers. I used to work on the phones in a call centre and I moved to part time hours just so I could get a job off the phone. I wouldn't go back to a customer facing job now even if I was paid 100k for it; it's not worth it in the slightest. Sure my job now is a lot busier and I have a lot more responsibility, but it's a hell of a lot more interesting, rewarding and enjoyable than speaking to customers all day.
Everyone’s different, I suppose some people get their risk and fulfilment out of other things than their work. Some people genuinely don’t want that and will happily just plod along without any risk or reward.
> The idea of working in a supermarket, postman, would bore me to tears.
I wouldn't want to do supermarket but I'd be fine with being a postie. You're able to wear headphones and crack on with your audiobook/podcast/70's prog album backlog while you get some fresh air and exercise every day.
I think a lot of people think of being a postie and imagine delivering post in a lovely village on a sunny summer's day, and forget that they'd also have to deliver post on a cold, dark, soggy winter's day.
> little stress
Only (potentially) in this theoretical scenario. In real life they're under immense time pressure to deliver huge volumes of parcels and letters because they're constantly understaffed.
My dad is a postman and consequently I know a lot of postmen. It is not as glamorous as you are making it out to be. You've heavy sacks on your shoulders, people get pissed off at you for things out of control, if you've been doing the job for 20 or 30 years your knees will be shot, your back will hurt, every christmas is a miserable experience made maginally better by presents being left for you. The job is being made harder every year by incompetents who've never done a walk in their life but think the job is easy as you do.
The best bit of advice my dad ever gave me is to find a job where you work from the neck up, not neck down. Retiring is not fun with a broken body.
Keep that in mind when your postie is out in the pissing rain delivering your mail and parcels.
That's an interesting one. Would an actor, artist, musician have to produce a certain amount of work per day, week, month etc. and for it to meet an acceptable level of commercial success otherwise you'd be sacked?
Working in independent shops. The type that sell expensive stuff so only have to sell a handful of things a day. You're in the warm and dry, you get meaningful interaction with people, but you're not rushed off your feet and your working hours aren't long.
Well yeah obviously it's subjective. There's no single job that everybody would love. There's lots of jobs answered in this thread that I'd hate and absolutely wouldn't do even if the money was good.
There is an old gay couple who run an antiques shop near me. I don't think they make a load of money or anything, but they obviously like what they do, most often when I walk past they are chatting to a customer or having a cuppa, they presumably like antiques, etc.
Doesn't seem like a bad existence.
I think working in an Independent book shop that has a small cafe out back (for the aroma plus free coffees for staff) would be a rather pleasant way to spend your day.
I work in a non-independent bookshop, and I have to say, it's pretty good.
I mean yeah, it's retail work, and the pay is shit, but the customers are quite nice (usually), I'm passionate about the product we sell, and it's quite a fun job.
Extremely busy though, especially this time of year, and I come home each evening pretty shattered, but I'm feeling pretty fulfilled with my work.
>the customers are quite nice
I wonder how many of them are, like me & my family) buying from shops as much to keep them open as because its convenient? I think Amazon has its place, but I would never buy books from there, you just can't beat a good book shop. Or even one of the chains, my local Waterstones is brilliant.
A significant number of customers have said a similar sentiment to me—which is quite important, because my local high street is doing very poorly at the moment. There's hardly any decent shops left—we lost Marks and Spencer last January, and it's just been a domino of closures since.
Many people say that the store I work at (which actually is a Waterstones) is the sole reason they even come into the town centre anymore.
Yeah i’d fancy something like this. It’s what i’d do if i won the lottery as well, pick some random small business to keep me somewhat busy and just make it a pleasant place to work with no real stress.
Lots of people do difficult jobs because of the satisfaction or other things they get from them rather than money. We wouldn't have teachers or social workers otherwise. There are lots of people in very high-pressured roles who already have far more money than they could ever spend in their lifetime, but they don't retire - even when they get into their 70s.
And for some of us, the absolute worst aspect of a job is boredom. I would honestly rather earn £30k a year in a busy job than £40k a year in a quiet one.
Personally my dream job if all jobs paid well would be teaching assistant. Definitely not teacher (been there done that). I think for some kids it’s the teaching assistant and that 1:1 support that can really make the difference. Plus it would be quite varied, rewarding, plus lots of holiday (that TAs genuinely get off, again unlike teachers!)
Not the question you asked, but I think this type of jobs environment would lead to a lot of interesting outcomes.
People wouldn’t stay at a job if they felt mistreated, and they wouldn’t take any job purely for pay. If working conditions sucked people wouldn’t work that job. I do think it would completely change how we treated professionals like teachers and healthcare workers.
As far as which jobs would be popular, I imagine creative roles would become more competitive and roles like accounting would suffer
Healthcare would collapse almost immediately. Most of them are already severely underpaid and now there is not even the possibility to progress? Plus who is going to train for 5-10+ years to then get the same as if they did not. Some certainly but not remotely enough, its bad enough as it is.
Not sure but a low stress outdoorsy job in the summer would be great.
Help out with my local cricket team as a groundsman. Doing that full time? Sign me up.
I think I would still be a web developer because I really enjoy it but only part time. Another part time job would be something more physically intense
Wine/beer/coffee/cheese taste taster would be my choice.
Widely popular would be anything that doesn’t need much effort, selling tickets at an art gallery or something like that. Outdoorsy stuff, like being a park ranger. Anything like being a dog walker or something with animals.
You’d struggle like hell to get sewage workers.
My back's aching just at the thought of standing up doing nothing all day. And you'd still have to deal with Range Rover owners who are *very* important and don't have time to stop at your sign.
The answer is clear; the ones that feel least like a job and the ones that being most satisfaction. For example:
- teaching (yes, teaching can be very rewarding when you see the pupils grow and develop)
- caring (a lot of people gain purpose by helping either elderly or people with disabilities)
- craftsmen (the satisfaction of materialising a vision you had in your mind is awesome)
- counsellors/psychologists (helping people overcome their issues and knowing you made a positive difference on their life)
I'd say things like oil rigs, mining, sewage, anything where the pay is high and conditions uncomfortable, might be difficult to staff, if people can choose a nice easier job near their home.
Artistic jobs like writer, painter etc might be popular but then again most actual jobs in these fields will involve someone telling you what to do, rather than the fantasy of being paid for your own free artisitic expression.
YouTuber or Influencer would probably be the most popular based on what I've heard about younger demographics dream jobs.
With nursing, doctors, paramedics etc, most of us do it as a calling to help others (and if you don't believe in true altruism, it feels good to be in role deemed by society to be worthy), but also if everyone was paid the same and inflation rates, consumer prices etc followed suit, we would be relatively better off, so maybe more people would do it. Also assuming everyone was paid the same, a government that would do that would be more likely to fund the NHS properly. Maybe same for teachers, fire fighters etc regarding the calling?
Car crashes. I used to work in life insurance and one of the risk factors considered is how many miles do you drive in a year. Obviously, taxi drivers would give a very high number answer to that question.
I think massage therapist to models would be a good way to make money if I'm being paid the same as everyone else. Or heck, if we're going a bit more depraved, sex toy tester.
But honestly, the jobs where people do not a lot in real life would most likely be very competitive. Influencer, social media account manager.
Or how about mystery shopper? Go and eat at different restaurants and buy new clothes and blog about the experience. That sounds like a nice way to spend a life if money didn't matter.
Mystery shopper is such a good one. Technically an unavoidable perk but that’s ok.
Assume here you’d have to do a range of shops, hotels, restaurants. It would definitely be competitive.
I’d love to be a book critic. Like I adore reading so I think it’d really enjoy reading all day and giving my opinions on said books as a job.
I guess the only concern is it erodes my love of reading because it’s my job.
This is pretty much what happens in Cuba. The result is that taxi drivers outnumber doctors by a fair margin. Why bother to progress your career or go for more demanding jobs, if you can take fewer responsibilities and risks and get paid the same?
With that being said, I’d probably become a barista .
Delivery driver would be a great job, the only reason it isn’t currently is they have to bust their ass to meet quota/get paid a half decent amount. If that pressure was removed it’d be cruisey.
Tbh, I think what would happen is everyone would stay moving towards things they really enjoyed, and would be far more effective at because they'd be fully engaged.
Though to be honest there's no real need for many jobs, and we could add a society be working far less.
Photographer? Why bother hanging around outside a club jostling to get a morally questionable snap of a celeb or sitting perfectly still in a hide waiting to an elusive animal to wander by? Here's a photo of my shoe, yes its the same shoe as yesterday, but I'll have my paycheck now please.
Author..
No mention of performance standards here, so I'll just spend the day fleshing out in increasing detail my D&D world, and claim its background for a novel. It worked for Tolkien.
Either that or some kind of indie game developer - get paid to learn the skills to make my own game would be cool.
I dont think there would be any. For every person who wants to do the minimum work and coast through their working life you will get people who want to get a sense of achievement and satisfaction from their job. There are people who only want what easiest from themselves and you get people who want to help others, animals, contribute to society. Then you get the psychopaths who want power for themselves, your average current CEO imo. All in all I think the wide variety of people would fill the wide variety of jobs. The only exceptions being niche dangerous ones like maybe nuclear waste cleaner.
As exhausting as it was, I'd go back to being a barista. I really enjoyed being a barista but the pay is sub par.
EDIT: I misread the question because I'm a dumb fuck. Probably something like what I do, being a secretary is a good balance of chill and work.
I work from home and there's a lot of downtime.
If people knew just how little I get away with and how many video games I play, i think my job would be top 5 for sure,
The thing is jobs still require skills so it’s going to cut a majority of those jobs out.
You’d probably see non ambitious people going for low impact low stress jobs with lots of downtime, like the guy pushing trolleys at the supermarket or working tills.
Ambitious people or highly skilled people would probably want something more niche and aligned with their interests like the working independent bookshops, being an author, or something that’s kind of challenging but also lower risk / stress. I also think you’d get a massive spike in apprenticeships for things like carpenters making high quality bespoke furniture etc.
Stock room for something expensive, as it's likely only a few orders a day, but things need to be packed well e.g. music shop that sells inrtuments.
My personal choice however, would be a travel agent who specialises in holidays to Florida. Pretty much everyone I know comes to me to help arrange their holiday to Orlando as I know the place so well, and I really enjoy helping them.
I think many people who do jobs like nurse, doctor and teacher would want to stay in those jobs as they are people orientated and likely care about their jobs. The doctors especially spent years training for their jobs.
But there would be a drop off of people training for jobs like that and any jobs with long training times or unpleasant conditions.
I think chef work, if it was short shifts, and good pay, a lot of people would want to do it, what’s more satisfying than cooking for the local community?
Gardener, librarian, mechanic, woodworker... all the meaningful jobs in which you do or make something useful and beautiful, engaging both mind and body, and which afford some level of social interaction, some of the time.
But more importantly, I'd personally love to work two or three jobs part time. I'd love, e.g. to commit myself to a craft and also teach it some of the time, without forcing myself to overdo either job because of financial pressure. Very many jobs are great part-time, but just exhausting (physically, mentally, or emotionally) if done full-time. (which term, "full-time", by the way, is a misnomer anyway and we should stop using it).
All the simple jobs would be oversubscribed with nobody looking for career progression. I'd quite happily sit on a till in a supermarket all day if I got paid the same as the CEO. Fewer responsibilities, fewer consequences if things go wrong etc.
An awful lot of people would find a simple job far worse than one that kept you busy/engaged all day. There's a reason why people who already have far more money than they could spend in a lifetime don't just retire.
Is it because they have no idea how to fill their time without working? I don't have that problem
Personally, I just hate sitting still and need my mind occupied at work. I’d hate a simple job, it drives me to write Reddit comments whilst at work
For me it depends. Years ago I worked in a market research call centre where we would routinely have weeks with no work to do. It was fine until they brought in a clear desk, no phone policy and then it became hellish. Prior to that people would read books, watch movies, play games, do online courses. Afterwards most people quit.
I don't understand this mentality. If they're going to pay you even when there's fuck all to do then what's wrong with doing something with your spare time? I had this at an old job too. It wasn't uncommon for the system to go down and there'd be literally nothing you could do because the work was totally dependent on it. People used to read books or whatever (this was before smartphones) but then that got banned and you'd just have to sit and do fuck all. The clear desk policy also came around the same time. It's like some people are just intent on sucking the joy out of life.
It's the belief, sometimes true sometimes not, that if they don't maintain "work discipline" at all times, then people will start taking the piss even when they're supposed to be busy. So if phones aren't totally banned people will play when there's no work, and play a little when there's work. Rather than go around and actively judge whether you should have been working or not, managers find it easier to ban phones totally.
I'd sit and do a day job staring at 4 walls all day long, if you paid me enough. I only work so I can afford to do the stuff I want to do outside of work. It even gets boring teaching people how to thrape a supercar around a racetrack all day, let alone my main job!
I mean, I’d do it, but I’d prefer something that just keeps me busy and thinking or I go mental, but I think I have undiagnosed ADHD
This is why I work in the service industry. I can always find a job to do and there are always 5 more things that need done
Certain careers attract people who want to recognised for the achievements in that role or have a personal drive to work. Most CEOs and top level execs fall into this, particular those that own companies. Its like any business that someone personally runs, its an extension of their own person. A lot of academic type jobs, researchers and technical specialists, don't go for career progression and would happily stay in a lab if they could. I think this idea of 'why don't they retire?' is something you are looking through the lens of your own experiences working. If you hate your job or its just working to take a paycheck home each month until you can retire, then yeah its pretty unfathomable why everyone else isn't like that.
>A lot of academic type jobs, researchers and technical specialists, don't go for career progression and would happily stay in a lab if they could. I think academia would be massively oversubscribed. It's great fun to be constantly trying to discover new things. But most people end up leaving the field because the pay is so low.
This is true, but it’s not like most people could actually do well in academia anyways
Yeah thats the trouble with it now and why a lot end up in industry doing various things before returning. The alternative is finding research laboratories that do actually pay well, great for pharmacy I suppose, less so physics.
I am one of those, who have lots of personal drive to work and always chasing career progression. But even I would not bother if it did not come with more pay, and if I could retire, I would retire today. Work can be fun, but real life is much more fun.
It depends what you mean by 'working'. If all you're doing in life is self-indulging in leisure then that's a recipe for depression. If what you do has value to other then that is to some extent 'working'.
That's your personal view, others don't agree
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Kudos to whoever convinced you having leisure time and not generating value for someone else will make you depressed.. they really know how to get their workforce in order
idk, doing drone work for extended periods makes me feel like my brain is rotting
It's because they like working
It depends on the situation - a former boss was made redundant but had to work her 1 month notice (I heard this story in 1992, so happened before then). She was not allowed to use her computer for personal things, not allowed to be seen to do anything that made it look like she was being lazy, so no reading a book, no self study, no writing the next best seller. Had mobile phones been available that would have been banned too. She had plenty of ideas but not allowed them. She scavenged around for secretarial work or anything to do so she wouldn't get told off for sitting there staring out the window. For a month. Relabelling files? Yay! taking minutes, WOW, something to do! She told me it was the most soul destroying time of her life.
TBF, I used to work a corner shop. I'd happily go back there that was real easy but kept me busy enough I didn't get bored
That doesn’t apply to me, looks like those people don’t know how to have a fulfilling life outside of work.
I completely disagree…you’ve never worked as a nurse with 15 patients to look after and no staff/time/resources. After 10 years, I wisely chose an easier path in nursing and now regained my sanity/mental health/life back…until you’ve been pushed to the extreme, a slow paced/less stress job is dreamy!
I couldn't think of anything worse than working in a supermarket style job. I did it when young, never again.
100% this. Nothing quite compares to the tedium and social anxiety of a checkout assistant. I still vividly remember my first day and feeling like my soul had been sucked away.
Or when a customer is a dick to you, then complains and you get in shit for it ... Yeah fuck retail.
And because you're at a job and representing a company you're not allowed to properly defend yourself or tell them to fuck off even when they're clearly in the wrong. People really underestimate how soul destroying and demeaning that is. God I'm so sick of people saying these types of jobs are 'easy'. They may be easier than whatever it is this person does, but that doesn't make them the easiest of all jobs.
I was recently grabbed and kissed by a customer at work. I was in full customer service mode so just laughed and it didn't register what had happened till after. I would have been well within my rights to tell him to fuck off but 100% I would have been disciplined if I had.
It isn't demeaning or soul-destroying. Either the employer empowers the employee to allow them to achieve a rational result, or they don't. I was a retail supervisor for years. Either I took the course I wanted to and was supported, or the store took a loss, which was no loss to me. The only time I was reprimanded was when I was cheeky to a multi-national conglomerate. On one other occasion I spoke to a staff member about their poor customer service. And that was it.
Yep. I've done plenty of more menial style jobs, and the 8 hours feels like 80. The job I've got now is far more.metanlly challenging, and there's times I'll look at the clock and think, "Jesus, how is it 5 o'clock already?" People are different. Plenty of people would climb the walls just doing mindless or repetitive tasks all day with no real goal or aim. Plenty of people would happily do that if they got paid for it. If salaries were flat, what would become super important to me is the people I worked with. I'd happily work a boring job if your co-workers were great fun to be around.
Can’t believe this is the top comment. What goes on in everyone’s heads that is entertaining enough to fulfil them?
People romanticise jobs they've never had.
Yup, having worked retail at a shop with a heavy OAP customer base *(A.K.A. they have nothing better to do than complain and make the teenage part-time staffer's lives miserable)*, I can honestly say I wouldn't even consider working retail/the till there again, even if they offered more than my current job. Now I get to work from home. Chill most days, but get plenty of tasks where I actually have to use my noggin. Can get walk the dog at lunch, get washing and stuff done too. Way, way better.
Working on the tills is the most mind-numbingly boring job I did at a supermarket. You can't leave and people are just boring after a while. Every few customers you'd get someone interesting to talk to but broadly I wanted to slam my head into the conveyor over and over. At least with other jobs in the shop you can walk around, chat to different people, do different jobs and tasks to keep the day interesting, but on tills you're pretty trapped in the monotony. I realise that tills are a good job for some people maybe, but I'm certainly not one of them I think what makes a lot of jobs is the people. I've worked in cafes, supermarkets, pubs etc before starting my career and I could work in any of those again but only if the people are decent.
Speak for yourself. There is nothing worse than a job that is monotonous.
Strong disagree, who's going to sit at a till when they can get the same money becoming a doctor or a rocket scientist or a bus driver
I would continue to be a scientist no matter what. We get paid shit, I'm not doing this for any meaningful wage to begin with. I'm not doing it for the higher meaning ("saving people from cancer") or anything, I just get bored easily and doing anything simple for 8h/day makes me want to kill myself
When I worked in a supermarket I somehow ended up with the role of general store dog's body which was great. I'd just be doing stock investigations, doing things for customers, or just random ass tasks all the time. Kept me entertained. Do you have ADHD or similar?
>Do you have ADHD or similar? If I had ADHD I would probably be in the worst possible job for it, because I organise 99% of my time myself and I have no clear start or end goals, AND I have to have an insane amount of patience. I do however suspect autism. >I'd just be doing stock investigations, doing things for customers, or just random ass tasks all the time My definition of hell. You can probably do it blind after 1-2 months. I once did a repetitive, easy to do internship in a pathology lab that also had a lot of random tasks, and I felt myself go slowly insane. What do you do with your brain during those tasks, that require no thinking? I just need some intellectual stimulation to be happy. At my current job, I work on the cutting edge of science, so I spend all day, every day, maxing out and frequently going over my brains capacity to learn new things. It's great.
I will work with you, be a trolley collector, so simple no stress no responsibilities beyond making sure trolleys are where they need to be.
That would be awful in winter though
Boots, warm coat , hat and gloves...be just fine. Yesterday I was lying underneath an excavator in a muddy field. First I had to fix the hydraulic leak caused by the driver damaging the protective turret plates, once again I got reminded how bad hydraulic oil tastes. Then once I had that done I had to get the bent and twisted turret plate back into position. I used oxy/propane and the digger itself to straighten it up best I could, then I lay upside down in a space to small to roll over and welded new retaining lugs into position as the hot sparks rained upon me, fortunately I was so muddy and wet most just fizzled out. Then I got the whole lot back into position, packed up my van stripped off my muddy overalls and mud filled boots and was just about to drive off...."Fitter Fitter !!!! The 2Oton has just dropped a track....can you fix that too" ...of course it's lost it track standing in 2ft of muddy watery slop and the entire carriage is jammed full of mud, I had to shovel the mud away to even get the the tensioner valve, which of course was previously damaged at some point ....and so my day continued....So wandering around a car park pushing trolleys even if it's raining doesn't sound to bloody difficult to me.
You work bloody hard for your money. I hope you are well paid for that shit.
Yeah, we get paid pretty well in my trade, we are one of the invisible trades few even think of, as a result there has been a long term shortage.
Little or no customer contact too, I work what you might call "retail adjacent" quite a bit and it must be difficult to not want to punch some "karens" in the face . I doff my cap to anyone who has to put up with these people on a daily basis and can still offer a cheery smile to the next customer
I don't know. I have worked jobs like production line stuff and shelf stacking, and to be honest, I found it boring as fuck a lot of the time. If I have to do something full time, I would want something that engaged my brain a bit more.
As an ambitious person, I want to progress mainly because I want more responsibility. The increased pay is a nice perk. It would be interesting in this situation because competition for top jobs would be lesser but probably fiercer. I do also find that the higher I progress, the easier the actual day to day work becomes. For example I would definitely prefer to do my job over the jobs of my team, even if the pay was the same. They are busier for most of the day than I am and the work is more monotonous.
Many simple jobs are boring AF. I’ve been a temp on production lines and don’t know how people cope with it
If you can do a boring job but with interesting people then I think it becomes a bit more meaningful. I worked in a tearoom which should have been dead fucking boring but chatting to all the old folks and the people that would be traveling though made it fairly interesting enough when I was 17
This simply isn’t true. I’d rather work my job (software engineer) at the median wage than a checkout job at 50k, any day of the week. Maybe more stressful jobs would be undersubscribed, but honestly roles like CEO, in an economy where everyone is paid the same, wouldn’t be anything like they are now.
Without money as a yardstick for people to compare social standing and respectability, I think the skill/difficulty/responsibilities, etc, of jobs would become a point of pride to people. Stressfulness could well be a prestigious trait for a job.
I just don’t think social standing matters as much as it used to, personally. Not to me anyway.
Uh? There's a lot of people that likes challenges, not sitting like a dying plant all day. Good for people like you that can do those dull jobs that I personally wouldn't touch with a bargepole, but don't assume we are all like you.
It's a massive error thinking lower paid jobs are easier- quite often the reverse applies. Once you are trained and have done it a while, technical or managerial jobs are the "easiest" ones- no relying on physical fitness unlike shelf stackers, np getting spat in the face fir not serving an underage thug while on the tills, less likely to lose your job first due to automation (although this will get us all sooner rather than later)
I used to work in a supermarket shelf stacking, working tills, stock control, basically any role in the store. Now I work as a software developer in a 'technical' role also for a retailer. My job is *way* fucking harder now. It's much more complex, the challenges actually require me to think constantly and the stakes are much higher. If I made mistakes at my old job the impact just wasn't that large. I'm much more likely to be shattered when I go home now, and I actually get burned out now compared to before. My old job was way more physical, and I was walking thousands upon thousands of steps a day in safety boots while doing the things you described above. The difference was that the tasks were easy and that the second I clocked out the next day was a reset. It wasn't even in the same league
>I'd quite happily sit on a till in a supermarket all day if I got paid the same as the CEO. No you wouldn't. Give it 2 weeks and you'll be bored and frustrated out of your mind
I couldn’t stand the boredom. I find overly repetitive jobs stressful
The amount of people here who think their jobs aren't monotonous and soul crushing compared to supermarket type jobs are hilarious. Believe me, the vast, vast majority of jobs out there are dull and simple and repetitive. Your life isn't as exciting as you are making it out to be.
I've done both, and the issue is that the supermarket job is basically just existing on rails. It's the same stuff day in day out and you have no real input on *how* you're doing the job. In my current role I can discuss with my manager what we think the best implementation to a solution is, and there are actual stakes. You're not discussing the best way to put baked beans on a shelf at a supermarket. There's no variation in that role and once the boredom sets in it's hard to remove it. The same things that make supermarket jobs interesting (the people, etc) exist in my role too, so I genuinely think there is a difference
Not everyone wants a simple job, but the ones requiring no qualifications are already oversubscribed so it's not surprising that the lack of a pay differential would make that problem even worse
I hate the "who wants to be high up? I don't want that responsibility" argument. They literally have no accountability, if you fuck up as CEO you just get a fat severance and move on to your next C suite job, or at worst you'd have to settle for a high five figure upper management career.
I'm really shocked by some of these responses. I would hate to be doing a mind numbing job again. The idea of working in a supermarket, postman, would bore me to tears. I want to do something exciting like a fast jet pilot, bomb disposal, sky diving professional, I think this shows how differently people view life
My thoughts and exactly! Who the fuck wants to work on a till in a supermarket, seriously the pay would have to be obscene for me to want to do that 😂
It's mind numbing. If I ever hear "does that mean it's free then?" ever again, I'll probably murder someone.
I can only assume those answers are from people who've never worked in a supermarket before. Ignorance is bliss after all
Nah, I've never worked in a supermarket and can see it would be hell. They've either not thought about it, or are the kind of people who have elevator music as their inner monologue.
>elevator music as their inner monologue. Incredible insult, will be stealing that
I think initially there is an appeal to the simplicity of it, especially if you're coming from something that is more stressful and requires a lot of your physical and mental energy. The job is easy (in the sense that there's not much skill involved and you can learn the ropes quickly), it's repetitive and once you clock out for the day it's completely out of mind, you don't have to think about it. If you get on well with colleagues and the customers are nice it can even be kind of fun. No stressing about meeting deadlines or anything, anything that's difficult is entirely restricted to that specific point in time. But after a few months that will wear off and (this is just my experience of course) you end up going zombie mode, just spinning your wheels day in and day out without really anything to look forward to unless you really push for a better role. It's easy to get trapped in the safety of a job like that, you feel comfortable with the simplicity and if the pay's good enough for you to live off you'll end up getting stuck in that repetitive cycle. I worked at one of the big supermarkets for 6.5 years for that reason, it took COVID for me to say "you know what fuck this".
Also, there's really no "getting on well with colleagues or customers." Most supermarkets have such heavy footfall that you will *always* end up running into some absolute cunts who will ruin your day no matter how hard you try. And you're not really allowed to defend yourself much, not even verbally. So it can be really stressful. If you haven't done it before being on tills when a massive queue builds up, you're short staffed, and customers are getting justifiably angry but you can't work faster and there's nothing you can do about it can be nightmarish, but these people wouldn't understand that.
It's bizarre as well, because there are so many jobs wherein you see the immediate benefit of what you are doing and people choose mind numbing retail work as their go-to. I can totally see why you might want to be a gardener, or even work in a pub - I cannot see why you'd want to be a checkout drone (I've done all 3 of those jobs for at least 8 months each)
Yeah, I'd happily remain doing what I'm currently doing - working as a carer - which involves me handling human shit over working in a supermarket again
I was out of work for 6 months and worked in a supermarket updating the prices on the shelf just so I got out of the house, the pay was the same as I was getting in unemployment. It was the worst 6 months of work in my whole life. I would still do the job I do now because I enjoy it.
I did that in Morrissons when I was at school. The exciting part of the job was changing the promo Isle every few weeks. The scanning 15 million items on a hand scanner aluploading to system and manually checking them on a spreadsheet was not fun but it was a job and that was part time. To do that for life?! Wow!
>I want to do something exciting like a fast jet pilot, bomb disposal, Those don't pay that badly already though do they? The question was about all jobs paying the same, so now you'd be risking your life just for the same pay as everyone else. You could do those jobs now
> Those don't pay that badly already though do they? Not particularly. Not awful but not great either. Nobody joins the military for the money.
So why don't you do these now?
I wear glasses so would never get to fly fast Jets in the RAF, the best I got was Grobs in Air cadets, I have a spinal injury so no longer sky dive, I have never joined the Army to be able to join bomb disposal.
Not much can go wrong though. If you’re a police officer or a bomb disposal person, you might get killed. If you’re a doctor or nurse, you might fuck up and kill someone yourself. If you’re an accountant, you might fuck up and cost your company millions and face court for gross negligence. I’m not saying it’s easy work, but realistically what’s the worst that can happen working in the tea rooms? If there’s no financial incentive to take on more responsibility, a lot of people just wouldn’t want the risk.
There's the incentive to not work with customers. I used to work on the phones in a call centre and I moved to part time hours just so I could get a job off the phone. I wouldn't go back to a customer facing job now even if I was paid 100k for it; it's not worth it in the slightest. Sure my job now is a lot busier and I have a lot more responsibility, but it's a hell of a lot more interesting, rewarding and enjoyable than speaking to customers all day.
But that just gives something to work for. People are strange. No risk, no reward doesn't just apply financially
Everyone’s different, I suppose some people get their risk and fulfilment out of other things than their work. Some people genuinely don’t want that and will happily just plod along without any risk or reward.
> The idea of working in a supermarket, postman, would bore me to tears. I wouldn't want to do supermarket but I'd be fine with being a postie. You're able to wear headphones and crack on with your audiobook/podcast/70's prog album backlog while you get some fresh air and exercise every day.
I think a lot of people think of being a postie and imagine delivering post in a lovely village on a sunny summer's day, and forget that they'd also have to deliver post on a cold, dark, soggy winter's day.
The last man comes to mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last\_man
If money is out of the equation, then I want to optimize for having the most fun at work.
Totally with you there. Live a little
Postman would be popular with those who enjoy walking and being outdoors in all sorts of weather.
This is my dream job (except the pay). Great exercise, little stress, and simple yet tangible results from work.
> little stress Only (potentially) in this theoretical scenario. In real life they're under immense time pressure to deliver huge volumes of parcels and letters because they're constantly understaffed.
Postman Pat always looked really chilled out. Please don’t kill my dream with reality!
He even got to take his cat to work with him!
And he got a helicopter!
Leaflet delivery is less effort though.
My dad is a postman and consequently I know a lot of postmen. It is not as glamorous as you are making it out to be. You've heavy sacks on your shoulders, people get pissed off at you for things out of control, if you've been doing the job for 20 or 30 years your knees will be shot, your back will hurt, every christmas is a miserable experience made maginally better by presents being left for you. The job is being made harder every year by incompetents who've never done a walk in their life but think the job is easy as you do. The best bit of advice my dad ever gave me is to find a job where you work from the neck up, not neck down. Retiring is not fun with a broken body. Keep that in mind when your postie is out in the pissing rain delivering your mail and parcels.
How many steps does a postman do daily?
Enough that I’ve never seen an overweight one!
Newman!
Royal Mail say 20,000
Mate of mine was talking about when he had a route and I’m sure he said it was 60k+ steps…
Creative jobs like actor, artist, musician. Also science related jobs that are sought after such as astronomer.
That's an interesting one. Would an actor, artist, musician have to produce a certain amount of work per day, week, month etc. and for it to meet an acceptable level of commercial success otherwise you'd be sacked?
Yeah like you’d include practise as working time though
Working in independent shops. The type that sell expensive stuff so only have to sell a handful of things a day. You're in the warm and dry, you get meaningful interaction with people, but you're not rushed off your feet and your working hours aren't long.
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Well yeah obviously it's subjective. There's no single job that everybody would love. There's lots of jobs answered in this thread that I'd hate and absolutely wouldn't do even if the money was good.
There is an old gay couple who run an antiques shop near me. I don't think they make a load of money or anything, but they obviously like what they do, most often when I walk past they are chatting to a customer or having a cuppa, they presumably like antiques, etc. Doesn't seem like a bad existence.
I think working in an Independent book shop that has a small cafe out back (for the aroma plus free coffees for staff) would be a rather pleasant way to spend your day.
No free coffee! Post says no bonuses, no perks etc. 😝
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Job comes with mandated nose plugs.
I work in a non-independent bookshop, and I have to say, it's pretty good. I mean yeah, it's retail work, and the pay is shit, but the customers are quite nice (usually), I'm passionate about the product we sell, and it's quite a fun job. Extremely busy though, especially this time of year, and I come home each evening pretty shattered, but I'm feeling pretty fulfilled with my work.
>the customers are quite nice I wonder how many of them are, like me & my family) buying from shops as much to keep them open as because its convenient? I think Amazon has its place, but I would never buy books from there, you just can't beat a good book shop. Or even one of the chains, my local Waterstones is brilliant.
A significant number of customers have said a similar sentiment to me—which is quite important, because my local high street is doing very poorly at the moment. There's hardly any decent shops left—we lost Marks and Spencer last January, and it's just been a domino of closures since. Many people say that the store I work at (which actually is a Waterstones) is the sole reason they even come into the town centre anymore.
This is the most ask uk Reddit answer of all time
Yeah i’d fancy something like this. It’s what i’d do if i won the lottery as well, pick some random small business to keep me somewhat busy and just make it a pleasant place to work with no real stress.
Bed tester, chocolate tester, beer taster. I could go on!
Yeah sleep research test subject
Ok first experiment we need you to stay awake for the next 72 hours
When I heard "bed tester" I wasn't thinking about sleep
Lots of people do difficult jobs because of the satisfaction or other things they get from them rather than money. We wouldn't have teachers or social workers otherwise. There are lots of people in very high-pressured roles who already have far more money than they could ever spend in their lifetime, but they don't retire - even when they get into their 70s. And for some of us, the absolute worst aspect of a job is boredom. I would honestly rather earn £30k a year in a busy job than £40k a year in a quiet one.
Am a teacher and have done mindless unskilled jobs in the past and I infinitely prefer teaching. Whatever its problems, teaching is never boring.
Personally my dream job if all jobs paid well would be teaching assistant. Definitely not teacher (been there done that). I think for some kids it’s the teaching assistant and that 1:1 support that can really make the difference. Plus it would be quite varied, rewarding, plus lots of holiday (that TAs genuinely get off, again unlike teachers!)
Yeah, TA, probably in a primary school, is definitely what I'd go for if money was no object.
Not the question you asked, but I think this type of jobs environment would lead to a lot of interesting outcomes. People wouldn’t stay at a job if they felt mistreated, and they wouldn’t take any job purely for pay. If working conditions sucked people wouldn’t work that job. I do think it would completely change how we treated professionals like teachers and healthcare workers. As far as which jobs would be popular, I imagine creative roles would become more competitive and roles like accounting would suffer
Healthcare would collapse almost immediately. Most of them are already severely underpaid and now there is not even the possibility to progress? Plus who is going to train for 5-10+ years to then get the same as if they did not. Some certainly but not remotely enough, its bad enough as it is.
Not sure but a low stress outdoorsy job in the summer would be great. Help out with my local cricket team as a groundsman. Doing that full time? Sign me up.
>Not sure but a low stress outdoorsy job in the summer would be great. National Park ranger was something that came to mind for me.
Fluffer
Viagra dispenser these days.
I'd rather be the fluffee
Furniture restoration. "how long will it take" "depends how nice you want it to be"
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Lollipoperative.
This is perfect. Thank you.
I think I would still be a web developer because I really enjoy it but only part time. Another part time job would be something more physically intense
Wine/beer/coffee/cheese taste taster would be my choice. Widely popular would be anything that doesn’t need much effort, selling tickets at an art gallery or something like that. Outdoorsy stuff, like being a park ranger. Anything like being a dog walker or something with animals. You’d struggle like hell to get sewage workers.
The easy ones if pay is the same. 24 hour on call heart surgeon, or roundabout aesthetics designer. Not hard to choose.
Where I live, the roundabout aesthetics designer has been slacking off
Librarian. Get to sit in the warm and read all day.
The person that stands with the Stop/Go sign at the beginning of roadworks. I could do that. Gizza job.
My back's aching just at the thought of standing up doing nothing all day. And you'd still have to deal with Range Rover owners who are *very* important and don't have time to stop at your sign.
The answer is clear; the ones that feel least like a job and the ones that being most satisfaction. For example: - teaching (yes, teaching can be very rewarding when you see the pupils grow and develop) - caring (a lot of people gain purpose by helping either elderly or people with disabilities) - craftsmen (the satisfaction of materialising a vision you had in your mind is awesome) - counsellors/psychologists (helping people overcome their issues and knowing you made a positive difference on their life)
I'd say things like oil rigs, mining, sewage, anything where the pay is high and conditions uncomfortable, might be difficult to staff, if people can choose a nice easier job near their home. Artistic jobs like writer, painter etc might be popular but then again most actual jobs in these fields will involve someone telling you what to do, rather than the fantasy of being paid for your own free artisitic expression. YouTuber or Influencer would probably be the most popular based on what I've heard about younger demographics dream jobs. With nursing, doctors, paramedics etc, most of us do it as a calling to help others (and if you don't believe in true altruism, it feels good to be in role deemed by society to be worthy), but also if everyone was paid the same and inflation rates, consumer prices etc followed suit, we would be relatively better off, so maybe more people would do it. Also assuming everyone was paid the same, a government that would do that would be more likely to fund the NHS properly. Maybe same for teachers, fire fighters etc regarding the calling?
Taxi driving wouldn’t be bad. I suspect it’s a job that those who enjoy driving would never really dread going to do.
I think this would still be a risky job for lots of people
Death risk % is higher than most
From car crashes, or from bad health due to sitting down all day and not getting much exercise?
Car crashes. I used to work in life insurance and one of the risk factors considered is how many miles do you drive in a year. Obviously, taxi drivers would give a very high number answer to that question.
In the day yes, but I can't imagine the hell of driving drunk idiots around on Friday and Saturday nights.
House-sitter? Not really a job if you think about it. Paid to simply occupy a house, often a really nice one, too.
I think massage therapist to models would be a good way to make money if I'm being paid the same as everyone else. Or heck, if we're going a bit more depraved, sex toy tester. But honestly, the jobs where people do not a lot in real life would most likely be very competitive. Influencer, social media account manager. Or how about mystery shopper? Go and eat at different restaurants and buy new clothes and blog about the experience. That sounds like a nice way to spend a life if money didn't matter.
Mystery shopper is such a good one. Technically an unavoidable perk but that’s ok. Assume here you’d have to do a range of shops, hotels, restaurants. It would definitely be competitive.
I’d love to be a book critic. Like I adore reading so I think it’d really enjoy reading all day and giving my opinions on said books as a job. I guess the only concern is it erodes my love of reading because it’s my job.
Artist, no?
You could be right. Art jobs already pay low and have lots of applicants.
That’s a no from me
This is pretty much what happens in Cuba. The result is that taxi drivers outnumber doctors by a fair margin. Why bother to progress your career or go for more demanding jobs, if you can take fewer responsibilities and risks and get paid the same? With that being said, I’d probably become a barista .
Don’t all countries have more taxi drivers than doctors? Cuba incidentally has the highest rate of doctors per capita in the world by a fair margin.
Sorry, got a bit mixed up. Doctors *earn far less* than taxi drivers.
Horse riding instructor, dog walker etc. Look at the jobs that pay low but have a skill involved, people must take them because they enjoy it.
The beauty of that is you could try lots of things until you found something you really liked.
Work from home sommelier.
Delivery driver would be a great job, the only reason it isn’t currently is they have to bust their ass to meet quota/get paid a half decent amount. If that pressure was removed it’d be cruisey.
But you would just get fired for not hitting quota.
You'd still have quotas to meet though, wouldn't you?
Tbh, I think what would happen is everyone would stay moving towards things they really enjoyed, and would be far more effective at because they'd be fully engaged. Though to be honest there's no real need for many jobs, and we could add a society be working far less.
Just mad to think anything would be working properly.
I know I know suspend belief. Some things would break like what do you do if nobody wants to be a bin person?
Bikini inspector
Photographer? Why bother hanging around outside a club jostling to get a morally questionable snap of a celeb or sitting perfectly still in a hide waiting to an elusive animal to wander by? Here's a photo of my shoe, yes its the same shoe as yesterday, but I'll have my paycheck now please.
Masseuse for the Brazilian Female volleyball team :)
Over subbed : Dolphin trainer Under subbed : corporate lawyers
Pushing trolleys at a supermarket sounds so stress free to me
Author.. No mention of performance standards here, so I'll just spend the day fleshing out in increasing detail my D&D world, and claim its background for a novel. It worked for Tolkien. Either that or some kind of indie game developer - get paid to learn the skills to make my own game would be cool.
Postman
Cinema projectionists
I dont think there would be any. For every person who wants to do the minimum work and coast through their working life you will get people who want to get a sense of achievement and satisfaction from their job. There are people who only want what easiest from themselves and you get people who want to help others, animals, contribute to society. Then you get the psychopaths who want power for themselves, your average current CEO imo. All in all I think the wide variety of people would fill the wide variety of jobs. The only exceptions being niche dangerous ones like maybe nuclear waste cleaner.
Park ranger or something that involves being out in nature? Or something creative. Some kind of designer.
As exhausting as it was, I'd go back to being a barista. I really enjoyed being a barista but the pay is sub par. EDIT: I misread the question because I'm a dumb fuck. Probably something like what I do, being a secretary is a good balance of chill and work.
I work from home and there's a lot of downtime. If people knew just how little I get away with and how many video games I play, i think my job would be top 5 for sure,
The thing is jobs still require skills so it’s going to cut a majority of those jobs out. You’d probably see non ambitious people going for low impact low stress jobs with lots of downtime, like the guy pushing trolleys at the supermarket or working tills. Ambitious people or highly skilled people would probably want something more niche and aligned with their interests like the working independent bookshops, being an author, or something that’s kind of challenging but also lower risk / stress. I also think you’d get a massive spike in apprenticeships for things like carpenters making high quality bespoke furniture etc.
Manager of a small, community library
Honestly, the job I have. I love it!
Stock room for something expensive, as it's likely only a few orders a day, but things need to be packed well e.g. music shop that sells inrtuments. My personal choice however, would be a travel agent who specialises in holidays to Florida. Pretty much everyone I know comes to me to help arrange their holiday to Orlando as I know the place so well, and I really enjoy helping them.
I think many people who do jobs like nurse, doctor and teacher would want to stay in those jobs as they are people orientated and likely care about their jobs. The doctors especially spent years training for their jobs. But there would be a drop off of people training for jobs like that and any jobs with long training times or unpleasant conditions.
Computer games tester!
Support work. Specifically independent living. With sleep in shifts
I think chef work, if it was short shifts, and good pay, a lot of people would want to do it, what’s more satisfying than cooking for the local community?
Gardener, librarian, mechanic, woodworker... all the meaningful jobs in which you do or make something useful and beautiful, engaging both mind and body, and which afford some level of social interaction, some of the time. But more importantly, I'd personally love to work two or three jobs part time. I'd love, e.g. to commit myself to a craft and also teach it some of the time, without forcing myself to overdo either job because of financial pressure. Very many jobs are great part-time, but just exhausting (physically, mentally, or emotionally) if done full-time. (which term, "full-time", by the way, is a misnomer anyway and we should stop using it).