Job Jealousy

I was drifting around boston.com the other day and the header for a discussion forum caught my eye. Job Jealousy. It wasn't interesting enough for me to click through and see who was weighing in. But it sure got me thinking. And not for the first time.

I've known for quite a while now that I'd like Maureen Dowd's job, or Ellen Goodman's. Hey, I'm already writing a general interest, daily column. It's just that no one pays me to do it, nor do I have an assistant to do the scut work (like spelling, uploading and linking).

On the other hand, if you're as public an opinion-ator as MoDo, you surely run the risk that some unhinged creep would come after you. (Wonder if MoDo needs a body guard.)

I'd also be interested in a job working for a foundation, figuring out who gets what. Sure, I'm sure it's not all swanning around like Michael Anthony on the old b&w TV show, The Millionaire, giving a million dollars of John Beresford Tipton cash to some deserving soul. I'm sure there's plenty of wading through all sorts of prolix grant applications, researching the areas, vetting the information. Then there's having to do the Solomon when there are two equally worthy applicants, and informing the applicants (worthy or not) who are being turned down.

Even with the downsides, this is a job that I actively day dream about. (What if I won the $200M Powerballl? Naturally, I would divvy most of it up, but I would hang on to a chunk for My Foundation. Once I dispensed with the ick part - figuring out how to invest the money  - I would set myself up as Lady Bountiful and bestow away.

Short of my own foundation, how about Meg Vaillancourt's job with the Red Sox Foundation? She gets to give lots of money to noble causes, plus I bet she gets to see plenty of games. From good seats.

Now there's a job that I'd like.

I have long thought that I would be ideally suite to be chief of staff to a senator or congressman. Yes, I know that your life would not be your own, and I'm not the world's foremost detail person. Still, I like to listen, analyze, think, write, and get things done. I like politics. I like being in the know. I like observing interpersonal dynamics. And I don't care about being in the limelight.

Of course, being chief of staff to a politico would mean having to deal with someone who does crave the limelight. And there' be at least a 50-50 chance that the person would be a classic narcissist with an unbridled ego. Not to mention that there'd likely be one firedrill after the next. Yet this job still has great appeal to me.

As does the civilian counterpart: executive assistant. Which has the same potential problems I'd find in the political world: ego, firedrill, narcissism.

What else might be fun?

Well, I have a young friend who's an information archivist, which is something that you can do these days with a master's in library science.  She works with the archives of a well-known (dead) musician, mucking around with his papers and newly discovered recordings, and working with scholars and writers coming to research the great man.

That would be fun.

Not much downside, either, other than the must. And I guess you could get stuck with a really boring archiving job. (The person who invented Tang...)

Anyway, interesting to think of every once in a while. (And not surprising that pretty much every professional job I've ever had has some of the attributes of my jealousy jobs. Maybe I'm in the right place, after all.)