5 Jobs Everyone in the World Should Have at Some Point
I don't think I'm the smartest guy in the room. I've never claimed to have all the answers.
I just think that I know exactly what to do to make the world noticeably better, in the span of a year or two. That's all. I'm proposing that every person on the planet spends one or two years doing all five jobs on this list. I'm not saying it'll solve everything, just almost everything.
#5. Waiting Tables
Every waiter reading this article is quietly saying. "Fuck yes" at this moment, because everyone who has ever waited tables at some point has had this realization: If everyone was forced to wait tables for one year, the world would be so much better!
"And Mondays should be part of the weekend, and dogs should vote!"
Everyone has that realization because it's totally true. I've waited tables at shitty, poorly run diners; expensive, fancy restaurants; and a Ruby Tuesday (to me, the exact middle on that spectrum of restaurants), and all I could think was "Damn, everyone should have to do this awful, awful thing."
Why Everyone Should Have This Job:
You learn a whole lot about people by serving them. How a person behaves to the guy fetching his drinks says a lot about that person. And you, as a waiter, start to figure out what kind of person you want to be. Are you the guy who makes eye contact with your waiter and speaks to him like a human, or are you the guy who hisses when he wants to catch a waiter's attention (happened to me)? Everyone on the planet should know what it's like to have to serve someone else. It's humbling, and sometimes terrible, and some other times mostly OK.
#4. Something With Kids
Teacher. Camp counselor. Parent. Any one of those jobs works for this one. I was a camp counselor for a few summers, but that was when I was 17 and thus incapable of learning anything that wasn't related to chasing girls or eating French fries. But I'm older now and every once in a while, I work with children. I don't want to get into the specifics, so let's just say I moonlight as the foreman of a very successful nunchuck factory that exclusively employs white children between the ages of 6 and 11. I got into it a few years ago and just fell in love with it.
Their little hands are good at pressing the elaborate series of buttons I've installed.
I've picked up a few important lessons in my time as a stern but fair toddler-wrangling nunchuck-peddler, and not just that using free labor is an incredibly smart business decision (although oh my God yes). I didn't learn anything from the kids themselves (children are lying little shitboxes), but I learned plenty from the experience. For example, after work one day, we all went to a nearby playground to unwind. One of the boy-kids thought it might be cool to see how many kids could fit on a tire swing, and he asked me for permission. I thought about it, agreed that it seemed very cool in theory, but I wasn't sure if it would be particularly safe to load 23 children onto a rickety old tire swing. But they weren't my kids, and safety wasn't really my call, so I just shrugged.
"Absolutely," I said. "I'm sure if this was unsafe, one of the adults would stop us." I trusted the vague concept of the ever-present adult person who always kept me safe when I was doing dumb shit on playgrounds. The grown-ups would never let us do something if it was unsafe.
And when the eighth kid got on and a dangerous situation was clearly underway, I had a startling realization: I am the adult!
"But no one told me!"
Without realizing it, I had become something that resembled a grown-up authority figure to a bunch of stupid fucking kids, which was weird, because in my head I was still a stupid fucking kid. Being the only thing standing between children and the death that they seem to so desperately crave with their manic recklessness is sobering, to be sure. When I realized these kids trusted and unknowingly depended on me, I never took my position lightly again.
Anyway we could only get 11 kids on that swing.
Why Everyone Should Have This Job:
It's important to, for at least a little while, be the person on whom little kids rely for their safety. Obviously parents don't need to do this job, but anyone else, like me, who is on a direct path of relaxing selfishness and childless leisure should have to understand the pressure and stress of trying not to ruin children. The quickest way to feel like a grown-up is to have a little kid hate you for keeping them safe.
Also, you'll learn to have more empathy for absolutely anyone who does have children, because kids are the worst people on the planet. Sticky little liars who can't even hunt, that's what all of them are, and anyone who dedicates their lives to raising them deserves slack, all the time, from everyone.
#3. Tech Support of Any Kind
I've never had a job working in tech support, but I have called it, and I am an idiot, so I have a pretty good idea of what they have to deal with. Tech Support, as a concept, sounds impossible to me: You get on the phone with someone who has a problem they can't articulate that they want you to fix, and then they yell at you if you don't do it.
I'm not very tech savvy, but I certainly know more than my parents, so I try to help them over the phone whenever something goes wrong with their computer or Blu-ray player or the attack robot I bought them for their last anniversary. It's really tough for someone to talk about computers if they didn't have them growing up, because there's a language barrier; they just don't have the vocabulary. Everyone who has ever had to help their parents fix a computer knows this. And, if you work in Tech Support, you have to deal with the computer illiterate parents of the entire world. And other just general, run-of-the-mill idiots. Like me. As I said, I know more about computers than my parents, but not a lot. I still have to call a professional when something goes wrong with my computer. This is what one of those calls typically looks like:
Me: Hey, my computer's not how it usually is.
Tech: Alright, sir, I'm happy to help. Why don't you tell me what's wrong with it?
Me: It's just broken. And it's usually not. That's the weird thing.
Tech: OK, what's ... Tell me what you're doing, describe what things look like.
Me: I'm talking on a phone, things are looking good.
Tech: Talk about your computer.
Me:I hate it!
Tech: Sir, look at your computer screen at the parts that aren't working, and tell me what you're doing and what you see when they don't work.
Me: Well, I want to open a browser, but when I use the browser and click on the browser, the browser doesn't come up. What do you think it means?
Tech: I think you're calling too many things "Browser." I would like you to pick one thing to call "Browser." Doesn't matter which, just decide one of the things on your computer is the browser, and then give different names to anything that isn't that.
Me: I'm going to call the clicky thing that fits in my hand the "browser," because I use it when I browse the brows- Oh, shit. I'm still doing it.
Tech: That's fine. Why don't you just restart your computer?
Me: Help me! The screen is different now.
Me, doing my best.
Tech: That's fine. Are you seeing a blue screen?
Me: I don't know that I'd call it "blue," exactly.
Tech: Well, what color would you call it?
Me: Doesn't really feel like my place to say.
Tech: Sir, please tell me what color your screen is currently.
Me: I'll give you this: It's definitely in the blue family. It's, like, a cousin of blue.
Tech: That's fine, sir, thank-
Me: Like a second cousin of blue, I misspoke.
Tech: That's very good, sir. Now, if you-
Me: Ah! My phone's in my mouth now! Can you do anything about that?
Tech: Sir, I can't hear you.
Why Everyone Should Have This Job:
Tech Support is about teaching someone who doesn't speak the same language as you to fix their problems just by talking to them. Imagine how much better we, as a global community, would be at communicating with each other if we all had to spend a year in Tech Support. In the way that a lawyer trains her mind for organizing thoughts and building arguments, a Tech Support employee trains his mind for pleasantly and efficiently communicating with people who are much, much dumber.
Retail! Please, dear god, I beg of society, you all need to work in a retail store. At the holidays. Overtime. Having to deal with people who want to return things that 1) you don't carry in your store; 2) are past the return date; 3) damaged, etc. Having to deal with kids who run around and tear up your store. Having to deal with people getting frustrated because they can't find something a week (or the day before) Christmas and seem shocked, SHOCKED that you are out of it, or order something right before Christmas and are angry that you didn't magically make it appear in your store overnight. Having to deal with fistfights on Black Friday because someone just HAS to be at a store at 4 am ('cause, naturally, who doesn't want to go to work at 4 in the morning? Why bother with sleep?) to get the latest video game or big TV or iPad or whatever the hell else is the big sale item. Having to deal with people who don't get the concept of opening/closing hours and feel the need to stand there impatient that you aren't open yet, or come in two minutes to closing because they "just want to look at one thing really quick". And so on and so on. Everyone needs to experience that once.
ReplyI've done three of these yay! Actually not yay, it was awful.
ReplyWhat a great frigging article. I kind of do think you should be in charge of the world. Also, your description of tech support conversations KILLED me!
ReplyEvery f*****g manager alive should have to do #1 for some time. In almost every job I have had (11) ALMOST every manager was good at passing off their work on someone else. They did this so they never had responsibility and gave them the ability to point the finger if anything went wrong. #1 is so f*****g true.
ReplyWhich is another reason everyone should do #2...so they can see that what they THOUGHT was the manager passing off their work to someone else is actually the manager delegating because they have more important things to do that a peon like you has no clue about.
Both of these (DSOne and Feek) made me think of how happy it makes it me on those rare occasions I go into work and see my manager doing a ginormous pile of dishes. Normally, she does all those managerial duties that I have no clue about, but once in a while, it's nice to see her doing the same task all of us hate doing.
I interact with people enough for the waiting tables - I suppose that experience came with farmer's market sales.
ReplyKids? HELL NO. I hate the little cretins and won't go near one with a 10km pole.
Tech support? the blond side of my family. No, not a blond joke, just a noticeable trend in hair colour.
Power? I don't want it. I'd probably crash everything within my first hour.
Mindless tedium? doing that now. It's actually fairly satisfying.
Working with kids eh?
ReplyProbation Officer....time to start applying.
I jail you because I love you..and it's funny.
I think hotel worker needs to be added to this list. I have actually been yelled at by a man in a bathrobe, because he flushed his own necklace down his toilet. And this was not 2am while he was drunk. This is a sober man, and 4 in the afternoon, in front of multiple other guests. I have learned so much more patience because of my experience with this job. But the amount of rage I have bottled up, may one day blow the cork right off and into the windpipe of a stranger who decided 17 towels wasn't enough to take a shower....
ReplyHaving done all of the jobs on this list at some point in my life, I can tell you that what you describe is a combination of being a waiter and being tech support, so technically your job is covered in the article (just not explicitly so).
I've done pretty much all of these except tech support, unless trying to explain to my dad that I can't just magically will ringtones onto his phone counts. Or trying to get my aunt to understand that if you have a wireless router, then you probably have wireless internet. Why the hell would you buy one if you don't even know what it's for? Also being a waitress sucks and having power sucks. You know what? Work in general is just kinda sucky. Also, I want some crunchy peanut butter.
ReplyMAn I wish I could have some power for once at a job place, and I agree that people should as a waiter, but I don't really want to do it, and I love mindless intensive labor jobs they are a lot of fun.
ReplyPower in a restaurant is more fun than power in an office. In a restaurant you can abuse your employees because 9 times out of 10, they're gonna be gone soon anyway.
It doesn't cost anything to be polite, people just seem to think it's easier to be rude. I always try and remember to be extra nice to tech support and waitstaff. My thank you's and pleases may help brighten their day. I know it does when someone is nice to me at my job.
ReplyPlus, if you're nice to us, we won't f**k you over the first chance we get. :)
I worked tech support for 3 years. Customers can be anywhere from good (nice), to ok (stupid), to bad (angry and stupid) to crazy (BREAD IS GLUE!!!!!). The worst part of techsupport is actually not the customers, but the internal retarded rules that make no sense. I swear, I could not get any angrier then fixing a persons' problem, getting a good review, AND THEN getting yelled at because I knew more then the system did.
ReplyThat said, when I call tech support I basically set ground rules with them if I have an issue. I tell them what it is, they answer directly. They don't, I yell at them. I've only had 1 of 20 tech guys try to veer my call into a sales call and get yelled at.
Or the rules about how long you're allowed to stay on the phone with a customer, regardless of whether or not it took that long to actually fix the problem.
this was a brilliant article, I'm sorry I missed it earlier... Great job DOB.
ReplyMy job is a horrible, horrible combo of most of these, and nobody seems to realize that because it's fast food. We get treated like absolute crap (I had a DILDO thrown at me while working), but yet I am still friendly to EVERY CUSTOMER. Unless they drive in drunk, high, or both.
ReplyDrunk, high or both are my favorite customers. Make a stupid joke and they'll be your best friend.
The tech support one can easily be expanded to telemarketing and customer service as well.
ReplyEveryone who gets a call from a telemarketer is a complete a*****e on the phone, and everyone who calls customer service for anything other than checking their balance, making a payment, s**t like that is a whiny melted down mess of a human being.
Tech support is customer service. I've done tech support, but I would NEVER do telemarketing...that job scares the s**t out of me.
O'Brien is my FAVORITE writer on this site because he's funny while also being interesting and good for humanity! I mean, this article ROCKS! He's totally right!
Replyi love washing dishes... i work fast food so half my job is dishes, i'm the dishwasher.
Replysometimes people take my dishwashing.
then i point a dirty knife at them and threaten their lives unless they get back in the goddamn kitchen. dishes are MY f*****g shit.
Good list, but I'd also recommend a job where high visibility vests are required. Some people (coincidently, almost always those who have never had to wear one) seem to think that not wanting to get flattened by a truck makes you a wimp.
ReplyI've never been a waitress (though I would gladly be one if the opportunity arose), but I just can't understand people who are rude to their serving staff. It's as if their acting in that capacity makes some people stop seeing them as people, just as... things that bring them food.
ReplyI can have slow, rude, inaccurate service, and yet I always tip and say thank you. I just can't bring myself to be unpleasant to them, cos for all I know their cat died that day, the cook is sexually harrassing them, and the manager is threatening to fire them.
Otoh, if you are nice and tip slow, rude and inaccurate sevices, you signal them that the quality of their work doesn't matter. If everybody still tips them, why improve on that?
Puchkin: I can see how that might make sense from a totally outside perspective, but as a former server I can tell you that giving a standard tip to a below-standard server is not an incentive to keep sucking. Why? Because servers criticize each other and relay info back to the managers, incentivizing the poor performers to shape up, and more importantly servers talk amongst themselves about how much they're making. Under a system where everybody at least tips the minimum, not-so-great servers are incentivized to improve by knowing how much more (and it's a *lot* more) they could be making if they improved, and they're further motivated by peer pressure and the vague knowledge that they could easily be let go if they don't pick up their game.
"Kids are the worst people on the planet"
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesThis is the most true statement ever. When people claim kids are innocent or pure, I know they have never worked with them.
Or been kids... the amount of cheating while playing hide-and-seek alone should dispell any ideas of kids being innocent around age 6...
Lying is one of the first and most important skills a child learns. There has been links between the amount of lying at a young age and intelligence as well
that "lying little shitboxes" line almost killed me, I got teenagers, they are evil creatures.
There is a reason I always make sure to tip my waiters/bell hops/ pizza delivery people well. It's because I hope that a good tip would somehow make up for the assholes that they have to deal with on a regular basis.
Reply