List of Careers

This will get organized into categories as the list expands. Reasoning for page is at bottom of page.

New page, under construction as of 3/20/23 - this is a huge undertaking so please be patient; if you need a job right now then consider writing out one of these with all the job options you are considering for yourself. Please also see Least Worst Workplaces section for even more ideas

General Tips For Finding A Job Or Career That Fits

• 4/23/23 Just found something out: a lot, and I mean a lot, of libraries function pretty much like job placement agencies. If you're searching for a job and are sincere about it, talk to a librarian, they might just be able to help you. Please also avail yourself of a library card and check out all of their online resources too.
• #1 tip: avoid all lying to yourself. You're the one living your life not anyone else. If you aren't working for you, and filling up your own cup, how can you properly help anyone else? It's not possible. Ayn Rand said "in order to say I love you, you have to say "I"" and that's the truth. After all, there's no point in being in a relationship with a "we;" that means the other person is interchangeable with anyone else. That's uh, Communist, and that's toxic. And all work is a relationship in one way or another. Come to think of it, Communism is a very potent way of saying "we hate you all. Give us everything."
• Seek out nontoxic bosses, managers and coworkers. If you don't have those, it will probably not be worth the effort. In particular if they value anything more than competence, such as good looks, nepotism, or other unprofessional behavior, do not work there. I'd say if they have a high turnover rate and don't value the employees that are the most competent, do not work there.
• Know what you don't mind doing and would like to do for a very long time. If you aren't sure, mull it over before you begin the search.
• Be realistic about your limits and abilities, and how you can develop them. If you plan to wreck your body or your mind (or your ethics or your soul, take a look around ya, yikes) over a paycheck, don't. Find something else. SOMETIMES MOVING TO A DIFFERENT LOCATION IS NECESSARY FOR THIS
• The ideal is a job doing what you love, that you are as good at as you can possibly be, which you can do over a long period of time without hurting yourself and which you are able to do well. If you can't do that, choose a job or career you do not mind doing which you are able to do well over a long period of time. Competence is always going to trump everything else. If it doesn't, then my dude, you are at the wrong workplace.
• This list focuses on those jobs that actually are essential to the functioning of society. If you choose something else, prepare to lose it at a moment's notice. For instance middle management and many government jobs actually are classified as unnecessary bloat, but currently receive a large paycheck. This is in practice Communist and it shouldn't happen...
• This list also focuses on those jobs that are not likely to get automated, such as how ditch digging is no longer a thing since we have machines for that.
• There are jobs that a lot of people want to do which are classified as "the fun stuff." These are often pursued as recreation, entertainment, or hobbies by people who work in other fields during their time off. They can get pretty good at it too, especially if they love it despite not wanting to earn a living from it, which means you have to outcompete all of them. Don't expect to earn a living from these unless you do a whole lot of work to get there. If you do happen to earn something from them, great, and if you do happen to get super lucky and earn a lot from these, great, but hinging your whole life on "making it" is a lot of pressure. It is not a cop-out to work a day job as well as a fun job; it's a survival skill. The fact of the matter is we have a lot of jobs that need to get done and too few people want to do those, hence all the outsourcing and hiring illegal immigrants to do the worst stuff, i.e. agricultural labor... at any rate if you really plan to be successful at one of these then you'd better plow a lot into that skill tree. Also, if you love something enough to do it for a living, and still love it after all the work and bullshit that involves, that's great, but better if you think about it first and reason through if you really want to go through all that. Half-assing any of the "fun stuff" just oversaturates the field and gives it a bad reputation, plus wastes your time and everyone else's. You love it? Okay, how much? Keep it as a hobby if you don't want the heartache and lessons learned.
• There are crafts jobs that can be linked to the "fun stuff." These are a lot harder, but if you really love doing them, they need doing!
• Know thyself. Know your tolerance for socially related work bullshit such as pecking order, social maneuvering, and other Communist crap. Also your tolerance for the de facto dictatorship that is a business, since the US has no laws against this kind of thing in business and is very heavily in favor of business owners. If you'd prefer to work alone better to realize it before you enter the workforce.
• Know your own penchant for professionalism and your own quirks. If you do not do your job to the best of your ability, is someone going to die or suffer a lot? Are you the type of person that is kind of scatterbrained? Choose a job that fits you and your personality as well as your talents.
• No matter what your job is, professionalism is everything. Everything.
• Figure out what you're looking for in a job before you look for it. Get as detailed and descriptive as possible before you begin the search. Hopefully this list of possible careers helps, but there are many others online, by all means look at those too
• Once you know what you are looking for, get as much education as you can for the job. Keep getting education and training for it too. Improve at it for as long as you want the job. It may take fifteen years for you to get the necessary education; know thyself. Thing is, it's not wise to enter college before you know exactly what career you want to have at the other end of it. Such was not mentioned to Millenials, therefore I am mentioning it to you. I've met more than a few people my age who either did that and went on to earn a bunch in a job that I don't think they really questioned, rat race type thing, and lots who dropped out of college only to realize they never wanted the career they intended to study for in the first place. And boy, academia has stagnated... it gives you a higher caste in this caste system at the end but people are gonna leeeearn that a lot of the folks who got the degrees did not actually learn the thing.
• There are jobs, and there are careers. "Jobs" get you through life. Careers can be done for a very long time and are worth the effort. There is a difference. However, that difference is not just about money and how many figures you earn in a year. It's defined by the individual. For instance, if you really like a job, for instance working at Dollar Tree, and want to do it for the rest of your life, that is a career. If you hate your job at Dollar Tree, then it's just a job.
• Visit local community colleges and bigger colleges and universities, institutions of higher learning. If you can't in person, then do so at least on their websites. See what's available and see how much it costs. There might just be something that interests you. If you've already done all that, and you can't find a single thing that is worth the cost, try another location a state over or heck across the country. And if you've done that also? Either talk to a trustworthy (and willing to talk about this) college professor that also does advising and let them know your general field of interest, or roam around this site and others on the net to see if there's anything interesting out there. And if you ARE a college professor? You have a golden opportunity to start your own freaking colleges and institutions of higher learning, because so very many of them right now are just worthless overpriced wastes of time more interested in maintaining their power and prestige and getting their students higher paying jobs at the end than ensuring the students actually learn anything. And you can quote me on that. In fact, it's for this reason that I recommend recent high school graduates searching for a serious education from colleges to broaden their search to include overseas institutions, even if they have to learn a foreign language to attend them. -recommendation posted May 2023
• 5/21/23 There are a surprisingly large number of jobs available that need doing, but also a large amount that are going to go the way of the dodo a lot sooner than you think. If anyone could call your career field "parasitic" or "not real work," think twice about getting into or staying in that field. The funny thing is that a lot of hyperspecialized fields, especially ones that people can DIY, are increasingly being DIY'd and well by people and you can also do that yourself to avoid paying a "pro" that overcharges and doesn't actually do their job.

HELPFUL BOOKS

• Careers by Dorling Kindersley Publishing, Revised and Updated New Edition

CAREER LISTING

LEGAL

• Potentially feasible for anyone disabled if you have a wheelchair or other mobility aid to get to the courthouse, to the office, and back home; does require a degree unless you plan to just do secretary-type work
• Lawyer
• Judge
• Paralegal
• Notary
• Actuary

SEDENTARY TYPE STUFF

• Possibly accessible for folks who are disabled depending on the kind of work and if it is from-home or in-person
• If it's bureaucratic, there is a job for it. Pushing papers, handling irate customers and phones, and more... definitely not for everyone but a godsend if you have limited mobility AND the patience of a saint. Check the government jobs database, and local, county, and state government offices for this sort of thing. Legal offices too.
• Accounting
• Bookkeeping
• Air traffic control
• Administrative jobs in whatever is the biggest fish in your pond aka biggest driver of commerce in your area - in a lot of places this will be a utility company, a large factory, or a college, or the administrative branch of a grocery store, or a neighborhood gym, or anything like that. This will often involve office politics, backstabbing, brown-nosing, talking to irate people on the phone and in person, and the usual human dog-eat-dog rat race, but it is a job. And honest to goodness I really think people who are disabled should get preference for these, for reasons of this type of thing is often what disabled people can physically DO, but a lot of able bodied folks are trying to just get a cushy gig.
• Virtual assistant definition provided by Investopedia. In many cases it seems to be just plain old secretary work done from a computer, and employers often use that ploy to avoid paying extra taxes for full-time work and paying employees for benefits like 401k and health insurance. "Independent contractor" is the politically correct term here, I think it's a crooked way of doing business. See if you can find someone that actually will take you on as a full-time employee.
• Vehicle driver - tons of options here, including truck driver, pilot, cab driver, shuttle driver, bus driver, delivery driver. That said, never take on a job like this where you own your own vehicle unless you can afford the extra maintenance and/or replacing it every few years.
• Phone operator for 911
• Phone operator for other numbers, such as Poison Control, 811, government jobs, or jobs in a utility company's office
• Design engineering
• Architectural drafting
• Financial advising of any sort, from personal finance to investing
• Human resources, which is overpopulated with schmucks right now, so if you can do an actual good job there and hire folks with merit instead of just whoever sucks up best, kudos to you
• Customer service - choose the company or business wisely as if its goals don't mesh with yours, it's just a paycheck
• Secretary work or office work - choose the company or business wisely as if its goals don't mesh with yours, it's just a paycheck
• Legal transcription
• Health transcription
• Translation. However, this is deceptively "easy" to get into and for translation that matters the margin of error is zero. Have you seen the Bible and its multitude of bad translations? I rest my case.
• Publishing work - editing in particular, despite the monotony is a highly saturated field

COMPUTER RELATED

• Also highly accessible for disabled folks who like to work with computers
• Programming - there are many, many languages and operating systems
• Debugging and computer repair
• Computer and IT systems manager: note that this nowadays requires a great deal of computer security savvy
• Running a monetized website of some sort that's a less toxic replacement for the crap we all know

RENTAL PROPERTIES

• Maintenance
• Groundskeeping

TRADES

Construction

• Roofing
• Painting
• Masonry and bricklaying
• Concrete work
• Cabinet makers; bench carpentry
• Welding
• Tiling
• Drywall installation
• Iron and steel work
• HVAC
• Home Construction Manual Labor (in general)
• Heavy Vehicle operation (such as steamroller, Bobcat, crane, etc.)
• Carpentry and framing
• Plumbing
• Electrician Work
• Potentially helpful resources: Fine Homebuilding magazine, Taunton series of homebuilding books (confession: I have a personal interest in these; they're pretty cool)
• There are a whole lot of other specialties, but I do not know them

MANUAL LABOR

• Often found as temporary or gig work. The high paycheck doesn't make sense until you realize these exact a high toll on your body, especially joints, over time. Be very careful. Also, since these can mess up your body if you aren't careful, and WILL if you do this over time, accept a high paycheck or nothing at all, is my recommendation. To do this officially and with the best possible practices, seek out official certifications, membership in tradesman's guilds, unions, bonds, and workman's comp insurance.
• Double-digging or rototilling backyards
• Mowing lawns
• Landscape maintenance
• Pulling up weeds during the growing season for folks who garden (note: bring your own tools or it won't work no matter how hard you try)
• Arborist
• Massage therapy - yes, this is manual labor
• Shoveling snow
• Cleaning houses and/or vacated rental properties (yikes)

FIX-IT

• General item refurbishing and repair shop, perhaps employing various specialists under one roof - note that some pawnshops do a little of this, but it can certainly be improved on in a lot of places
• Appliance repair and maintenance
• Vehicle repair and maintenance
• Electronics repair
• Antiques repair/restoration
• Furniture repair
• Shoe improving and/or repair
• Book repair
• Tailoring and alterations for clothing (usually part of a dry cleaner/laundromat's basic operations)

MANUFACTURING

• Assembly line work
• Machine technician
• Custodian
• Mechanical engineer
• Electrical engineer
• Manufacturing quality control
• Research and development

ENGINEERING

• Civil engineering; maybe we can have infrastructure that makes sense? Please?
• Mechanical engineering
• Chemical engineering
• Electrical engineering

BIG BOX STORES AND WAREHOUSES

• Moving merchandise, via physical labor or vehicles or both
• Cashier or other grocery store work
• Retail work... ugh, customer service

HEALTH CARE

• Note: I highly suspect the entire mental health care industry will get integrated into the physical health care industry sooner rather than later, particularly due to the lack of professionalism and scientific rigor within said industry and the resultant mess doctors often have to clean up
• Office work, billing, front desk stuff
• Birth control clinic of some variety, very popular these days for obvious reasons. Sure, I might be "pro life." That doesn't mean I want a blanket ban on all abortions ever, and it certainly doesn't mean I want everyone who needs birth control to have to jump through umpteen hoops to get it. Only terrible people want that, and a lot of them deserve to go to prison. Forever.
• Nursing
• Doctor (wide range of specialty fields)
• Physician assistant
• In-home care
• Phlebotomy
• Pediatrician
• Dentistry
• Orthodontist
• Anesthetist
• Surgeon
• Optometrist
• The whole bunch of stuff related to Ob/Gyn work: Ob/Gyn, midwife, doula, lactation specialist, there's probably more
• Podiatrist
• Pharmacist
• Hospital or clinic janitor
• Nutritionist
• Physical therapist
• Medical research
• Drug rehab specialists
• Occupational therapist - really helpful these days, especially considering all the people I know who have issues getting/holding down jobs and taking good care of themselves due to mental health issues or physical disability; in fact the more of these we have that do a good job, the less people have to get on disability benefits
• All the rest of it. It's a huge, enormous industry

CHILD CARE

• Day care
• Preschool work
• Kindergarten teacher
• K-12 teacher
• Child Protective Services
• Foster care worker
• Social worker

TRANSPORTATION

• Truck driver
• Bus driver
• Railroad conductor
• Pilot
• Flight attendant
• Air traffic controller
• Helicopter pilot
• Cab driver
• Delivery driver

TEACHING

• Basically anything, as long as you're very good at it
• More unconventional ways of earning a paycheck as a teacher include writing a textbook in your field of study, setting up a Youtube channel for same, and working for an online college

JOURNALISM AND TELECOMMUNICATIONS

• If we actually had a good and not crap news source, I'd recommend this, but as it stands they are all biased and/or part of a worthless monopoly. Good luck.
• Start your own newspaper. I mean, it's not like we have anything good right now. Market is wide open.
• Start your own magazine. You wanna know why print media has fallen out of favor? Even e-media? The publishers ain't in touch with reality of their would-be purchasers. If you wish to court younger generations' subscriptions, here's how: cater to people who are poor, who want to be more educated and well-informed, make it well worth the reader's time by quantitatively improving their quality of life, and don't bullshit. It's that simple. How do I know? Because everyone I talk to these days is thirsty and hungry for knowledge and media these days is a clickbait desert of monotonous wastes of time.

MILITARY

• Army
• Navy
• Air Force
• Marines
• Coast Guard
• National Guard

GOVERNMENT

• Local, state, or national government politician, by way of experience working for politicans you support and possibly also a political or legal degree or both
• FBI
• CIA
• DMV work... you can't possibly be worse at it than the idiots that are already there
• Anything related to city government, such as vehicle tags, license plates, marriage licenses, in fact all of it - same thing applies
• Anything related to state government - same thing applies
• Park ranger
• OSHA
• EPA
• FEMA
• NASA
• CISA (Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency)

CITY SERVICES

• Garbage collection
• Recycling collection
• Wastewater treatment
• EMS
• Police
• Detective work
• Janitorial work anywhere
• Telecommunications (cell phone work, internet work)
• Criminal investigation
• Power plant work (basically any)
• Bodyguard or bouncer (veterans often preferred)
• Prison work (guard, janitor, etc.)
• Asylum or mental health facility work (guard, doctor, etc.)
• Water treatment, water quality, and hydrology
• Firefighter
• 911 operator
• City plumbing
• Librarian
• Tree trimming and pruning for electric company
• Street sweeping
• Subway or train conductor
• Surveying
• Road repair and construction
• USPS
• Parks and recreation
• Cemetery maintenance

ANIMAL CARE

• Veterinarian
• Dog groomer
• Dog walker
• Pet sitter
• Animal shelter worker
• Animal care worker - wide variety of jobs can be had here, and all of them involve cleaning up poop

FARMING

• Livestock farming
• Farming crops
• Raising seedlings from seed to sell in mini pots
• Beekeeping
• Making anything for sale at a local or regional farmer's market (note: usually has to actually be a farm product, not something like quilts or candles, but check)

ENVIRONMENTAL REMEDIATION AND ECO FRIENDLY

• Everything listed in the Fix-It section
• Any kind of work at a place that sells anything secondhand
• Work on an organic farm; it's hard work, but it's usually available. Fair wages can be had from fair and good employers, and not from others, so be careful.
• Forestry
• Ecologist
• Just about anything to do with a good recycling plant, a recycling process, or upcycling
• Anything to do with work at an environmental law firm or environmental charity's legal arm, as long as said business is itself ethical
• Road construction work, since it prevents inefficient transportation and efficiency is better for the environment by a long shot
• Home cleaner, using eco-friendly hypoallergenic products only (note: this is wildly difficult and not for everyone)
• Car wash employee - prevents rust, keeps vehicles on the road longer, prevents people from using chemicals in their driveways and then polluting rivers etc.
• Car mechanic - yes really, improves vehicle efficiency and performance and increases miles per gallon
• Greywater installation and maintenance
• Making bagged compost and selling it locally
• Drip irrigation installation and maintenance
• Electrician work, electrical engineering, and solar panel type work
• Anything to do with electric vehicles
• Anything to do with the wind, solar, geothermal, and renewable energy generation industries
• Cleanup of contaminated sites and environmental remediation thereof
• Organic landscaping service
• Organic gardening service
• Organic yard maintenance service
• Organic plant nursery employee or owner
• Energy-efficient eco-friendly construction company, or remodeling company; energy-efficient retrofits are a huge business opportunity right now
• Miyawaki forest, wetlands, or other natural carbon sink creation company - the technology exists, the know-how exists, yet the companies don't. Yet.
• Commercial real estate management company that buys commercial real estate, converts it to 100% renewable energy and the most eco-friendly operations possible, and rents it out to franchises in exchange for maintaining the properties - again, the tech exists, the company doesn't yet
• Same deal for rent-to-own properties for people to live in. In fact there is one blog of someone doing exactly that on a small scale as a house flipper here
• Home contractor that makes homes more energy efficient and therefore more eco friendly and more comfortable
• This one is a very old fashioned one: pool money with trustworthy people and buy land that is co-owned with a specific, detailed legal agreement of how the land is to be used and managed. Grow some forest on it, or whatever other kind of wilderness is native to the area. Make forest products or products from the land. Grow some gardens there also; sell the produce at a farmer's market.

FOOD SERVICE

• Restaurant work / custodial work for those
• Cafeteria work
• Set up your own food truck; supplement income with cookbooks you write or possibly ebooks or both

MISCELLANY

• Whatever you can do that other people need done, but no one else in your area can do it, or can do it as well as you
• Personal assistant - if there's anyone who is absolutely a workaholic or otherwise overwhelmed and needs to delegate, you can be the person they delegate to.
• Research scientist - choose a specialist field, get very good at it, and then you can potentially find a job. There are so many different sciences, and all of these are at the forefront of human technological progress. Although older generations value science and intellectual pursuits less, younger generations value them greatly and the future looks better than the past in this regard (when scientists were essentially thrown into a chum bucket)
• Inventor - also potentially good for folks who are disabled. A lot harder than it sounds! Nonetheless the world needs inventions probably more than it needs a good many other things. Especially eco-friendly ones.
• Work in research and development arm of any big agency such as government, college, business, or corporation
• Entrepreneur; business owner - uhhhhhh usually requires a business degree, I'm currently researching how to DIY it and bootstrap it
• Ask yourself if you've been doing things that you could have charged for but didn't... and ask yourself why. If the answer has anything to do with low self-esteem, then it's likely the more ethical option to charge for it.

THE GOTH OR MACABRE STUFF

• Anything involving funerals or mortuary science
• Toxicologist
• Forensic scientist

THE FUN STUFF

• Art
• Cartooning
• Making comic books or manga, or participating in that process
• Writing
• Stand-up comedy
• Sculpture
• Makeup and esthetician work
• Salon and hairstylist work
• Floristry
• Photography
• Animation
• Professional entertainer, such as stage magician, ventriloquist, fire torch juggler, etc.
• Wedding and/or party planner
• Wedding and/or portrait photographer
• Flower growing (note: quite difficult, but if you can manage this with organic methods that's even better; there's a void in the market for this kind of thing right now)
• Dance
• Tarot reading - I say with experience anyone can do it. Almost no one can do it well.
• Music
• Circus performance, street performance, or other performance entertainment (note: stripping is quite lucrative and always brings in the money but is very difficult work, and uh, cutthroat; it is not for everybody, same deal for burlesque)
• Acting
• Movies/TV type stuff
• Athletics, including sports, cheerleading, any kind of athletics featured in the Olympics or Winter Olympics, gymnastics, and so on

ENTERTAINMENT RELATED - SEEMINGLY FUN, NOT ACTUALLY FUN UNLESS YOU LIKE IT

• Bartending
• Nightclub bouncer, veterans usually preferred
• Basement music performance gig house/host
• Event DJ

MISCELLANEOUS SEEMINGLY FUN, NOT ACTUALLY FUN UNLESS YOU LIKE IT

• Modeling

CRAFTS

• Note 1: You will likely need to be your own boss and set up your own business
• Note 2: If you don't really love what you do, then the 80 hour weeks will not be worth it
• Note 3: Since the field is overloaded with hobbyists trying to make a buck, not to mention mass production from factories, to set yourself apart from the pack you must have consistency, excellence, and great customer service. You also have to be extraordinary.
• Note 4: It is to your benefit to automate everything you can
• Upcycled anything; mosaic work is the most well known probably but there's lots of opportunity here
• Basketry; handmade baskets are still in demand. They are quite beautiful and folks still use them. In fact wickerwork furniture is still used too, as is all the other stuff made of wicker - trays, baskets for hanging stuff from a wall, wreath bases, etc. etc. there is really a lot of it
• Coopering: I can't seem to find a decent half-barrel for my gardening to save my life! As for homebrewers, there's nothing like a barrel for aging spirits
• Tincturing: the only store online that makes quality tinctures with a 1:2 ratio of herb to liquid is Herbie's Herbs. The others are uh, not worth buying. Mostly alcohol.
• Whatever your grandparent taught ya, if they did - might be something you can make a business out of.
• Furniture
• Metalworking/tinsmithing and metal crafts
• Blacksmithing
• Machining
• Manufacturing just about anything on a small scale, particularly stuff you invented and patented yourself
• Woodworking in general
• Pottery - note that if you can produce glazed plant pots at a reasonable price, and ollas, container gardening can get a lot easier for your customers
• Leatherworking
• Wedding and anniversary jewelry, such as rings, necklaces, bracelets and so on
• Knit woolen items
• Soapmaking
• Felted wool clothing and blankets
• Clothing in general, sewn by you; pay can get better the better you get at it and the bigger your following gets. How much do you want to grow the business?

THERE ARE NO GOOD JOBS BLAH BLAH BLAH AMERICAN MADE IS GREAT BLAH BLAH

• Start your own business, but not with some dumb shit like antiques and "vintage" nonsense, start a fucking factory. Produce affordably priced goods people actually need without harming the environment while still giving factory employees good pay, safe working conditions, and benefits. Stop complaining about all the outsourcing and actually fix the problem, ffs. Yes I grew up in small towns populated with rednecks. Yes I am bitter. "If I don't like it I can just leave" hmmm, or, perhaps I like this country. I just don't like the people who say things like that. Would rather not live in the United States of Russia, thanks.

Potentially Helpful Resources In General

• CISA list of essential workers
• Dlgtriallaw List of Essential Workers in Texas
• CDC listing of jobs considered essential by the government These jobs are so vital to the functioning of the country that the government went out of its way to ensure people working these fields would not die. So yeah they're pretty stable jobs.
• Youtube channels specializing in the career field
• Subreddits thereof

Fundamentally, a Capitalist system is different from a Communist system in that it allows for free will and ethics based on personal decisions. Unlike in Communism, where evil is actually fundamentally where a Communist system heads to based on the tenets of Communism alone and how the system is designed even on paper let alone in practice (see Hindsight Is 2022 for details), Capitalism always has a chance to become a meritocracy. However, that's only if the people in the system care enough. If they don't, then you get what we have now: a caste system where the rich prey on the poor, and everyone may well prey on one another in whatever way they can. Here's what a caste system is the opposite of: a meritocracy. No one benefits. Not the rich, not the poor, no one. We must have a meritocracy. The only way to make one of those is via good government, good communication, and good citizen participation in making a Capitalist system look as much like a meritocracy as possible. This requires individuals, even a few, in each place to have both a conscience and a willingness to work hard to make that happen. Or it won't.

This page exists to function as the antidote to bad career advice received from parents and authority figures, or from college. The "bottom line" in a workplace has been defined as "earning as much as possible" for wayyyyyyy too long. There is more to life than work. Conversely, there is more to work than drudgery. There is a better way.

4/21/23 Some extra hints, tips and tricks on job and career stuff

• For some reason, starting to invest in stocks changed the way I think about money, wealth, economics, social practices, and pretty much everything. But most importantly, how I look at management practices, ownership in business and business practices, and the relationship between customers, businesses, and all life. So here are some insights... things you can ask yourself.
• 5/11/23 The older I get the more I realize something pretty critical about a lot of business owners and managers with high turnover rate. Although there are many factors, especially shit wages and benefits, I'd say an overlooked one is expecting "underlings" to be perfect! Also of course thinking of people you employ as being lesser-than but if that's really how you feel then you have absolutely no idea how to run a business let alone how to human.
• A job is every bit as important as a romantic relationships. And as such, it has similar characteristics that define it - make or break factors. What are your limits and non-negotiables? It is different for everyone. For instance, in a job, let's say you have to make morally ambiguous decisions day after day (medicine and the military are notorious for stuff like this). Can you handle that? Or, let's say you have to deal with the public, and take all that they can dish out. Is that something you can handle? How about manual labor, is it something you greatly enjoy because you love the exercise, or is it just too much for you? Don't look at the sunny side of career fields that people for some reason like to talk up. Look at the ugly stuff first. If you can live with the job at its ugliest, worst, and most horrible, then it's likely a good fit. Or, another way of looking at it is thinking of all the things that make the job unique, and asking people who work in really similar jobs the worst and best things about the job. What one person may hate in a job is what another person may love or at least not care about. Hence why everyone doesn't do every kind of work all the time. A certain amount of discomfort and drudgery will happen in any job at all, but that's not a bad thing. It's life. You'll still get that discomfort and drudgery in life regardless, even and especially if you try to avoid unpleasant things. Face it head on. But... there's a limit to how much you should put up with, and only you can define what that is. Remember to stand up for yourself and know your own worth.
• If you have a career goal of some sort, and you can't get paid to get trained such as at a paid internship, donate your talents in that field and make them public for free. Get feedback. It's unlikely to ever pay you or be monetize-able, this specific work, but it's free, and it's still education for you. For instance, if you like to act, volunteer for Librivox and see how people like your work as a voice actor reading books in the public domain. If you want to get into construction with no experience, volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Think about what you would like to do as a career and if this suggestion applies at all. If you aren't sure, maybe ask a librarian or someone you trust. Talent is good but skill takes education and practice, and to do a job well you have to have skills. Education is everything in work... in life.
• What do I like to do? Life is too damn short to be upset or unhappy. List these.
• Looking at the list of things I like to do, what careers officially and unofficially actually have anything whatsoever to do with what I actually like about the things I like to do? This is a trick question. Lots of career fields and businesses draw in employees on the basis of looking like a "fun" job but are really just misdirection intended to draw people in for the fun stuff and hook them in wage slavery, like a venus flytrap. What out there is so interesting and compelling to you that you'd actually enjoy the work even at its worst, most dramatic, and most chaotic? Make a list of that.
• If I was in this career field as one of the higher-ups or the boss or owner of something in this career field, would I hire me? Why? Would it be due to how well I can do the job, or how much I know about the field, or some other asset? What are my assets? Also, if I hired me, why? Provide detailed, specific reasons why or why not.
• If this is a business, how is it pleasing its customers? Can it keep them for longer than an impulse purchase? If it's good but can improve further, are the higher-ups willing to listen to my suggestions? (if not, red flag!). How is it pleasing its employees? Is the turnover rate high? (if so, red flag!)
• Take a look at the nepotism and corruption factor. If you own your own business or are a manager this is infinitely more important for you. Have you ever hired your friends or family to do something? How'd that fuckin go? Not too good, huh? Do you have a tendency to trust your own biases and cognitive quirks more than "can this person do the job better than that one" aka "have i really hired/promoted someone with the most merit or just the one I like the most?" I know this may be a controversial statement but I'm pretty certain the more corruption and nepotism there is in a business, the less likely it's going to be reliable.
• Ask yourself "If I was my boss or manager, would I promote me? Why?" Provide detailed, specific reasons why or why not.
• If you're disabled, partially disabled, or elderly, (or indeed have no idea what kind of job or career is right for you and don't know how to figure it out but still have to pay the bills), one book I read mentioned you could have luck with seasonal or temporary part time work to see what works for you and what doesn't. It's not a bad idea.
• Professionalism makes even the most boring or shitty job gradually improve and become more interesting. I'm not joking, it's really helpful.
• My number one tip for any career and job success: if you have to get a job to pay the bills and the market's shitty, choose your coworkers and managers and boss carefully and not so much your actual job, as long as you are physically and mentally capable of doing it. Legally speaking management is your new de facto dictator when you get a job, so if they're benevolent, that means everything.

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