this post was submitted on 04 Feb 2025
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This quote captures a rule I'd like to live my life, and by extension my career by. I'd like to have a job where every day looks different because you respond to whatever eventualities arise. What is a good way to find these?

I'm not asking for specific job positions (although feel free to suggest some) because I imagine such positions exist in most fields β€” I'm rather asking for ways to find these/filter for these in a given field.

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[–] Whats_your_reasoning 1 points 11 minutes ago

As far as ways to filter for such positions, maybe look for roles that require traveling? At the very least, you'd be in a different location throughout your week.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 hour ago

I run four companys' marketing departments, it's different every day and mildly interesting but it's not like I'd rather be doing it than frolicking in the springtime sunlight

[–] latenightnoir 3 points 3 hours ago

Does this apply if I don't even know what day it is?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 hours ago

Consulting. I’ve done a little bit of it before as an occupational hygiene consultant. In a 2 week period I’d done air quality tests at a sulphuric acid processing plant, noise dosimetry at a bread factory, management system audit at Shell petroleum, and reviewed findings of air quality tests at a building where half the workers were β€œgetting sick all the time”.

But it’s not consistent work, and if you go into business for yourself; 1- good luck finding the work, and 2- have fun spending months chasing up invoices.

[–] Solumbran 55 points 8 hours ago (4 children)

This quote is full of shit though.

[–] Whats_your_reasoning 2 points 25 minutes ago* (last edited 22 minutes ago)

By this logic, the less predictable your daily life is, the more "alive" you are.

So for a lot of us, to be "alive" is to experience constant anxiety about what's about to happen.

...

Actually, that tracks.

[–] Fritee 4 points 2 hours ago

Agreed. I find that the more I pre plan my day, the more stuff I can get done, like gym, work, weekend out with partner etc. And if I don’t, the day is just gonna be wasted on gaming or watching videos.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Makes me want to be somewhat, partly, dead

[–] TwoBeeSan 10 points 8 hours ago

Yeahhh. Dunno bout basing my life off of any quote let alone this one lol

[–] [email protected] 47 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Any job is like this if your time management is bad enough

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago

ADHD time blindness activate!

[–] perviouslyiner 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

I feel like you'd like this guy's routine! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c1wkx1V1qHY

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 hours ago

I think the most alive you could be would then be some manner of homeless drug addict. You have no power over your life, so no notion of what any day will look like.

This quote kinda rubs me the wrong way because it treats predictability the same as banality.
If you want a job where you never know what the day is going to look like, work for a poorly managed company. You never know what you're going to be doing, sometimes the project you're working on one day is cancelled without warning and now people are mad at you for not having been working on the new priority for the past month. Sometimes you go in and you work 36 hours straight without warning because someone else messed up and your boss doesn't give a shit who's responsible and you're the one who knows how to fix it, so fix it or fuck off. Better hope you don't have a family or you're going to have to make choices.

Knowing what you're going to do tomorrow is just having work of any consequence. Food service knows what they're doing tomorrow. So does a CEO, a software developer at a competent business, or a project manager. I can think of very few jobs whose scope of work is limited to a day, and is so variable that you just don't know what you'll be doing. Temp? Personal assistant to an eccentric actor? (Not the manager type assistant, they need to know the schedule. The one that buys coffee, six turtles and a pair of roller skates and doesn't actually exist).

I could just be dead inside because I know that tomorrow is going to go a particular way that I like.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Is this a quote? By whom? The picture of this dude means nothing to me 🀣 Maybe I’m uncultured. I cop to that possibility.

[–] Tikiporch 3 points 1 hour ago

This quote brought to you by Tweed Man Who Eats Too Much Red Meat.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 37 minutes ago

Oh it's Nassim Nicolas Taheb

[–] Cris_Color 7 points 8 hours ago

Emergency medicine. I've heard various medical fields/disciplines described that way

[–] TwoBeeSan 4 points 8 hours ago

Open a building in any capacity.

If you're working at almost any new place, things will go wrong daily and be different.

Could specialize in the ironing out phase?

[–] residentmarchant 3 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (1 children)

Company founder/early executive. It's a new thing every day and to top it off every year or so, if things are going well, your whole job gets reinvented!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 hours ago

You need financial stability to pursue founding, though... especially right now.

[–] MissJinx 2 points 9 hours ago

I wish I really was but only my soul for now.

[–] Snowclone 1 points 8 hours ago

Every solution in capitalism is the same, begin with lots of money.