What if you got a chance to briefly live your career nirvana? Would you do it? Keep in mind, it may end up being painful. At the end of this dream you’d have to return to the job you do everyday just for a paycheck.

I came across a TLC show this weekend called “The Singing Office”. Yes, another reality show. Don’t tune out yet. It actually got me thinking.

Basically, the premise of the show is two hosts go into two different workplaces, they pick out five people that can hold a tune, and then send the five individuals to a singing boot camp where they will all work together on one song and perform it on stage. (Take note HR training folks out there, it’s a cool idea for team building.)

The hosts — Melanie Brown, a former Spice Girl and ‘N Sync’s Joey Fatone — are two second rate performers themselves, which seems to make the show even more endearing.

The episode I watched included a match up with workers from Aquarium of the Pacific and a mattress superstore called Sit ‘N Sleep.

Throughout the show the employees are interviewed about their experience being in boot camp, the interaction with coworkers — some of which they never even talked to — and their career aspirations.

The moving moment for me came when natural born performer Matt, the mattress store manager, talked about how incredible being chosen to perform on the show was:

“The worst part for me will be when this is over. I’m just eating this up. This is just awesome for me.”

“But I’ve got children so selling mattresses pays the bills.”

Matt was all smiles as he danced around the stage with a guitar, and suddenly I found myself getting a bit misty.

I felt bad for the guy, but understood where he was coming from. Sometimes we make sacrifices for our families. That’s just how it goes. But I hope Matt doesn’t give up after this one tiny taste of his dream.

More and more today, I meet people who’ve got their noses to an unpleasant or uninspiring grindstone during the day, but do what they love at night or on the weekends.

I know, who the heck has time for that? But some people make it work.

A colleague of mine, Marci Alboher, wrote about these types of people in her book “One Person/Multiple Careers” and she says many individuals that do this often have a “incredibly curious and restless nature.”

Hopefully Matt will continue to feed his curious and restless machine, and won’t let his experience fade into the black career hole of “if only.”