Today I want us all to sit back and figure out what each of us would consider the best job in the world.
There’s been a big publicity event these past few months put on by the tourism bureau of Australian state Queensland. They were offering what they deemed the “best job in the world.”
Imagine spending six months on the Islands of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and getting paid six figures for it. Today, Tourism Queensland kicks off a global search to find applicants for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, “The Best Job in the World.”
The six-month contract role of Island Caretaker will be based on lush and luxurious Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef. For a salary of AUD $150,000 (approximately US $104,000), the Island Caretaker will enjoy flexible working hours and the opportunity to explore one of the world’s greatest natural wonders. For six months, their job will be to discover and promote what the Islands of the Great Barrier Reef have to offer.
“The Island Caretaker will be responsible for promoting the Great Barrier Reef to an international audience,” said Tourism Queensland CEO Anthony Hayes. “That’s why we’re making the application process a global one, with a recruitment campaign that is being launched in 18 countries and that gives job seekers around the world a chance to experience life above the Great Barrier Reef.”
The successful applicant will be required to report back on their adventures to Tourism Queensland headquarters in Brisbane (and the rest of the world) via weekly blogs, photo diary, video updates and ongoing media interviews.
Sounds like a great vacation, but it’s not quite my definition of the best job.
Time to figure out your definition. It could help you figure out your career path.
So many people who have been downsized or see the handwriting on the wall are wondering what to do next. Many have no clue what to do now that the industry they spent years in is shrinking and there are few jobs to be had.
I suggest that you shoot for the career stars in order to get to the moon. (Something my grandmother always said.)
This is all an exercise to help you get to the next level.
It could be the most outlandish job to start but then you can use that to pare down to something you can realistically make money at and still enjoy.
You can think big, but “be concrete too,” says Susan Bartell, a psychologist who focuses on workplace stress.
Here are some steps she offers:
1. Dig back to what you are really passionate about AND what you’re really good at. Think about the skills you’re good at, not the jobs you’ve done—for e.g., are you a good organizer, were you the one all your friends came to for advice, are you amazing at seeing the big picture.
2. Make a list of jobs that could fit that passion and those skills.
3. Make short and long term goals to meet your dream. DON’T belittle it.
4. Also, don’t allow naysayers and negative people to get in your way of meeting your goals. If necessary get rid of friends who will bring you down and who are negative themselves. I always say “Misery likes miserable company!” Don’t let yourself be associated with this.
I guess since I’m asking you guys to do this I should partake a bit too.
My dream job would be a couple of things. I’ve always dreamed about being a standup comedian. Seriously. I’d also love to make a living as a poet. I’ve been writing poetry since I was a little girl. And, if I were being honest, Broadway performer would also be on the list.
I suppose I’m combining lots of these things in the career I’m in right now. I write; and sometimes get away with including poetry in my work. I often speak at conferences, and I always try to be funny. And, helllooooo, I’m always on stage, writing, giving speeches, flapping my gums on the radio and TV when given the chance.
OK, your turn. Tell me what you’d love to do if you could do anything.
If it turns out the Queensland job is your idea of the best, I am sorry.
Some 34-year-old guy from Britain named Ben Southall got the gig.
Southhall’s response to landing the gig:
“To go away now as the island caretaker for Tourism Queensland and the Great Barrier Reef is an extreme honor,” Southall said on live television from Hamilton Island after being named the winner.
“I hope I can fill the boots as much as everybody is expecting, my swimming hopefully is up to standard and I look forward to all of the new roles and the responsibilities that the task involves,” he said, adding he would soon be joined by his Canadian girlfriend on the island.
I admit, sounds like a pretty dreamy job after all.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:41 am
The best job in the world is being a writer who has five cats. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
May 6th, 2009 at 11:46 am
you had me until the five cats.
May 6th, 2009 at 2:14 pm
What’s weird… is that… for the first time in my life, I’m 100% complacent and happy. There’s no, “only if I accomplish x, I can start to be more at ease.”
This most certainly has come from my wife; even when society says don’t get married. It’s quite weird.. My tip to the world: find a logical, mathematic, left-brained wife. It makes life so much easier lol
May 6th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Hands down, my dream job would be obituary writer for the New York Times. Keeping up on information about people’s lives and legacies, interviewing a huge variety of people from all living generations, and the challenge of summing things up meaningfully in a specific format. Heaven!
May 6th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
Running a social network for professional women and writing books. I love what I do now much more than my previous career in law.
But Island Caretaker doesn’t sound bad, either.
May 8th, 2009 at 12:05 am
I love the sunset colors
not just in spring but every day.
Every day that God is good enough
to share His red and orange and yellow
with me
and mine.
Lately I sleep late
and so I seldom see the scarlet morning
or the gold behind the trees.
I depend a lot on sunsets
Even when no sunset comes
I fill my head with all the sunshine past
and sunsets that I know will come.
Looking in your eyes
I see the sun come
even in the darkness.
Do you know how much you mean to me
and in what kind of way?
Oh God I feel the world for you
and in every kind of way.
I think sometimes that I’ll explode
that I’ll die or disappear
before I have a chance
to tell you how I feel.
Please don’t let it be today.
PVT Robert Graham, USASC, Fort Gordon, Ga. won $100 in 1979 for this poem. It appeared in Stars and Stripes. It was in response to the question what you miss at home.
Something can be said that is like why I never stayed in the Army. I remember I was earning about $300 per month. There was a girl at home who later would become my first wife and the mother of my two natural children. Before the Army, I was simply going to die like my idol, Sid. Yes, that Sid.
My paramour had MONEY. Her Dad was both rich and stupid somehow and her Mom was was about the same. He owned a medical lab and she was a clinical pscycologist. They were far too detached somehow and just wanted to make as much money as possible. My gal and I would sneak away, by bus, plane or rental car. We went to NYC to see the Pistols and the encounter we had is something I am sincerely saving for a day when I have the time to tell the tale and not worry about any infringement. Yes, I was a punker. Yes I was as radical as you can imagine. I was also a registered Republican and my views were very conservative. You might say it was somewhere in my ‘plan’ to sieze the day while I can jump up and down and put as much alcoholic and narcotic material in my body as possible. The Army was more of a suggestion. Someone told me I had it way too easy. someone told me I was way too lucky. And the same judge ws willing to expunge my record with an enlistment. I had started working in a Steel Mill about three months before my enlistment began. so that job was still mine. and certainly it paid far more than the Army.
I thrived there. As hard as it was at times, I actually felt at home there. I almost wanted to see a teerible event happen just so I could do what I joined the Army for.If not for my first born in ‘81, if not for peace, I might still be there. This may sound odd, but it is true.
Being in the US Army, as well as any armed forces in our great country, is truely a job that does make you who you are. You are forced to become stronger physically and you are forced to become confident in yourself. No amount of therapy, no event catastrophic, productive or gratifying matches the outcome based method of the Army. There is something about a soldier. Nothing in my life has stayed with me like my 3 years in the Army. To this day, I still jump at loud noises, I still line up the buttons of my shirt with my fly and to this day I cannot stand there with my hands in my pocket.
As trivial as all this may sound, every day, for the rest of my life is a piece of cake.