Where are all these fun jobs?
Driving past a fast food restaurant, today, I spotted a sign out in front that said, “FUN JOBS! Apply Inside.” Fun jobs. The sign seemed to contradict something my Dad used to say to me at least five or six times a week when I was a teenager, “If it was fun, they wouldn’t call it work.” His other favorite sayings were “That bed won’t make itself,” “That lawn won’t mow itself,” “This house won’t paint itself,” and the one we always hated to hear, “That neighbor’s garage you kids set on fire won’t go out by itself.”
Still, I wonder; what could these fun fast food jobs possibly be? Cleaning the restrooms? It’s not that much fun. If it was fun, kids would do it at home. If it was fun, the customers would pick up after themselves. Perhaps that’s why so many places have stopped cleaning their restrooms — it’s just not fun, it’s like, a job.
That would also explain why so often there are no paper towels in the paper towel dispenser, why the place smells of antiseptic spray instead of soap and elbow grease, and why there is some kind of nasty mold growing under the sink. Cleaning, it’s just not that much fun.
What would be a fun job in a fast food restaurant? Microwaving the food sounds fun. But after the first four or five hours, I’ll bet teenagers figure out it’s not as much fun as playing “Grand Theft Auto” while locked in their bedrooms. Cooking food all day long is not as much fun as playing video games all day long and then ordering in pizza when you get hungry. If only they would pay us to play video games. That would be a fun job!
There’s not really much anything in a fast food restaurant that would qualify as a fun job once you’ve done it a few hundred thousand times. Emptying huge bins of trash all day long, mopping floors, policing the parking lot — not fun, not fun, not fun.
A fun job would be, say, testing suntan lotion. Fifty thousand a year to start, no experience necessary. That’s the kind of place that should have a sign outside that reads, “FUN JOBS! Apply Inside.”
Being a hotel-fortune heiress is probably a fun job. No wasting time getting a college degree; no bothering with inconvenient job interviews. Just buy a closet full of $10,000 dresses and go to work. The great part is you pick your own hours and you’re your own boss. Now that’s fun. The bad news? No paid vacations. Bummer.
Movie stars look like they have lots of fun on the job. The sign out in front of most Hollywood studios probably says, “Fun, fun job. Apply inside.” No one will ask them to clean the studio parking lot, someone’s always fussing with their hair and make-up, they get driven to work in a limousine and they give movie stars an RV for a dressing room. Best of all, the minimum wage for movies stars is a few million dollars a year. And there’s a good opportunity for advancement.
Here’s the perfect first fun job for a young high school student: Cell Phone Tester. The kids would work on commission. The phone companies would give them a cut of their parent’s bill, say 15 percent. So on a $100 phone bill, your high-schooler would only make $15. But if they can drive your bill around $500-$600, they could make as much or more than any part-time, not-so-fun job.
Some of them might even be able to test two phones at a time. They wouldn’t have to learn how to make change the way they would at that fun fast food restaurant job. And they wouldn’t have to wear a uniform or a hairnet or a nametag. It’d be like hardly like working at all. What a fun job!
Jim Mullen is the author of “It Takes a Village Idiot: Complicating the Simple Life” and “Baby’s First Tattoo.” You can reach him at [email protected].