Slashdot Mirror
Test Drive Your Dream Job
ches_grin writes "'Vocation Vacations' has a simple concept--allow folks to try out a new career before leaving their current job. Participants get paired with mentors in their chosen field and then spend 2-3 days fully immersed in life as a brewer, dog-trainer, sword-maker, or whatever their fantasy gig is. People are willing to pay to do someone else's job." From the article: "The idea is relatively simple. Participants pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand (transportation, lodging, etc., aren't included) to experience life as, say, a chocolatier, a fashion designer, or a race-car driver. The time spent immersed in their fantasy job allows them to get a 360-degree perspective without the risk of quitting their own jobs or investing heavily in a new career. "
Bending robot anyone?
When do I meet Jenna Jameson now?
Wah Sig!
I wonder if some pimp would let me shadow him for a couple of weeks.
There I said it. I could be just a tissue box away from that job...
condom QA?
What about the current employers of the person who wants to try this? I somehow doubt they'd take it well if an employee told them they wanted to try out another job for a few days. Might make them wonder if this employee is thinking of quitting... and they may decide to fire them before they quit voluntarily.
I don't think there's any real way of making it look like a harmless activity if you're the employee wanting to try it. Call in sick for a few days, maybe...?
FACILITATING A FANTASY. Enter a two-year-old Portland (Ore.)-based company called Vocation Vacations, a business that gives people the opportunity to "test drive" their dream jobs. Creating temporary but intense mentor/apprenticeship experiences, Vocation Vacations enlists professionals from a variety of fields -- everything from winemakers and makeup artists to architects and sword makers -- and pairs them with people who fantasize about leaving their day jobs and want spend a few days in a profession that they had previously thought beyond their reach.
Facilitating fantasy, eh? My dream job: Porn actor. Where do I sign?
__
Elephant Essays -- Custom Research Papers and More
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
I look forward to learning how to kill you soon!
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
That's it. That's how I make my living.
Work at home! Make money now! Call me!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
List of jobs to test from the top of my mind:
- President of USA: will find weapons of mass destruction in my ex-employer's building and nuke them to save the world
- CEO and CSO of Microsoft: will make Windows and IE open source
- Owner && President of Playboy Magazine (not just one magazine, the company): will hang around plenty of naked good looking blonde chicks
- Donald Trump: I'll confess it's a friggin' rug and be done with it
Being Commander Taco - that's my dream job!
Why would I want to work during my vacation? IT'S MY VACATION!
It doesn't matter that it's a different job! It's WORK! And work is something I'm against in any form!
I'll pass.
If anything, it'd be a fun way to gain a wide variety of experiences that would normally be very hard to get - even if you never had any desire to change careers. It'd beat a passive trip to a museum, that's for sure...
Hexy - a strategy game for iPhone/iPod Touch
Some people have a dream job that they want to pursue. Before making the plunge it would be nice to get their feet wet - to see if it was really all they thought it would be. I'm a bit skeptical that a few days is enough to make that kind of a decision but regardless it is a good experiance, and a unique niche company.
They are catering to a very specific clientele - people looking at making a career change, most likely to a self-owned business, and most likely with a decent amount of money in the bank (by the sound of the article). This is about pursuing a life dream, not avoiding work.
I'm filling out the on-line app, but for the life of me, I cannot recall what it said on Ron Jeremy's business card. Little help?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I'm starting a business in which you pay thousands to try out being a porn star.
So would they be able to replicate the full experience in just 3 days?
No one's asked to be CowboyNeal yet! What, did you all just miss the tie-in?
---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
Wow, the shyster in me is conjuring up my new career: 1) Spend a day at my dream job 2) Have an "accident" and sue them 3) Profit! Oh, yeah...I've always wanted to work at a Ferrari dealership!
""'Vocation Vacations' has a simple concept--allow folks to try out a new career before leaving their current job. Participants get paired with mentors in their chosen field and then spend 2-3 days fully immersed in life as a brewer, dog-trainer, sword-maker, or whatever their fantasy gig is. People are willing to pay to do someone else's job." From the article: "The idea is relatively simple. Participants pay anywhere from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand (transportation, lodging, etc., aren't included) to experience life as, say, a chocolatier, a fashion designer, or a race-car driver. The time spent immersed in their fantasy job allows them to get a 360-degree perspective without the risk of quitting their own jobs or investing heavily in a new career. ""
Were's Ricardo Montalbon when you need him?
It'll be expensive to take a vacation as a software developer. Just the airline ticket to Bangalore is a few thousand dollars.
So I can see how my old job is going.
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
My dream job would definitely be slashdot admininstator. (*rubs brown off nose)
Does God treat us as servants or friends? Check my homepage.
that you have actually leave the basement to take part in these fantasy job positions, right?
Just wondering.
It apparently didn't occur to the morons and businessweek to include say, the address to Vocation Vacations website. Easily found of course (vocationvacations.com) but still, you'd think that in these modern times we live in, something like that would be automatically included.
I'm sorry, but IMHO this is just another "case study" to promote a young companies product. This is a story about a man that had a vision to become his own boss as a contractor. He also loved dogs, as if any american can really hate them. This may be a great tool to pretend you are a "race-car driver" for "two-and-a-half days", but if you're going to work for yourself, you're going to work for yourself. This was simply a study that helped one man decide to cut loose and be his own boss, but kudo's to the spin....
Sweet! I can beta test r3@l l!f3 now!
You can piss off the boss.
George Bush, for instance, has tried several fantasy jobs. He tried out being a conservative Christian (before the election), being President for a few days (before September 11th), and being someone who would swear to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution" (before each term).
I wonder which job he'll try out next? Oooh maybe President Truman dropping the A-bomb? Or a KING? What fun!!
To show them how bad their dream job potentially sucks...
CS programs in colleges would suffer for it.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I wonder if i could charge this to my expense account....
*smiles mischievously*
| Account | Comment | Amount |
| Entertainment:Other | Took prospective new co-worker to race track | $12,000.00 |
Mark S.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
You're the same person as parent, aren't you?
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
I hear they have one of these for people who want to be surgeons already set up in Slovakia.
This tagline is umop apisdn.
Ninja!
Duct tape is like the Force. It has a light side, a dark side, and it holds the universe together.
Whoever is behind this is likely to make a killing at this. There are so many people who hate their jobs but are so afraid to just take the dive, they'd likely be willing to pay a _lot_ to do this. Personally, I don't think this is a particularly useful metric of what another job would be like. As "the tech guy" in an educational institution, I've had numerous students job shadow me, and rarely do I have "typical" days when they are there. Invariably it gets scheduled for days when interesting, but low-impact projects are happening, or when something comes up, "I have a job shadow today, I probably should wait on that until tomorrow" gets said since a lot of my work requires relative quiet and concentration. Who knows though, maybe three days back to back will show a more relevant sample.
Some professions even have programs set up to allow for this and I can only imagine that for the more esoteric ones you could simply ask someone in such a business to shadow him/her for a day. Offer to take the person out to a nice restaurant in return and you can just hang around their store/workplace with them telling you what they do.
I'm sure a lot of people would just love the attention!
That reminds me of a chinese movie a few years ago, titled something like "dream fulfiller" or some sort like that. It's about a tiny company that promises to make your wildest dream come true. Then, a filthy rich businessman heard about that, as he constantly told people that he would like to live the simple life of a poor peasant, just simple life, no cell phone, no meeting, no meat, no shit, just simple meal. He paid big bucks for that privilege, the company drove him to a very far, remote village which has no transportation link to the outside world, took away his personals (watch, cell phones, money, ....), and promised to come back to pick him up in 3 months, leaving him there with an old peasant couple. The guy thought he was going to get a lot of fun. Three months later, the company came back to pick him up, and found him live like a dog, an inch away to be sent to psychiatric hospital.
Another "customer" was a very famous movie star. She complained about being too famous, and that she could not have a normal life with privacy, and that she could never get out of her house without constantly surrounded by fans and reporters. Her wish was to live a life just like the normal people. At the end, she becomes just normal people, no more fans, and guess what, no movie company called her for any project anymore. She called back, and all movies directors/producers said they thought she didn't want to be bothered, so there was no call. By that time, her career as movie star is over.
So, fantasy is fantasy, life is life. You might fantasize all kinds of wild dreams, but it'd be better if you just live your life, fully.
The whole outsourced to India thing is getting very old.
It apparently didn't occur to The Cisco Kid to include say, the link to Vocation Vacations website. Easily found of course (vocationvacations.com) but still, you'd think that in these modern times we live in, something like that would be automatically included.
However, Kurth says there's a limit to the types of career vocations he will pursue. For instance, he says he recently turned down an offer from a pornography producer who wanted to become a mentor.
I guess, no luck...
Paul
Who said anything about India?
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
"Hi, I'm your intern this week."
Head to Germany. You can get a steady paycheck doing beastiality flicks over there.
Or so I've been told.
You cannot immerse someone in a craft for a few days and expect him to get a positive experience. Crafts take a long time to master, and working at the master level can be confusing and difficult.
This, however, is not a problem. It is infeasible to simply drop out of your stable job and jump to a completely unrelated field anyway. This, however, works well with learning a craft. It is easy to devote a few hours every weekend to developing a craft skill (e.g. home brewing beer starting with extract, moving to steeping, partial mash, full mash, ... while experimenting with recipes). It is easy to start most crafts on a small scale without a huge initial investment, and that lets a person try something out and gradually gain the skill without requiring him to give up his primary income source.
Some people will go on to the full time level, but many will not. Some maintain a certain level of skill in an area (e.g. many home brewers will never go past doing minimashes because they are happy with their skill level as a brewer), and thus gain an enjoyable hobby. At worst it some will find that what they thought would be fun is actually unenjoyable, and a wasted afternoon doing something is better than a wasted afternoon doing nothing.
Now, there are some crafts that are difficult to learn without a lot of equipment and time. Money can't help you there. If you have strange enough friends you can find someone to teach you [and what is life without strange friends?].
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
Three years ago a plain old vacation showed me my true vocation-- vacation. Not kidding at all. Work is absolutely for suckers. Yes, I continue to be a sucker, as I gotta eat. But all my efforts, the majority of my thoughts (at their roots), are directed to this one grand hope: to get started on my true vocation. I was born 70 years too early. Robotics, man. I want robot cashiers, surgeons, auto mechanics, chefs, soldiers, aircraft mechanics, software programmers, CEOs. I want robot everything except maybe poets (and perhaps other writers like novelists, screenwriters, etc.,.), musicians/composers, scientists, philosophers, clergy, actors, President/Congress/Supreme Court (all other courts would have robot judges applying precedent; state governors and legislatures: robot), painters & other pictorial artists, fine artisans, software designers and barbers. All others: robot... Day in/Day out, Week in/Week out, Month in....Decade in/Decade out, work to that degree of endless repetition is nothing short of a nightmare, a poison. And yet here we all are doing it. The human creature was not made for this. We were made for the occasional hunt, some fruit picking, some tuber digging, some fishing and a little shelter fabrication & repair. That's it. The rest of the time is supposed to be just hangin out with friends and family, singing, telling stories and jokes, trying out random ideas, traveling, staring into the sky, etc.,. Man, we have to get back to what we were built for. We're hunter/gatherers, not farmers. That's right when all this evil strated. All this heart disease & cancer & what not-- it's work I'm tellin ya... We should pour about 80% of tax revenues into robotics development at universities and corporations, then kick off those workboots or wingtips and LIVE! To hell with the "work ethic" and Joe Blow in Brooklyn who never missed a day of work in 38 years. What bullshyte! To hell with it because it's of hell! This is the obvious secret. The elixir. We just have to wake up to it. Really. Hey, Pradeesh Bangalore-- you want my job? Take it. You're getting the worst of the bargain. Me, I'm going for La Dolce Vita on a Rip Van Winkle level, and my happiness will be beyond description. --bf
Here would be a worthwhile oppurtunity.
Test drive the life of a new parent. Figure out if you really want to invest 18 years of time doing it before you get (yourself/your spouse) knocked up.
I've just scanned the posts for this and I haven't seen a single one which says "What an incredibly simple and useful idea". We have the (very) tired and predictable jokes about pron and the equally predictable comments on the lines of "This won't work".
/. community (yeah! That includes me)
OK. It may have flaws, but isn't the concept interesting in itself?
Sheesh! Sometimes I worry about the
I'd like to spend three days with some really rich bastards, learning how they became rich bastards. I figure the first day will be introductions, the second day secrets of becoming rich, and the third day on bastardry.
I've often dreamed of dropping the code monkey job before it drops me, and becoming a bush pilot. I know that being a bush pilot is a lot of hard work, a lot of flying in conditions you don't really want to fly in, and crappy wages, but I'd still like to try it out to see if I could take it or not.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Why would I want to work during my vacation? IT'S MY VACATION!
What's more important -- that you enjoy yourself as much as possible for 2-3 days or that you have a fulfilling career that prevents you from being miserable for the rest of your life? Isn't it better to squander a few days during a job that sucks to give yourself the courage and peace of mind to leave it for a job that you actually look forward to going to each day?
Geez. Some people are just completely incapable of taking the long view.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If you're paying someone to show you a good time at a job, I dont care what job it is, it will be a fun job. Its not going to be realistic unless they're paying you to do it. That's the only way you'd see the reality of the job... when you pay them, it's in their interest to make it really "cool". I doubt people would be so interested in how cool it is for you when they're paying you to make swords... in that case, you'd better make the sword the way they want or you're fired, they dont give a crap if you think its fun or not!
stuff |
and the sequel..
I'd (well, I'd most rather be a super sleepless but) I'd rather be a donkey than a liver...
You remind me a lady I know, who would like to sleep for the next 30 years...
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
Ever wanted to say "...and would you like some fries with that?" and really mean it? Here is your opportunity!
Call Timmy Wilson, (555)555-5555
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Oh man.. I've been actively saying this exact same thing for many years, telling everyone I know (since I had no ability/desire to create such a company).
My examples always included trying a day as a garbageman (which no one would leave an engineering job to do, but would be an interesting experience, riding the truck, etc), taxi driver, crane operator, etc.
Wow! So cool that the idea actually flew!!
..Jeff Keegan
seven syllables explain TiVo: kee gan dot org slash ti vo
how much is the fee to try out working at Slashdot for a few days? I smell a new career. I smell a lot of things. Oh sh--, I need to put on my other shoes and wash my feet. Okay. I am ready to launch. Brew the fresh coffee.
You don't want Ricardo. You want Michael Kitchen. This idea of doing someone else's job has already been turned into a "reality TV" series called Faking It, in which contestants train for a career very unlike their own and then try to fool a panel of judges. For example, in one show a beer-guzzling football fan was trained to be a sommelier and then worked an evening at an A-list restaurant where he managed to fool 3 out of 4 guest wine experts into thinking he was a real sommelier and one of the other restaurant employees was the faker...
Didn't Mark Twain patent this business method?
I tried that and I learnt a lot about it. But then Mark Hamil and Ewan McGregor slapped a restraining order on me and now I can't go within 500 yards of either.
Actually, the longevity is much a matter of good cuts in the film and multiple takes as it is actual stamina. Still, do you really want sex to be just a job? While I normally avoid citing fiction in regards to reality, take a look at "Post Production" in Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.