What’s your dream job?
People often asked me why I was retiring from my position as a college professor in Theatre when I clearly enjoyed it so much. And my constant refrain was always: “I love my work but I hate my job.” I liked working with students, I enjoyed some aspects of teaching, and I loved directing theatre productions. But every time I read an email that said something like, “Faculty, please don’t xerox so much because we need to save money,” I was reminded of the dark side of my position: the people involved in academia who didn’t get the point of academia.
So I retired at 65, and am doing quite well financially with social security, annuities, and the additional income my financial planner set up for me. I don’t need to do anything, and yet here I am, trying to teach playwrighting at a local community college and working to start a theatre company—to do the things I enjoyed about my position without having to worry about students who whined about their grades, their assignments, their, well, everything, who didn’t get the point of their place in academia.
I still want to travel, as I told people after they asked, “What will you do with your time?” But the teaching and directing—without the nagging worry of saying the wrong thing (which 10 years earlier was perfectly acceptable), and offending someone, and being summoned by HR— that’s my dream job.
MUSOFYR 