THERE’S NOTHING I’d rather do for a living than what I do. There’s not a whole heap of money in it, true, but it’s worth several grand a month to me to know that my work actually requires me to write crap in the papers, watch movies, read everything from the great works of literature to comics and listen to music; and, in-between all those, to eat at nice restaurants.
You’d have to earn ten times what I do to afford to do, once or twice a week, what I do all day long.
And almost every penny I spend on fun is fully tax deductible.
Every now and then, though, I get to thinking what another job might be like. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given that my most difficult career choices are whether to have the lobster or the steak, or whether to watch Salt or IP Man first,
I look for the day-to-day advantages of the job rather than the end-of-the-month pay. If all I’d wanted from my occupation was money, I’d have remained a lawyer; or done what most well-off West Indian men have done for 400 years, and worked for my successful father, like my brothers.
Here then, are jobs I’ve been contemplating, viewed from the advantages they bring:
Top five jobs for cheating on your spouse
1. Masseur/masseuse;
2. Hotel employee – any post at all, since every free room offers free rein, but manager, housekeeping and maintenance worker are tops;
3. Gynaecologist – has the advantage of cutting
to the chase; proctologist also good in San Francisco and on Barbados’ West Coast;
4. Personal trainer – has the disadvantage that your lovers may start off fat;
5. Priest/pastor/politician – priest/pastor has the advantage of your liaisons being either preordained or immediately forgiven by God (plus priests can borrow crayons and marbles from their lovers).
Top five jobs for doing nothing and getting paid
1. Cabinet minister;
2. Minister of religion – you rake in ten per cent
of your flock’s lifelong income and God repays them after death;
3. Any state job whatever, but hurricane warning office staffer, any traffic policeman at Garry Sobers Roundabout and inner city secondary school teacher are tops;
4. Master brewer – has the advantage of teaching younger alcoholics how to pretend to taste a difference between two bottles of beer;
5. Hangman – you wouldn’t even have had to turn up for the last few years.
Top five jobs for knocking off early
1. Nigerian nurse in Bajan hospital;
2. Any job on any building site, anywhere;
3. Kindergarten teacher;
4. Porn star – though there’s a huge professional difference between knocking off early and finishing too soon;
5. Boss’ son. Ask my brothers. Don’t ring them at work, though.
• BC Pires is a second generation master brewing gynaecologist imam.
