5 Jobs Everyone Should Have At Some Point

5. Waiting Tables
Every waiter reading this article is quietly saying. "Hell Ya" at this moment, because everyone who has ever waited tables at some point has had this realization: If everyone was forced to wait tables for one year, the world would be so much better! Everyone has that realization because it's totally true.
Why everyone should have this job: You learn a whole lot about people by serving them. How a person behaves to the guy fetching his drinks says a lot about that person. And you, as a waiter, start to figure out what kind of person you want to be. Are you the guy who makes eye contact with your waiter and speaks to him like a human, or are you the guy who hisses when he wants to catch a waiter's attention? Everyone on the planet should know what it's like to have to serve someone else. It's humbling, and sometimes terrible, and some other times mostly OK.

4. Something With Kids
Teacher. Camp counselor. Parent. Any one of those jobs works for this one.
Why everyone should have this job: It's important to, for at least a little while, be the person on whom little kids rely for their safety. Obviously parents don't need to do this job, but anyone else, like me, who is on a direct path of relaxing selfishness and childless leisure should have to understand the pressure and stress of trying not to ruin children. The quickest way to feel like a grown-up is to have a little kid hate you for keeping them safe.

3. Tech Support of Any Kind
I've never had a job working in tech support, but I have called it, and I am an idiot, so I have a pretty good idea of what they have to deal with. Tech Support, as a concept, sounds impossible to me: You get on the phone with someone who has a problem they can't articulate that they want you to fix, and then they yell at you if you don't do it.
Why everyone should have this job: Tech Support is about teaching someone who doesn't speak the same language as you to fix their problems just by talking to them. Imagine how much better we, as a global community, would be at communicating with each other if we all had to spend a year in Tech Support. In the way that a lawyer trains her mind for organizing thoughts and building arguments, a Tech Support employee trains his mind for pleasantly and efficiently communicating with people who are much, much dumber.

2. Something Where You Have Power
Absolutely everyone should, at some point, be promoted above their level of competency. Obviously, this shouldn't happen all at once, and not for an extended period of time, because that would destroy the world, which is the opposite of what I'd like to do. But it should still happen.
Why everyone should have this job: In part, it's for people who have never had any power to see how the other half lives, but mostly it's about learning. If waiting tables is how you learn about other people, being in charge is how you learn about you. There is no better way to learn about yourself than by seeing what you do when you have power. Even a little bit of power would do. You don't need to be the boss of a huge company, as long a position has some power and a few subordinate employees, you should have it.

1. Something Mindless/Labor Intensive
Why everyone should have this job: Because everyone should just shut up and work for a while. Everyone should have a job that doesn't get easier if you're smarter or more charming than someone else. There are no corners to cut. The job is just "Here's the work. Do the work." There are some people in this world who have never had chores and never performed any mindless labor.

Posted in: