How many of you are involved in Annual Meetings of your corporation? I invite you to describe them to me. Personally, I’ve been involved in a few. I wonder what the rationale is for them. There may be one. I might have missed it. Please reply via comments. I will consider your tales and your take on the situation.

A reader in California writes:

Salary: Low Six Figures plus Great Bonus and Bene’s

Job: Manage cost, schedule and ensure quality on IT projects.

The Real Job: Set up meetings, sit on calls, say as little as possible.

Upside: Great Pay for basic clerical work.  Free Office Space, plenty of time to manage, explore outside interests

Downside: Have to share free office space with extremely incompetent people some of which have borderline personality disorder.

Darkside: reports directly to someone with borderline personality disorder

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Ft. Lauderdale writes:

Analyze past data to tell people in the present, in terms they cannot understand, what WRONG decisions they already made and why, and get paid, a lot, to do it.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in California writes:

I had a job that paid $8/hr for 8 hours a day and 5 days a week where I had to lock myself into a small room with a desk and phone.  My job was to answer the phone if some unseen person left their desk because the phone needed to be answered during business days.  They made helicopter parts for the federal government.  I worked there for 6 months, answered the phone 3 times (“Hello, can I send you to voice mail? Thank you”), and read a small library of books.  This was before the internet.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Nashville writes:

The money is 30-40k/yr and I only have to wake up before 3pm once or twice a week.  We’re not allowed to deliver any food or alcohol so all we have to do is refill water, clear plates from table, fold napkins in to weird shapes, and reset the table.  All for $150-300 a night. 

Upside-I get first dibs on messed up orders, good exercise from walking around trying to look busy, free drinks, discounts at downtown bars, and bragging rights when I get to hang out with rockstars, celebs, and millionaires.

Downside- Base pay is still $2.13/hr, I really am just a glorified busser, no respect, takes me one step closer to being an alcoholic haha.

Overall, a nice job if you’re a natural charmer and schmoozer since the regular customers are the movers and shakers in the city.  Impress them and you’ll become their assistant, one step closer to a job that actually uses the degree you went to school for.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Los Angeles writes:

When an organization goes through a major transition they need professionals to consult with leadership regarding change management, strategic planning, team development, management development, 360 degree feedback, and culture and climate assessment. . . or do they?

When you spend all day stating the obvious repeatedly, frightening leadership into complying with your will by consistent reminders that “staff will have a negative reaction to this change” and playing babysitter during meetings by asking “What are we all going to take away from this meeting?” it’s hard to justify your existence. An effective Organizational Development Consultant’s goal is to give you a permanent case of “the Mondays” while taking control. Think “the Bobs” from Office Space . . . but less useful.

Pardon, I have to resume my report regarding who’s filling out their TPS report in octuplicate, and then finish my projections about the staffs’ inevitable mutiny after the transition from pink to blue urinal cakes.

Pay: Enough to buy a house in Los Angeles.

Perks: Undue respect.

Drawbacks: Constant fear that they’ll find out.

How to get this job: You can’t make the change . . . go back to your cube. Nice stapler.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Chicago writes:

Play Solitaire and Minesweeper.  Often interrupted by calls from incompetent vendors and customers.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Los Angeles writes:

Work from home, approximately 5 hours per day, resolving customer issues. Company operates on east coast time, so I knock off everyday at 2 and have been earning a 6-figure income for the last 8 years. My day begins at 9, I never have to get dressed, seldom am on the road. I’m bored outta my mind, but nothing else compares. Oh, throw in a 90 minute lunch too.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Memphis writes:

Relay is supposed to be a service for the deaf, hard of hearing, and speech disabled where a person using the internet, cell phone, or text telephone reaches an operator, I dial a number for them and relay conversation between a text and voice user. 90% of the calls we get are from people who are not deaf, most of them are scam calls or prank calls, so for 8 hours a day, 40 hours a week I relay bogus conversations. The benefits are good though. The turnover rate is extraordinary. A few weeks of Nigerian scam calls and teenagers with nothing else to do can take a toll on some people.

Pay: 10.00-10.50 starting with the availability of a promotion after 6 months.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in California writes:

I manage a team of unexperienced rookies who create 100’s of faulty drawings that show underpaid Contractors where to put an equipment cabinet on a concrete slab.

 Of course the contractor uses the drawings as toilet paper, places the cabinet in the wrong place and blames you’re company for designing it wrong. You’re boss blames you for managing the project wrong, and you blame your rookies for drawing it wrong, who say that in order to do it right, they need more time that you don’t have. And that’s if they speak English.

Pay 60-100k

Upside – You get to correct drawings with a red pen

Downside – If you’re not busy enough managing..you have to do some of the drawings yourself.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Austin writes:

I work part time in a management job for UPS.  I basically make sure packages are correct to the right zip code, address, etc to ensure delivery at the correct time.  The salary, yes salary,  I make is right at $1400 a month, but I work 4 1/2 hours a night, usually sitting around almost 2 of those hours.  It’s the perfect job for a full time college student who doesn’t want to make minimum wage working at some random dive in a college town.  Friday – Sunday off and about 3/4 of my tuition is reimbursed.  A great way not to starve through college and even better career opportunities where the real money is after graduation.  And no you don’t have to wear a brown uniform.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

I was talking to my friend Stu the other day, which you’d think would be an everyday thing because we work in the same shop, but it’s not. Stu is mostly virtual and whatever there is of him that is real doesn’t converse much. Which doesn’t mean to say he’s silent, because he’s anything but. He’ll talk your ear off a mile a minute, only dipping into the world of listening for odd moments before taking off into the ether again. Which is not a bad thing. Stu has more ideas in a nanosecond the you or I do in a nanoyear. So I always listen.

Anyhow, he’s in between a few other things on the line and we’re talking about stuff I can’t even remember what it is because it’s all going by so fast, too fast, in fact, for the Boomer Brain, when out of the great mosh pit of his mind I hear him say something like, “Hey, I gotta go, but I had this idea it’s just a crazy phrase that came into my mind but how about this…” Then he pauses for an imaginary drum roll and says: “A social network for dead people.”

That’s what he said. A social network for dead people. Then he hung up.

Now, you know, at first I just thought this was a funny idea, which it is, of course, completely ridiculous, but if you just give it a minute to sink in…

… a social network for dead people…

Let’s look at it for a minute. As a marketing concept.

First of all, is there any real difference between a virtual person and a dead one? A virtual person does not really exist, even though it can do a bunch of things from buying virtual real estate to engaging in virtual conversations and exchanging virtual fluids. It can, in short, do only virtual things. READ MORE

A reader in Washington DC writes:

In this Job all you have to do is set up a Email forwarder to your managers for all your email. A co-worker sent this director a email for an outside of work activity and got instantly a OUT of office reply for the director’s managers. Then all you have to do is have your group cause issues and figure out ways to fix those issues and just write up how your group fixed all these issues.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Illinois writes:

I resell loads of freight without getting up from my chair. Then take 25% of the money for my boss. and I get .001%.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in San Diego writes:

Monitor Medical Research Budget. If the Researcher spends more money than budgeted, notify the NIH grant manager to get more money for said budget. If the Researcher doesn’t spend enough notify the researcher to spend more money or risk loosing future money to said budget.

Pay: $60,000/year

work: 1 hour a day the rest surfing web and ocean.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Washington writes:

The perfect job for someone who has never truly dealt with their inability to understand algebra and trigonometry but wants to keep trying.

Also great for those who like to see concrete and steel turned into things but understand lost fingers, toes and occasionally death can result from actually doing the work.

The upside a retirement plan, with more days off per year than you can shake a stick at. wow!

The downside, a sunny morning sitting in your cubicle processing a new form that means absolutely nothing.

The darkside, the insane policies and directives you follow and implement originally were created to address a real need which invariably will get lost, but heh, keep that promotion in mind.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in New Hampshire writes:

Work for a car dealership that specializes in fast turn around of auction cars they have next to nothing into. Make $12k to $20k a year tops and get ridden like a wet pony for every little thing wrong with a car that someone else did to it like you did it yourself. If they have $3k in a car they will sell it for $9k on the front line and be mad that they had to pay you $50 to make it happen, while everyone else easily makes over $500 for saying “sign here”.

Average detail time is 6 to 12 hours depending on the cars age, mileage, and the reason they traded it in. Most are severely wrecked rental cars with 4 different shades of the original color on it and has so many imperfections in the paint you can cut yourself on it by rubbing your hand over it, let alone the 30 pounds of beach sand in the carpets and seats from the accident that put it there.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Florida writes:

I am a mortgage broker but I help a friend out in her FLOWER SHOP.  The bulls**t job part of the flower shop is making the funeral arrangements.  Most people do not care what type of flowers go into the arrangements so we use the nearly dead ones that can not be used in any other type of arrangement and then charge a BUNDLE for them.  The arrangements go to the funeral home then the grave site.  With the scorching sun and high temperatures and no expects the flowers to last.  Perfect, dead flowers for dead people.

You don’t even want to know what goes on in the funeral homes, some don’t have coolers.  But that is another story.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Illinois writes:

Basically check out books to people in a library and shelve them when the books come back in.  Plus answer any and all questions people have and occasionally deal with societal problems such as homeless people and latchkey children. 

Upside:  You get to know what secret fetishes people research about.

Downside:  You get to know what secret fetishes people research about.

The Real Ugly:  Pay is only between $20-30 grand a year.  Plus Library Circulation Techs do 99% of the real work in a library while the “Librarians” (Believe it or not you do need a Masters in Library Science to be a Librarian) are sitting in their offices making $50 grand and over while thinking about such intellectually lofty things as the Dewey Decimal System. 

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Paris writes:

Exports Manager at a “small” French Software company (oui-oui)

Figures = as much as a bullet-train driver about to retire…

Good sides = Exports State Sponsored plans will fund you until you die (if it doesn’t work, throw more money at it). Make most of high-end french MBA holders (stuck into french multinationals) envy your freedom of choice for working-vacation destinations.

Down sides = have you heard about french software?

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

 A reader in San Diego writes:

I am an auto insurance field appraiser for a major American insurance company. It’s kind of like the dude’s job in Fight Club except that I don’t participate in underground boxing matches and I don’t beat myself up in front of my boss. I actually don’t really have a boss. I work out of my house, set my own schedule, and do my own thing. I drive around San Diego and I take pictures of cars that get into crashes. Some of them get caught on fire, sometimes they get stolen, sometimes an angry girlfriend carves hate-filled messages into the paint…. But regardless – I typically work a 5-hour day. Note that 3 of these 5 hours are spent driving to and from various locations, so it’s like I really only work a 2 hour day. I photograph 4 (maybe 5 or 6 on a busy day) vehicles and am typically home by 2 o’clock.

When the car actually goes to a body shop for repair, I just negotiate with them over the phone and have them send me a bill when the repairs are done. No hassle for me or for them. I am usually at home eating almonds, kicking back a cold one, and playing XBOX around 2 or 3pm. Either that or I’m calling my buddies asking what they’re up to…and then interrupting their responses with, “Oh yeah!!! You’re at work! My bad! Call me at 5, working man!”
The best $50k I ever made.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Colorado writes:

This isn’t my job, but it’s the job of my ex-sister-in-law.  She is (and maybe was) an etiquette consultant in and around New York City.  She taught high school English for one year and was a stay-at-home mom several years before deciding upon this job that entails her advising people in business how to act toward each other, all the while never having been in business herself.  It seems that those high up in business know how to bulls**t already by being there, and don’t need instruction on etiquette/aka bulls**t!

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Utah writes:

55-60k babysitting 18-65 year olds pimping Balance Transfers and other wonderful credit card products.  Roughest part of the gig, is finding an exit without having to badge out.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Phoenix writes:

Pick up people who are too important to ride a shuttle bus or taxi, and forget car rental – that involves work.  It’s a great system.  The customer arrives at the airport, pays $5 to the baggage porter.  Then there is the $100 trip fee plus another $20 tip to the driver.  The driver calls ahead to the bell boy at the resort who then unloads baggage -you guessed it, another $5 tip.  $130 changes hands in 35 minutes and this goes on 24/7.  When the airlines run late, the biz. booms.  I love my job!

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from California writes:

Okay, are you seated?  High School and Middle School Teacher is now  a BS job.  We have to look like we’re teaching the kids something…as long as we please parents, kids and administrators…while doing the ‘testing, the SOB, (Standards, Outcomes and Benchmarks)…duh!   Give the kids some fun learning…cover the material (about 3 years worth for each grade level now..but coverage is the enemy of education, remember)…get a T.A. to enter all your bogus grades…give the grades the parents and kids ‘want’…rather than what  really is.  Move them along…don’t flunk them…(it will depress them, and they’ll be on prozac, etc.)…Make sure the ADHD’s are medicated well…(right dose)…and looking like they are learning…Well, there’s more …but it’s become an unethical, overthetop…BS job…

Also, the salary at my level is about $65K per year!!  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, dude….

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from South Carolina writes:

All I do is greet the rich people as the come to dinner and make sure the important rich people get the best tables. They slip me $100.00 bills all the time to move themselves up the social ladder and get better tables. If they sow up without making a reservation they know that $200.00 in my hand will get them sat right away at a great table. I also make about $30,000 a year salary to stand around doing nothing all night. I eat a free $80.00 Dinner each night and get all the free Top Shelf liquor I can drink after my shift and all the hot rich women love me and secretly want to hook up with me if they can ditch their millionaire husbands.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from New York writes:

Well, I’m from Rochester but I’m in the navy right now. I say being a sailor on a forward deployed ship is the biggest bulls**t job ever! we’re at sea 275 days of the year, no time for vacation, education or family. Most sailors I’ve know have been through divorces like it was nothing, because their wives cheated on them, or the actual job itself is stressful as hell, enough to where statistics show (navy statistics) that 20-40 percent of navy sailors die at a younger age because they are not used to not having stress in their lives after twenty or more years in the navy, they just die. it’s sad and it’s bulls**t, but somebody’s gotta do it.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Phoenix writes:

You stand (or sit) around and push buttons while you drink for free, collect money, and generally d**k around while drunken morons scream their horribly off-key rendition of “Black Velvet” into the microphone.

Upside: Free drinks, easy money, opportunity to meet lots of interesting people.

Downside: It’s karaoke.

Note: I’m actually reading this article and sending you this from my job as a karaoke D.J., if that says anything about how bulls**t this job is.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Nebraska writes:

Duties: Sit or stand in front of dressing room door or other backstage areas and make sure everyone has a backstage pass. Demoralize those who don’t and let Radiohead have free reign even if you don’t recognize them.

The Upside: Getting to hear cool concerts, befriend the bassist who flirts with you as he moves to and from rehearsal and performance, get fed by a personal chef, getting hugs from CarrotTop, keeping half crazed fans away from N*Sync, contact highs, cool backstage souvenirs that are being thrown away after the show, getting to tell big-name promoters that not even they are allowed to have glassware backstage.

The Downside: Having to go to the front of the house during a Phish concert and having stoned people paw at you, being told that “security girls” cannot respond to incidents at the front gate, trying to get backstage after a break and listening to some woman crying because Willie Nelson played at her parent’s wedding 40 years ago and she wants to thank him personally, Occasionally having to work the front gate, parking lot or in the venue, going deaf.

The Dark Side: Going on a date with a male security co-worker just to get stoned and later having to pry him off of you; realizing that despite the band’s friendliness before and during the show, you are completely invisible to all levels of society except the server at Denny’s after every show; watching N*Sync’s concert promoter jumping over the threshold to their dressing room and shouting, “My world! Your world! My world! Your world!”

Where you go from here: If you do a really good job, you might get to work security at the Super Bowl or other major sporting event … IN ANOTHER CITY! With all expenses paid! whoo hoo, partay.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from California writes:

I am a “System Engineer” on a project for a major defense contractor.  Although my scope of responsibility has yet to be defined, I can say one thing for certain: I’m paid a very nice salary, most of which comes from your tax dollars.

As a former military officer with a graduate degree in computer science from a top-notch school, I was supposedly hired for my software engineering background, project management skills, and overall technical domain knowledge.  To date, however, I have yet to participate in any form of system or software design; my daily tasks consist mostly of attending directionless meetings, typing up the resulting “meeting minutes,” and sending them out via e-mail.  For the remaining 95% of my time, I take long lunch breaks and surf the web (as I’m doing now).

Of course, this should not be trivialized.  I would not be able to perform these tasks without having achieved the ability to log into a PC, type a Microsoft Word document, and send an e-mail to multiple recipients.  These critical functions require essential cognitive and motor skills that could otherwise be overlooked.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from New York writes:

Essentially you’re getting paid well–in the six figures + up to 50% of your base for bonus– to write emails, memos and articles for senior management, that their employees have no interest in reading. Oh, and through these written communications we’re supposed to inform & engage employees so that they’re proud of the company they work for.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Maryland writes:

You do ten-twenty minutes of work for each hour and the rest of your time you spend “getting ready.” It sucks when you’re the first person to arrive before the hockey starts and you have to deal with the idiots who cannot tell time. Salary ranges form $25k to $60k. It’s plenty of fun especially when you have hot hockey moms. You get to drive a huge truck-like machine on ice and are expected to not miss any spots. You get to watch all the hockey you can handle and get to play when everyone is off the ice. It can get cold in the winter, but in the summer its a great escape from the heat, if you have a job in the summer.

 Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Dallas writes:

I am a runner for a large production company that organizes the live music shows around here. Simply called a “runner”, my job is to cater to the every need of any band that is playing a show in our venues, be it getting their laundry done, to finding them primo grade cocaine.  I usually make $700 a week if i work every weekend.

Upside: You get to meet a lot of famous band members that will normally remember you next time they come to town.

Downside: You never get to see the show/ never get anything signed/your friends only like you if you can get them passes/the dirty laundry…EWW! darkside: youre always required to know how to get your hands on  hydro/ a vaporizer/ coke/ morphine/ heroin/ ecstacy/ smack, or some other crap at a moments notice.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from New York writes:

Shuffle paper between aircraft mechanics and the real engineers who are somewhere far away.

Main skill required: talking on the phone.

Pros: Some days there’s nothing to do.
Cons: Lots of pressure to get the airplane fixed even though you have no power over when that happens.

 Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Missouri writes:

When somebody leaves their laundry in the washer/dryer for more than 2 hours, she takes it out, dries it and sells it to the local resale shop.  Also trolls lost-and-founds around campus to sell items on eBay or back to the college bookstore.

She makes about $900 a month, more in the winter.  Laughs uncontrollably at the sight of student cafeteria workers and work-study students.

She’s always fun to go out and party with, because she always has beer money. Usually will give dibs to her roommates and suite-mates.’

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

 A reader from Nevada writes:

 Take money from rich gamblers.

Downside:  One of the only careers in which you can go broke, may require living out of a suitcase, constantly in smokey, swanky casinos.

Upside:  make your own schedule, on ESPN if you make a tournament final table, potential endorsements if you act silly on TV.

Dark side:  Once a poker player, always a poker player.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Florida writes:

Sit at a big desk all day with lots of computers and wait for students to approach and ask what they think are important questions that once answered will steer them to the research that will earn them A’s in class.

Upside: you already know most of the answers.

Downside: Repetitive monotony.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

Let’s all send out a massive wave of goodwill to Bodhisattva Richard Gere, who is now under indictment in India for kissing a Bollywood movie star in public. For students of corporate life, the thought percolates up that it is important, in any setting, to understand the culture in which one is operating. A friendly buss on the cheek between two associates may be fine in one arena and a criminally obscene act in another. In any event, our thoughts go out to Mr. Gere and his friend the Dalai Lama for this unexpected and somewhat inexplicable piece of bad publicity. A celebrity can never tell how anything is going to play these days, but if bad taste was suddenly declared a punishable crime there would hardly be room in any of our penal institutions.

A reader from Charleston writes:

Monitor the number of collect calls made from payphones.  Amount of time per day required to accomplish – 15 minutes.  Why, because there are 150 million cell phones in the country and only 300,000 payphones.  Plus, when was the last time you made a collect call from a payphone?  Pay – $50,000/year, why?  Because a 3 minute collect call cost $25 and someone is still making them!   Also get to spend plenty of time staring at the wall.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Michigan writes:

Sit and watch the robot do all the work, record statistics of the work every once and a while.  If it breaks call maintenance to come fix it for you.

Pay 13.00-20.00/hour

Upside:
You get to sit on your butt and do nothing all day

Downside:
Sitting for 8 hours a day for a couple of weeks straight hurts after a while, plus it is incredibly boring.

Darkside: You get lots of time to think, you start plotting ways to actually do some work.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in Virginia writes:

Get paid to post “Quality First” stickers in manufacturing plants all day, espouse how Quality really saves instead of costing money, and write procedures that no one cares about or follows.  Then get yelled at when something goes wrong and customers are unhappy.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Massachusetts writes:

For a few months I had a wonderful part time gig as a “door monitor” where my job was to sit in a building just inside the door from 5-8, after the receptionists went home, and occasionally look up from my reading to let in people who knocked (usually fewer than five per day).  I could have been replaced by a buzzer.  And I made more than minimum wage!  (It was either eight or ten bucks an hour, I forget which.)

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal had a story that typifies why that paper continues to hold our interest on a lot of days when nothing’s going on of any note in the world of business. On the front page of the Personal Journal was a story headlined, “How Much Is Your Dog’s Life Worth?”  It seems that in the wake of the pet-food problem now bedeviling pet owners nationwide, lawyers have entered the ring and are attempting to quantify the value of a poisoned dog to its owner, and then to monetize that value.

I am fortunate enough not to have fed my dog anything that contributed to its demise. But I came close very recently. And I can tell you exactly what a dog’s life is worth: Whatever it takes.

Our story begins in  the bucolic Marin County town where I live when I am not in Manhattan. It’s really beautiful out there. I highly recommend it. People talk about different things and eat locally grown organic food without smirking. Perhaps they drink too much coffee and indulge in too many team sports for children, but that’s another story.

About a month ago, I ate some chicken. What kind of chicken is not really important. Suffice it to say that when I was done with the chicken, not being a total barbarian, I threw away the bones.  There they sat for a few hours in an open garbage can. Neither my wife nor I noticed that Julie, our usually vocal and somewhat omnipresent Cavalier King Charles spaniel, had grown preternaturally quiet, and had positioned herself in a subtle but inoffensive manner near the garbage can. She did nothing while we were in the house. It was only later that she struck.

After a quiet afternoon, it was time for us to go to a birthday party for our friend Bruce, who does body work in Fairfax. We were looking forward to it. A Marin party often involves very good food and outrageously tasty wine in demented quantities and this gathering proved to be no exception. There was noise and healthy comestibles of all sorts, and even some unhealthy stuff, too, which is always nice, and organic vodka from the region that tasted somewhat weird but did the job. When we could wassail no more, we returned home at about 10 PM to find the garbage can upended and nothing but a grease spot on the floor where a mound of chicken bones should have been.

I have had Lab/German Shepherd mixes who have eaten entire pastramis and lived to tell the tale, having suffered nothing but a Biblical thirst for a week and a month of bloat afterwards. My great dog of the 1980s, Blanche, a samoyed/collie mix, once ingested an entire chicken and the aluminum foil surrounding it and suffered no ill effects that I could see, although she was a bit thoughtful for a week or so afterwards. But Julie is a small thing, only 18 pounds. By midnight, she was lying on the floor panting. By 3 AM, we were up with her because she was circling the house impatiently, whining, asking to be taken out. Once out, she attempted to attend to her duties but was unsuccessful. At about 5 AM, my wife read about a home remedy online, one where you soak cotton balls in cold cream, a concoction that, eaten by the dog, ostensibly smooths the way for the bones to exit into the outer world again. So we were up before dawn at the Safeway, with Julie in the passenger seat of a shopping cart, purchasing nostrums for her.

At dawn, it was clear that nothing was helping our little friend. She was in trouble. Her enormous brown eyes stared up at us with liquid intensity. Couldn’t we do something? Anything?

By the time we took her to the animal hospital, she had begun to throw up and show all the signs of, well, having a problem that would require surgery. And this where I believe the question that is posed in the Journal may be answered. Not for one moment did either human being in control of this situation think to him or herself: “I wonder how much this is going to cost?”

Okay, we have some disposable income, but we’re no Buffetts. It didn’t matter. As Lear said when presented with a future that was grossly unacceptable to him, “Oh question not the need!” We did not. Julie must be fixed. The world needed to be put back into proper operating condition.

In the end, our greedy little canis moronis did not need to be opened up and 1/2 of a poultry extracted. She merely needed three days in the hospital and a lot of recuperation to be set right. I’ll spare you the details, which were truly disgusting, but it could have been worse. The tab came to $2000. We were planning on a trip to Disneyland this spring. Maybe next year.

Of course we’re crazy. Of course such an expenditure in a world full of needy human beings is reprehensible, thoroughly. But I’ll tell you something. When I get back to California at the end of the week and put down my bag in the entryway, and Julie comes out to greet me with her plump end wagging, and she flips over for a tummy rub… let me tell you: there’s nothing in business like it. And what’s that worth?

A reader from San Francisco writes:

I read energy and can accurately identify health issues and locate missing people and pets… Telling the future however, is a paradox. Since the future is a result of your beliefs with what could happen based on your past experiences you can change the outcome by changing your beliefs.. Some things are predestined, but how you experience it is up to you. It is a bulls**t job because people want you to indulge them in what they want to hear instead of realizing their reality is a composite of what they believe can come true consciously and subconsciously.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader in California writes:

The ability to look over and criticize the work of others with no real expertise in any field. The ability to generate belief and fear that this function is needed at all costs and the job can’t be done without it. To further bilk the government for millions of $$ in the process.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Dallas writes:

Salary: in the 6 figures, plus bonus
Position: You develop an idea based on information that can be interpreted any way to fit the purpose.  If it succeeded, you’re a hero.  If it fails, You can always blame sales for not executing it.
Upside:You’re never wrong
Downside:  You’re never wrong

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Los Angeles writes:

Upside: free popcorn, free movies, 65,000-75,00 p/ yr (depends on bonuses), work hours that I choose

Downside: Glorified babysitter, almost all of my employees are High School kids

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from West Virginia writes:

Conducts routine inspection of food operations ranging from street carts to large dining facilities.

$$:  Not nearly enough considering what inspectors have to see and smell.

Upside:  Health Inspectors know where not to eat.

Downside:  Health Inspectors know too much to eat anywhere.

Darkside:  Name calling (food nazi) and becoming the target of hit-waitresses

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Baltimore writes:

Get paid to evaluate the data associated with a computer application problem.  Then determine that it was a network error, and pass the problem back to the help desk.

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?

A reader from Connecticut writes:

Teaching executives how to do their jobs.  In every organization you will rise to your level of incompetence and stay there.  These executives get a promotion to a level they cannot do so they need a coach to help them.  Over paid private tutor for wealthy adult students, no definable product and no way to judge the coach’s performance… what could be better!

Readers, what do you think? Is this a bulls**t job?