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Week 1: Best jobs for smart, but lazy people



I would like you to read the article The Best jobs for smart, but lazy people published at
http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20140228-jobs-for-the-smart-but-lazy and comment on/discuss it. Make your own list of such jobs in  Poland;)

Comments

Tomek said…
There will always be a problem with connecting people with jobs they learnt to do. I'm sure there are hundreds of positions that don't require a lot of work but force a significant change in lifestyle. Saying that programming pays well and is easy is true to a degree but far too general. Employers often need specialists who know how to talk with clients or other employees and can complete tasks far exceeding just programming. Programmers usually can get away with more though. It's acceptable that something they create doesn't work perfectly and will be fixed later. It's difficult to find any programmers at all let alone good ones. I also think that being lazy as mentioned in the article is more about being smart. Reusable code is not something easy to do and requires more work upfront which might pay off in the future. So a programmer is shifting the work he has to do in time, not avoiding it.
The following video used to be very popular a few months ago:
http://wid.wisc.edu/wid-picks/encouraging-the-next-generation-of-programmers/
Actually doing it on a regular basis can produce different feelings than those portrayed in the film:
https://mondaybynoon.com/programming-is-not-for-everybody-symbo1ics-ideas/
Maria said…
I agree with Tomek that the article is more about smart, not lazy people. How creative and flexible a person has to be to teach English in Asia! This example is about extremely adjustable people who were so clever that they found a place on earth were their appearance, knowledge and a culture from which they come from is beloved by the employers. A good friend of mine is now living in Hong Kong , he is studying there in very prestige school. The way people treat him there is such a surprise! Just like it was mentioned in the article, he was payed for making english translations much more than he would earn anywhere! But the love for Europeans doesn't end there, he was also asked several times to act in an advertisement or even in a movie! He knows a little chinese and he never even thought about being an actor! It doesn't matter there- he's tall and he's blond- his rarity makes a lot of unpredictable, funny and well paid job offers for him.
As I wrote, in my opinion creativity is the most important feature, for a person who would like to earn enough money and still have time “to live” . The movie liked by Tomek shows it very well.
It is very hard to make a list of jobs “for lazy”, because it depends on amount of money a person needs to spend for living and on many other individual needs.
Another thing , which is worth mentioning, is a simple truth that when you find something which you love to do, you feel free. For a person who, for example, is a graphic designer, who loves his or her job, working for 8 hours a day is equal as if he or she was having great fun for those 8 hours. He or she doesn't feel that those 8 hours of his or her life was unhappy or exhausting. And if she or he doesn't forget to be creative – there's also possibility to work for employers from, for example U.S.A. who pay much more than Polish employers ;)
Unknown said…
Every person is lazy and looks for the easiest way to earn money while doing as little as possible. It is easily explicable with an economic concept "Homo economicus" brought by John Stuart Mill. We think rationally and we try to maximize our profits and comfort our lives.

Actually, yvery decision and choice in our life we make, as well a short-term or a long-term one, is explainable with "homo economicus" theory. Eg. if you wake up in the morning and eat old bread from the previous day, it means that staying in bed as long as possible represents for you higher value than waking up earlier, doing shopping and eating fresh bread.

It also applies to people who choose lower-paid jobs. They do that because of other factors, like they value their spare time more or they prefer no to have too much stress, which usually comes along with better-paid jobs.

There is also another interesting economic theory applying to scientists/specialists. It tells that salary rise is effective only to some degree - in some moment it stops working and demotivates well-trained employees. It is caused by the fact that well-educated people value their free time relatively high - and they earn money to realise their hobbies/dreams. Hence, when they earn enough money to make it possible they lose motivation to work more.
Unknown said…
I read that article with highest interest, but I don't fully agree. I don't think a programmer is a good job for lazy people as actually it requires quite a lot of focus and time - which is what lazy people want to save as much as possible.
Even if you're an expert in something, it's pure chance (a low one) that someone will let you to just "share the knowledge once in a while and that's it".
Same with teaching English abroad - if you want to make good money doing so, you have to spend a lot of time.

The point is that the article seems to have been written by someone who's not really sure which jobs are good for the lazy. I believe many freelance jobs are good, as you can technically work at any time you want - the problem with the lazy people there, however, is that they might never feel like working unless forced to, and it only sounds good on paper.

I think the best job for the lazy is surely doing whatever they like what they're doing, but that's very cliche and easy to say. I'm pretty sure that most people are balancing in between - they are doing work they are ok with, but they are not passionate about it enough to consider it pure fun.
Unknown said…
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said…
I agree with most of my friends here that this article is not about lazy jobs. Simon said that programming is not a job for lazy people. I totally agree with his opinion. Who ever work as programmer, know very well that this is very challenging and sometimes frustrating job.
Programmers have to deal with many issues and as technology changes they have to adapt rapidly new techniques and learn new tools. In few words... If you are lazy... than DO NOT GET A JOB AS PROGRAMMER ! :>

What is the best job for lazy people ?
It is hard to say because each requires more or less effort. I would say that the best job for lazy people is a security guy in a not really busy magasin. (especially night shifts).

Another lazy job could be private taxi driver. All you need is GPS and a car. You sit on your ass most of the time, listening to the radio and thinking about tomorrow's day.
I do agree that this article is more about smart, not lazy people. But in my opinion given examples of jobs were adequate to the topic. When it comes to Poland, and Polish employees, I think we have a tendency to give an impression of hard working (I'm not making any generalization). And this relates to laziness. If you look busy - your boss thinks you are. And it's also a sign of intelligence.
I was thnking about such jobs in Poland, and I have to say it was tricky. But finally I came up with two: creative director at marketing agency, because this job requires creativity, productivity and so on, but when one will get own team - it'r really easy to pick and accept projects. The second job I can think of, is radiographer. A good radiographer takes serious amount of money for a consultation. I think it's a good example, because reading RTG/USG scans requires few years of learning, a
talent maybe. In the same time it may be challenging because of particular diseas. But it doesn't requires much effort.
Sylwia said…
I completly agree with Simon. To me also the best job for lazy person is to do what the person is intrested about. When work is your passion you never feel you are working. You just have fun, spend time as you like and someone pays you for it. That is way, we can't find any particular job for lazy people. Everyone is diffrent and and expect somthing else from life. The secret is to find job, which you really enjoy.
Kacper K said…
Just after reading the article I agree with the few other people’s opinion that this article is more about the people intelligence than their laziness. It is known that all really great inventions have happened because of not very willing people’s attitude towards work so they have had to think how to avoid such hard work and get good results. And perhaps it is the clue - the beginning.
I would like to introduce some examples connected with my two completely different jobs.
I came up with two jobs. The first one as an IT administrator but not in a big corporation but in a small company. Someone well - skilled in IT systems should not have bigger problems doing such a work. After the first few days of operation and configuration of all the devices properly, I should work for a long time without big problems. The work in fact concentrates only on problems from time to time.
My second job I got is dubbing. No need to learn texts by heart, because I read them from the card. I am only responsible how quickly I record the audio path info. No need also to such a work a lot to prepare, just me and some voice lessons diction.
Of course, such work is good for a specific group of people. And also for typical period of their lives.
Kasia Kmieć said…
I have to say that I agree with what Bill Gates said. Usually when a person has to do something hard and that person is hardworking, he/she will do it using a previously thought of pattern, whereas a lazy person will first try to think of a way to do it as easily as possible, or even think of something totally different that normally is unrelated to the problem, but in the given case could help. The same thing applies to normal daily issues. For example if someone would want to grill some meat and didn't have a grill, normally he/she would go to a shop and buy it. Lazy and intelligent person will think outside the box and could come up with an idea that doesn't require him/her to move from home like in this link: http://studentpotrafi.pl/18679/Grillowanie. That being said I don't fully agree with what is written in the article. Like most of the people in the comment said, the jobs in the examples are more for smart than lazy people. The only two jobs that I can think of being good for lazy people are handing leaflets, and managing the cash register in the markets.
Unknown said…
I totally agree with Kasia, lazy people are the most creative of all- they always will find a way to omit hardwork or leave their warm, comfortable home.They will probably have better lifes than others just because of their brilliant ideas. Such people, as Bill Gates said, have to be appreciated.
I travelled a lot with my english friend, who is living in Poland for 3 years. She is a private english teacher and that is the only way of earning money- speaking in her native language. I think what was said in the article about teaching english is true- that is a kind of job for smart, but lazy people.
Anonymous said…
If you have a very difficult problem find the most lazy person and ask them to do a task. You'll be amazed how quickly and easily solve them :).
I know many programmers, and I can agree with the article. Most of them are lazy. So what? It's just a benefit :). There is no better meetings of the planning tasks by programmers. They all sit together and think like the easiest and best to do the job.
In my opinion laziness it's not a defect it's a great advantage that you need to know how to use.
To be able to be lazy is no easy task! There are certain jobs that allow you to be lazy, but you need the proper skills to do them. I personally am a developer and this job is working out for me. I am lazy and the jo allows me to be lazy. It is true what the article says, that many tasks in this work are repetitive, once in a while however you get a challenge which really makes your brain work hard. Although you sit all day it can be really tiring when you struggle with a particular problem all day. Often I discover I need to learn some things not connected with IT or programming just to write a particular piece of code. This can be very annoying, especially when it is something you don't really know a lot about, but it is also one of my favorite aspects of the job, because it allows me to learn things I would never learn otherwise.
Unknown said…
In my opinion laziness it's not a defect it's a great advantage that you 'need to know how to use.
I am a computer scientist and I was met with different people. Rather, they are relaxed, they work slowly, quietly but effectively.
I think that every person is a little bit lazy, but when we have to do something work you have to be mobilized.

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