Perfect jobs for smart but lazy people

DID you suspect some people sail through life picking up pay cheques while the rest of us slave away? Well, you’re right.

14/04/2010 WIRE: 14/04/2010 WIRE: Attitude Lessons Learned July 8: In this film publicity image released by Columbia Pictures...

DID you always suspect that there are some people who sail through life picking up their pay cheques for doing absolutely nothing while the rest of us slave away?

Well, you’re right.

An interesting chat on content sharing site Quora recently revealed that there are some jobs which take very little effort but pick up the big bucks.

ENGLISH TEACHER

You could be a lazy teacher, or just a bad teacher.

No, not an English teacher at a high school. If you’ve ever met an English teacher, you’ll know they work very hard, which sort of defeats the purpose of a commitment to laziness. Plus, they will slap you at the suggestion of anything to the contrary.

An English language teacher on the other hand has it pretty easy, according to Quora member Andy Lee Chaisiri. He wrote that a third of the English language teachers he met in Beijing described themselves as intelligent but very lazy. They were also super modest.

Mr Chaisiri said demand for English teachers is very high in China and the only real qualification you need is to hail from an English-speaking country.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Don knows the game.

Quora member Maria Macmillan who is a creative director at an ad agency wrote: “All I do all day is look for inspiration and check the work of my copywriters, graphic designers, editors and animaters. I exchange quips with the boss in the hallway, answer emails and spend on lot of time on Quora [Hmmm].”

However, she warned that she sometimes also has to attend meetings and write briefs, and worked pretty hard to get to the position in the first place.

But once you’re there, it’s pretty smooth sailing. And if you jump in a time machine and go four or five decades back, you can just drink and pass out on your couch all day.

MIDDLE MANAGEMENT

No one is quite sure how Michael Scott even got to middle management.

It’s that sweet spot where you’ve toiled your way there and have underlings to do the actual work, but you haven’t reached the upper echelons yet where you have to take real responsibilities for when things go pear shaped.

An Anonymous poster wrote on Quora: “If you are highly intelligent, angle for middle management in any corporate cubicle setting but preferably one of the softer departments like marketing where you’re not often held accountable for anything measurable.

“All you do is attend management meetings and play on your iPhone the whole time under the guise of acting busy. Even if people figure out what you’re up to, if you’re truly intelligent, bosses will keep you around for your very good ideas that you slip their way when they need them.”

A WHITE GUY

Ribbon cutting ceremony anyone?

One Quora poster pointed to an article from The Atlantic which detailed the experience of a white man in China who made a good living just by fronting up for Chinese companies who wanted to look like they had international ties.

Mitch Moxley said he and five other white dudes were once recruited to pretend to be executives from a Californian company that was building a facility in Dongying. For a week, they attended ribbon cutting ceremonies, cocktail events and gave speeches.

They were wooed, dined and posed in photos with the city’s mayor. For the rest of the time, they sat in an office and read magazines. For his ‘efforts’, Mr Moxley collected a cool $1000. Was it all entirely legal? Hmmmm.

And you know what? You don’t even have to be smart to do this, you just have to act smart.

Originally published as Perfect jobs for smart but lazy people