jobs I would not want

school counselor

Whereas I used to think being a counselor or psychologist would be pretty sweet, I now realize that it would involve dealing with people (specifically children) crying pretty much on a daily basis. And if there's anything I hate more than snot, it's children. Also crying. And also other people's problems.

jobs I would not want

post-tailgate parking lot cleaner

Based on how the parking lot around Autzen stadium looked the morning after the WSU slaughter, I contend that this would be the world's worst job. And I suspect it is unpaid.

jobs I would not want

masseuse

Not because it's an inherently bad career--in fact, I know some people who quite like it--but because I have this thing about touching and being touched. Also back hair.

jobs I would not want

Host of a celebrity gossip show

I would have to know all the inane crap about self-absorbed famous people. Then I would have to seem excited when one of them poops out another brat and names it Beijing or Pietermartizburg or Kabul or New Delhi because they've already used all the pretty European city names.
Then I would have to get my teeth whitened to a point where I can use them like a disco ball if the one in a club is out of commission and tan to the point people start asking if I am ethnic or just wearing a full bodysuit made of leather.
Also, I would have some peppy cohost in a color coordinated outfit and an IQ level equal to that of a two-week-old mango.

Eew.

jobs I would not want

tanning salon attendant

Because the benefits aren't that awesome and the clientele would leave something to be desired. Like, everything. And the pay isn't so great that you couldn't find something less boring and superficial.

jobs I would not want

Disney princess

While on the one hand this seems like every girl's fantasy job, let's think critically here: you're working one of the hottest states in the nation (that's Florida or California, for those of you whose parents don't love you), probably in Summer, at a kid-centered tourist attraction, in a stupid costume. And despite the heat, exacerbated by many layers of stupid costume (which you probably share with someone whose body odor is unpleasant), you have to "share the magic" with hundred of snot-nosed brats all day, every day while their parents take pictures.

jobs I would not want

Cocktail waitress at "the bar" in a college town

I like drinking well enough and I can handle drunk people for awhile. I could not, however, handle seventy of them every night for six hours. The smell, the sweaty dudes, the vomit, the trashy girls...I'd be annoyed at the end of the first week. The tips would probably suck too because it's college kids.

jobs I would not want

Daily Cartoonist

Because it turns out it's really hard to be funny on command, and even harder to make a three-panel comic strip funny no matter how long you have to think about it. Also hard to make characters look consistent. And to make them have life-like facial expressions.

Although if you were to pay me, say, $7 per comic, I'd consider doing it on a weekly basis.

jobs I would not want

A Super Model's Personal Assistant


You're going to get a blackberry thrown at your face sooner or later and that's going to suck...hard

jobs I would not want

graduate student

Because you'd have to write two papers, edit stuff for a portfolio, and prepare a project proposal by Friday. And that would suck.

jobs I would not want

Customer Service Rep

The only time people call those lines is when they're so frustrated they want to just yell at someone. All the verbal abuse would be a pain in the ass.

jobs I would not want

Sears Portrait Taking Technician with a specializing in Childhood and Baby Portraits

For every one kid who is good and giggly and cute you have approximately 93 who are whiny and cry and require every squeaky, rattly, colorful toy in the arsenal in order to make them smile once so you can get a photo.
Also they never stay where you put them and more than likely you'll get barfed on or your set will get pooped on.

Awesome.
Thanks ITT Tech for preparing me for the real world.

jobs I would not want

Jezebel Comment Moderator

Because some of those women (and men, I guess) are bitches.

And they have a large sense of entitlement about their preferred web playground.

It would be like being the recess lady for bigger, ruder, anonymous kids.

jobs I would not want

Skating Rink Employee

Because nothing would suck worse than watching twelve year olds in faux-skater hoodies flirt all night every night. Couples skate would be so embarrassing. And the speed skate, wherein all the boys would try to impress the middle-school-aged girls, would be awful.

AWFUL.

jobs I would not want

screener for MTV reality show applicants

If you've ever watched any made-for-MTV reality show, you're familiar with the absolute drudges of humanity. The really, horribly depressing thing, however, is to consider what kinds of horrible, attention-hungry, desperate, sad, and obnoxious people were deemed too unexciting to appear on these programs.

Your job would be to sift through video applications in which these horrible people highlight their worst qualities, and to filter out the horrible-yet-dull in favor of the awful-yet-good-for-ratings.

And then you'd be stuck with the results of your decisions for the rest of that series' run, and possibly for increasingly-desperate spin-offs.

jobs I would not want

location scout: Ice Road Truckers

Just because if your job were scouting locations for the show Ice Road Truckers, you would be in an inhospitable, cold, miserable environment deciding if it were inhospitable, cold, and miserable enough to make for quality Discovery Channel programming. In Antarctica. On ice.

jobs I would not want

Fox News Anchor

...about three hours ago.

jobs I would not want

Moderator, Twilight Fan Fic site

Because it would be the worse version of being a YA reader at a publishing house, but people would submit without all those pesky obstacles like having to put in any effort or thought. And it would be the Twilight series. Probably with plenty of slash.

Posted by "no one understands me!" thirteen year olds. Gah.

jobs I would not want

Reader, YA division of major publishing house

Generally I think being a reader at a major publishing house would be an incredibly amazing job. You would get a say in what books get published! You'd read the latest and greatest things before they came out and know that you contributed to their publication and success. Your job, all day long, would be to sit and read. And give your opinion!

And who doesn't love having her opinion matter?

So why, you ask, would I want to avoid this particular division? Well, to be honest, it's not exclusively YA (young adult, for all you uncultured swine out there). I'd hate SciFi and probably romance, too. Though romance might be entertaining in its insipidness.

But YA is the genre that brings you such literary masterpieces as the Twilight series. Hundreds of desperate Harry Potter knock-offs. Spin offs of TV shows. Spin offs of TV shows that themselves are based on YA novels.

And that's the shit that's actually getting published.

I have no doubt that the department receives literally thousands of submissions a year written by angstful, maladjusted teenage girls about similarly unpopular (but beautiful!) heroines who in various uninteresting ways defeat the popular (and generic! and stupid!) girls to win the affections of the (horrifically bland!) star of the football team.

Your entire job would be to wade through unyielding piles of adolescent self-importance, either written by people who are basically adolescents themselves or people who are just particularly good at capturing an awkward phase. And after a while even the good YA books would start to make you long for your years of senior discounts, if only because it would symbolize getting further from that horrible time when you honestly believed that you were so. different. And no one could possibly understand you. And every poorly-written book you read (for you career) would serve to remind you that, no, you were just like all the other adolescents lacking the vocabulary to come out on the other side and write an insightful novel about it.

And the good stuff? Those books that you go back and reread to this day because they struck you in the right way at the right time in your life to always mean something? Those books would probably get assigned to your coworker who wisely added a "nothing with vampires" clause to her contract.

jobs I would not want

Septic Tank anything

inspector, cleaner, maintenance person, aficionado, anything

I do not want to ever in my life be near a huge tank of poop, it doesn't matter whose it is or how it got there. I do not want to ever be near it. Ever. A reasonable request, no?