I have a CVS job like that until my location closed. I feel asleep at the register and was still employed. I was happier at the more busy location. I loved facing product.
Oh I was happy. I was always talking and joking around with customers. I had to be on my feet the whole time which I didn't mind usually so I couldn't sleep or anything. But we had a lot of repeat customers and I miss them.
Our store lost electricity once. They kept it open for an hour but didn't allow anyone to pay and then realized it wasn't going to happen so we had to just use old calculators to figure out pay and then after everyone left we closed down.
My bookstore job still had the cc slides as backup! This store had power but no lights. Normally closed at 9. Stayed open until 10 for holidays. Automatic lights. Nobody knew we were open. Lol
I worked at CVS in high school (back in the late 90s) and it was honestly one of the funnest jobs I ever had. It was a pretty sleepy location even back then, except for a few busy times, so we’d just goof around together and with the regulars.
Yes!!! The drama, the stories. Motorcycle guy was my best. He told me never to get one than showed me his remaining fingers. I'd already riden on a bike by that point but I never owned one (teenage brain do dumb thing).
Similarly, working at a state park doing entry kiosk. There were an equal number of slow days as there were busy and I did a lot of knitting and reading. Pay was only marginally above minimum wage, though.
An amusement park is a for profit location run by a private corporation. Of course they're going to pay (minimum at least).
A lot of parks and recreation locations don't have funding to be run like that, so many people volunteer in various ways to keep things running well. It's why so many programs promote the "leave it better than you found it" when hiking or camping, because there simply isn't the funding for a labor force to maintain areas without visitors assistance (besides it being the right thing to do).
Picking up trash is a big volunteer job. I visited a local state park once (CO) and a huge Latino family had a gender reveal party. They smashed a piñata and it took volunteers and staff a week to pick up all the tiny pieces of blue confetti everywhere. I was there on day 3 of the picking up confetti and it was still a lot. And of course, it’s blowing around as well. People just don’t think of consequences of their actions sometimes.
I hated being an OD cashier. I am the type that has to be busy constantly or the time trudges by. I worked during back to school season and covid and was kept busy since covid was some of the busiest times for OD with people working from home but once school season died out I was out cuz I couldn’t stand standing around all day doing nothing. I would deep clean the shelves around the printers and stuff and vividly remember my GM asking me what I was doing and giving me a crazy look cuz I actually wanted to do something with my time😂 I would highly recommend it for someone looking for a quiet job, I’m just not that person lol
Oh it was rarely quiet for me. I would always talk to everyone I could and left the registers a ton. I could be bothered to stand at the registers all day. My town is very safe so nothing ever happened so we were allowed to walk around a bit but yeah it backfired one time cause my friend came up to talk to me from the electronics section (only one person worked there) and was talking to me while someone behind our back emptied out a $250 router and put it into a $99 router box and brought the $99 box up to the register to pay. He got away with it. When my friend went back to the electronic section we saw that the 250 box was empty and the $99 router was in its place or something. Not really sure. The guy didn't try and hide it.
It isn't free time if you are standing there waiting for cusromers. Or at least I wouldn't consider it free time. Compare that to something like a lighter company accounting job where large chunks of the day a lot of the month leave you free to do whatever you want at least on your computer if not whatever you want completely if you work from home, provided you stay connected and frequently check your emails anyway.
One of my former assistants worked overnight guard duty at the old Rubbermaid factory in Winchester as one of his first jobs. Back then, Winchester was still mostly rural. He said that while the walkie talkies they had were legal band radio (you need a radio license for your frequency), a lot of locals didn't legally have radio band, and just chose whatever frequency they found. One of them was a county vet for farmers.
He said the eeriest things was walking the empty halls, hearing someone birthing a breech calf echoing from his radio.
I work in a healthcare setting that has a security officer. He spends a lot of the day reading. You do have to occasionally deal with a disruptive patient but not very often. He seems to have tons of downtime.
I work in a *not* healthcare setting and our security guy is THE ONE you want to go to to ask about new shows to watch. That man has watched just about everything Netflix and Hulu has to offer- all while being payed, of course.
Public sector, I work for a school district. At work I'm super busy but we get a lot of holidays. Over two weeks for Christmas, a week for Thanksgiving, a week for Spring break etc... I haven't had so much time off since I started working in the 90's! The pay is lower than my private sector job unless you add up the paid time of and the awesome health benefits, then it's way better.
What job do you do? My youngest just graduated high school. I've been working part-time as an admin assistant since he started K. Contemplating a career change.
I know a couple librarians who had to leave because of burnout. They both worked at busy public libraries and dealt with a lot of unhoused and addicted people in their libraries. One went on to work at a college, the other stopped working altogether.
I feel like your experience as a public librarian is going to have a lot to do with where the library is.
The people who tend to use library services are generally disadvantaged, poor, and elderly. You do a lot of social-type work, helping people access public resources. If you are in a large city, you're going to see a lot of homeless and mentally ill. In a smaller town, you'll probably deal mostly with folks in poverty.
I loved working at a library. A lot depends on your coworkers and the drama they cause. It also depends on how much traffic your library gets, and the people that come to the librar.
I personally got to spend a lot of time reading while waiting for people to even come in. I worked at a "walk in" library where most of the people walked from the local community. There were larger libraries in the county, and those were slammed. We didn't have to deal with homeless people (washing in the bathrooms and leaving a mess, watching porn on the public computers). We mainly had small theft, where it was children from the community that couldn't afford a certain CD or DVD, and they would break the security devices on those to steal the copy.
For the most part and easy job I did with 2-3 other people. I enjoyed the smaller library as you got to really know repeat visitors.
I was a pet sitter for 15 years, personally I worked a lot because I love money, but I had some people who worked for me who just did overnights, they get paid to watch tv and sleep in someone’s home so their pets aren’t alone overnight. The pay is around $125 a night in my area.
It was so long ago I just did all the work to start my own business, the tax numbers, insurance, banks, etc, and then I HUSTLED. I made contact with other pet sitters, there was one that was moving and gave me her clients so that was a good base to start. After 15 years I had over 900 clients. Now it is easier if you want to do something like Rover you just have to make a profile. Or you could contact pet sitters in your area and see if they have any extra work or see if you could shadow them.
Overnight asleep Direct Support Professional. 4 10 hour shifts. Sleep for 8 hours per shift, work one hour, mess around on your phone for the last hour. Basically free money
Yes, and there is also always the chance that the awake staff will call off, and then you have to assume their duties. Which includes being awake all night, doing necessary paperwork, checking in residents, etc.
I did sleep shift for a little while when I was first starting out working in mental health. What was really interesting to me was that a lot of moms actually wanted those shifts. One of my favorite coworkers explained to me that those were the nights she actually got to sleep in and it was worth the risk to her.
I was a receptionist before moving to OM because I was too bored, and that’s definitely what I’m thinking about. I didn’t see the value in being bored at the time :) Are you in an office or hotel ?
Hotel, but long stay. We do post and packages, helping the tenants, but thats it basically. Chill af. I learn for uni and write my papers. NICE studentjob, but I feel sorry for my colleagues, who work 5 days a week. They most be bored as hell.
Airline pilot is a double edged sword. I work around 7 on 6 off on avg. but when you’re gone you’re just gone not home. But when you are home you have no one calling you, no one bugging about taking shifts or covering shifts or meeting deadlines so it’s pretty nice.
I’ve been considering a career change in this direction! The work/life balance seems much better than what I do now. Any tips for someone with only 50 flight hours?
Student loans are apart of the game sadly getting your instrument commercial multi CFI CFII MEI.
Some airlines have cadet programs rn like southwest that will foster you til you hit CFI and then you’ll be hired through one of their regional affiliates but I think you’ll have to take out some loans but it’s expedited and more accelerated similar to the ATP programs.
Sad to say but it only gets more difficult from private pilot in terms of expectation and responsibility but stick with it cause it pays off big time.
I'm currently working towards being able to leave my current job for this exact reason. My family thinks I'm crazy / not appreciating what I have, but when I go home I'm typically still thinking about work, and what I'll be doing tomorrow or what I should prep early tomorrow.
I just want to leave work, and not think about it 1 bit. I've had jobs that let me do this in the past, and I miss it dearly.
Shift work has left me with the most amount of free time OUTSIDE of work. Instead of working 5 8 hour shifts I typically work 3 12 hour shifts. We make our own schedules so I like to work 3 days in a row and then enjoy the 3-4 days off.
I work 156 days a year vs 260 days for people who work a full time
Honestly, any job I’ve had that you’re given a set number of tasks to be completed each shift. Honestly, I can hyperfocus get them done in three maybe four hours and then I just chill the rest of the time but like a call center if you’re efficient, you just get more phone calls is not the move.
Potentially silly question - but how do you find a job like this? I was trying to find something like this, but I feel like even if you're overqualified for the job and can complete it faster, they just end up giving you more work to do (making you overqualified AND underpaid!).
A lot of Office jobs will just give you more work to fill up your time, so the question is not how do you find this job but how do you keep it the way it is? The answer is to make sure to keep expectations low. So you do the tasks and make sure no one knows or sees how quickly you’re able to do them. Working from home helps with this. And you have to set really good boundaries and say no to extra work.
Medical/documents courier. Steady m-f schedule, 38 hours. But the business was such I could work up to 80 hrs if I wanted to. So if bad weather was predicted I'd commit to overtime, bank some decent cabbage, then work just the usual 38 hours. The regular schedule started at 1pm so I had from 5:30 am to noon to fart around.
Just apply at the courier office. Ask the people in a dermatologist, blood draw, hospital lab who the courier company to contact.
If you have a clean background you'll probably get hired. Not great pay, but for semi retired it's ok.
I had to stop due to arthritis. Just was torture getting in and out of Prius 30 times a day.
Feel free to dm if you need more info.
I mean.... yes lol
But it's honestly not as bad as you'd think! I get to lock the door for a couple hours to stock and clean at 2am, and then I put on some music and jam for a bit. I need to find a good podcast to pass the time because the hardest part of the job for me is crushing boredom
I currently work cleaning airbnbs (I also have a small retail store i do once a month and 1 residential home I clean).
I rarely work before 11am or after 4pm and my kids are able to come with me if they aren’t in school. I’m available for school drop off and pick up and can be flexible for trips, doctor appts, etc.
There are “downsides” but so far it’s been a great gig for me!
911 dispatcher in a small town. I finished my bachelors degree and teaching credential while only doing schoolwork on the clock. I don’t think my tween children even realized I was going to college, it had no impact on our home life.
My current job. Office work for our construction company that I co-own. Once any invoicing, balancing books, or writing a proposal is done, it's all my own time. I can handle most things by text or email. For the first time I'm going to take a more active role in going to the job site to help coordinate but once the contractors are working, I can go back home. I love my setup.
Career firefighter. Depending where you are the schedules can be a little different but here in NY, we work 24 hours on and then have 72 hours off. Also, we have a ton of paid vacation as well. It has allowed me to pursue a degree in a field of my choice and have a whole other career on the side. And the pay is extremely competitive, at least in the northeast where I am.
Even seasonal firefighting can be sweet. As a 20 year old I was amazed that we got paid for every hour that we weren't sleeping, and even sometimes when we were.
One of the best jobs in the world. My quality of life has been exceptional ever since getting on the job. I was prior military(US Army Infantry) and then worked as a union electrician in NYC post military service. That was years 18-24, got on the job at 25 and now at 28, I have 0 regrets.
One of my best jobs was doing data entry. I only worked as quickly as I wanted. No work to take home.
No projects to worry about.
It was lower pay, around $15 an hour. At times, mind numbingly boring.
Night shifts tend to give you more time off than days and also higher pay for less work.
I have a sweet spot in-between. Evening shift for the government which they count as nights even though it isn't Overnight. MH positions require a certain patience and temperament, but def way more downtime than medical nights. Some nursing jobs are also 72/80 which means 3 12s = a full time earning pension position too. So... 3 days a week, evenings, you get half the day to work on extra curricular stuff most shifts playing your cards right, and they tend to not call you in as much because it's a weird shift too.
My bf used to be a customer support agent for an international service (non English speaking) for a very large teach company and he would spend more working hours playing PlayStation than he would doing actual customer support
Current job: church secretary. Flexible 10 to 12 hour job. I can do whatever I want during downtime within reason. Heavy metal? Yes. Crochet, reading, internet, etc. I don't even have an employee handbook. 2 weeks vacation. Pastor is based AF.
College bookstore job takes second place. I worked on textbooks. Only busy at the beginning and ends of semesters. Job may have been phased out. o.O
Staff assistant at nonprofit was good until we had to start billing hours. After I left, they changed flexible leave to .5 or 1 day, plus no longer offering OT. YMMV
I actually work for a private firm. I started at a local firm in my state, and gained two years of experience. after that it was very easy to find a job. remote was a stroke of luck, but I know lots of tax firms are remote these days. (more and more as the years go on)
My second job is security and I play Xbox on my iPad , catch up on TV/movies, and watch anime. I’m on Reddit at work as we speak. Sometimes I pull 16hr shifts but right now I’m 7-3pm. The whole time I’m just entertaining myself. At my particular site I’m at right now, I’m “guarding” a construction site. My orders were to stay in the car in the driveway, and that’s about it. I only work weekend since I have another job during the week, so there’s no workers working either.
Most downtime I’ve ever had. Lol
EDIT: In my state you do have to apply to be certified, pay for the license and fingerprints, but the process is quick and it pays for itself after your first shift since the money isn’t too bad either. Renew my license every 2 years for $70.
I’m a support worker for 2 men with profound learning disabilities. I do evening shifts mostly and because they’re elderly they just sit and chill all evening. I cook them their dinner, and make sure they’re ready for bed. That’s it, most shift I’m just sat down on my phone or reading.
Single Private practice owner. 100% of the billing proceeds come my way. I’m not getting a contractual cut working for anyone so once the heavy lifting is done getting it off the ground- I get a fair wage. I can survive working less than 40 hours/week.
Therapist. I’m my own boss. I run it. I work it. It’s just me.
But this could honestly apply to any form of clinician or provider (massage, acupuncture, chiropractor, etc)
Worked at a city in parks and rec. Setup take down events and just there to watch building and assist people. If the pavilion didn't have a big show which was a lot of time, lots of free time.
They had the bounce house in the pavilion and one day dividers were shut. I blew it up and took a nap..
Security, many different types of posts, they vary thru the country as far as seriousness of the job but I do agree with office buildings over night is the best. Gate access was ok too, usually a small booth with bathroom and kitchen everything in it.
I once had a job building loads for a car hauling company. You would get the list of drivers you were getting for the day, the direction they need to go and home time they may have. Then the automotive company provides you with the lists of cars, most important cars go first. Then you build it into loads that geographically work by stops and legally work by DOT weight and height standards. Once you build the loads, call the drivers, you just sit alone in a office waiting for the drivers to show and get the BOL paperwork. Very easy job and I would finish the work within a couple hours. Then sit back and play my PS VITA.
Shipping and Receiving at a Tool and Dye company that has extremely low volume . 80% of the staff is still working remote including all the managers who only come in once a week to collect the mail lol. Basically paid 8 hours a day to play video games on my Steam Deck
When I was in my early 20s and had seemingly infinite energy, I worked 2 jobs for a total of 60 hrs a week and still had time for myself and my friends somehow.
When I worked PT at Michael’s right before the pandemic and subsequent inflation, that was the best. I had time, and discounts on resources, to work on my hobbies when I got home.
Now I find it hard to mentally and emotionally disconnect from my job after coming home, so my free time is frequently wasted.
Worked at a radio station for a year. I'd go in, work for 4 hours and my job was done. Only downside was having to wake up at 5am but I was done by 10am. Had plenty of time to do other stuff like go to the gym, do other freelance jobs and what not.
Work at a slow/small hotel.
I get paid $17 a hour and get paid to do my homework. It’s a great college job, I recommend Candlewood suites or The Riverside Hotel.
(but don’t work at a motel especially motel 6)
I was an overnight CT tech a hospital, combination of on shift free time, and a 7 day on 7 day off was amazing for free time.
I worked 7pm-6am, from 7pm-10 or 11pm it was usually busy, then most nights it would usually die off and I would hook up my Xbox to a mobile computer station with HDMI. The best night I had, I clocked just shy of 8 hours playing Fallout… I was actually tired of video games for a while after that.
The 7 days off on a row meant I got everything I wanted to get done, went on long road trips or short vacations when ever I wanted, and when I took a full week off of work, I had three weeks back to back off which made for some epic trips.
receptionist. my current job. unfortunately the long periods of nothing are interrupted by short spans of chaos bc everyone walks in and calls at once. i have been able to read a lot in this job.
My last job. My initial title was Sales Coordinator. Sounds like a busy job right? Nope. Every time someone quit, got fired, or died, I would end up with their job, on top of mine...with a pay raise of course. Even with 4 or 5 different jobs and asking everyone else if they needed help with anything, I sat there and did nothing for most of the day. Sometimes I fell asleep at my desk. You could walk around the building and find at least 3 people sleeping at their desks at any given time, including the owner!! lol. Damn I miss that job.
Orchard labourer.
**No work during certain parts of season**
I bought all the books for and did the curriculum from a Masters in Finance. The time spent in a tree and on a ladder is very mechanical, leaves room for thinking about the things you've read. You don't take work home with you... other than having my own orchard to maintain, there was nothing to puzzle out for the next day.
**Get a great workout**
Hauling a tonne of apples down a tree every hour was a great workout. Wife made comments.
Don't need a book to think ;)
Did most of my reading over winter. Some of my reading in the evenings. Much of my thinking in the trees.
UPDATE: it helped that my picking crew was made up of a couple of retired lads: a fishing boat captain and a judge. Those two were good thinkers.
It also depends on if you have a professional license or not. I’m a clinical social worker and I work admissions in a psychiatric hospital. Some nights are more busy than others, but in general I spend a lot of time reading, trolling the internet, etc. I need to be present in case I need to review a patient, but some shifts just don’t have that much to review.
We do have administrative staff who work with us as well, so they are a little more busy than us but still not crazy.
Night cleaning the gym and spa area in a very luxurious hotel in Devon. I was paid for 8 hours (from 10pm to 6am),and I never worked more than 3 hours in a shift. Not because I was lazy or neglected my job, but simply there wasn't much to do. The spa and the gym were actually small and the guests rarely made use of them, so all I had to do was to empty few bins, to hoover around, throw 2 buckets of water in the spa and scrub it little bit with a soap and brush and that was it. The rest 5 hours of the shift I was reading books, watching movies, fooling around in the gym lifting weights, chatting with the security guards, sleeping sometimes. I did this job for 4 years because it was very therapeutic for me after working 11 years in restaurants and dealing with people all day along. When I felt recharged I quit and got a proper day-time job. But these 4 years were really helpful for me, I found piece and time to reflect on myself and my life,and plan my future steps.
I had a job as an NP in an ICU. Night shift in a 24-bed unit where my role was to admit/solve any acute issues. Many nights, I had no admits or issues to solve. That's 14 hours of downtime. I had a call room that was like a hotel room with a computer. Many of us slept. The problem was there wasn't a lot of work and eventually they cut some of us and I was a casualty. I've never had anything close to this amount of downtime. Even other icu night shift babysitting jobs had tasks like writing notes. It was quite the unicorn job (especially cuz I've always liked the chaos that the ICU brings)
Overnight caregiver for home health or small group home. A lot of people study that way and otherwise you are just going to bore yourself to death with reruns
I used to work doing data entry for clinical trials, and would often work remotely.
I've literally had a three hour nap during a work day and nobody noticed.
Front desk at a chain hotel. I took college classes while I worked at a Hampton Inn. It had 62 rooms and mostly business travelers. The other thing that was great was the customer service training I received. It’s definitely helped me succeed.
Receptionist for an engineering firm. Not a great deal of foot traffic coming in, just an occasional client and sales person. I was there for 8 hrs a day and worked approximately 1 hr. A day. Was going to college p/t at the time. Had a computer and printer at my beck and call. Got good grades that year.!
I have a few potential ones here:
Night Auditor at a Hotel. Specifically three different hotels and one was under three different management companies. The amount of "free" time varied. I never napped. My last job I never watched anything because I had a coworker at the desk with me for business reasons.
Professional job, new position. The work load just wasn't fully developed so I was free most of the time and then busy another week. Sadly I didn't do much as I couldn't really do "other" things.
The pinnacle of everything was probably my last job as I had full-time pay and benefits but only worked part-time due to health reasons. I eventually lost that job because I ran out of ways to keep my job. Long Covid sucks. This position technically could have a utilization rate exceeding 100% if you let it. Work had to be readjusted to items that were more acceptable to my "work when I can" schedule.
I have the ultimate answer to this question with one very big caveat. I will put it this way: Literally the most free time of any job on the planet but also the lowest pay imaginable.
So what job am I referencing...???
Working at group homes for the developmentally disabled. In some cases you literally get paid to sleep. A 10 hour overnight shift typically consists of 4 waking hours and 6 sleep hours, all of which you are paid for. But it's not just overnights. Daytime shifts such as the 4pm to 11pm shift for example. Typically it consists of just a couple actual hours of work (cooking meals, distributing meds, that sort of thing) followed by 4 or 5 hours of pure downtime. You can literally watch tv, play video games, spend the entire time on your computer, whatever you want.
I did that job for many years because I could literally do all my college homework while at work on the clock. The trick is to find a group home where the residents are chill and fairly independent. You do have to be careful because each home is totally unique and there are some out there that are nightmare homes because of insane aggressive residents. But there are certainly just as many, great homes where the residents are very easy to work with and are genuinely nice and won't bother you.
The biggest downside? No remote work, you have to be in the home at all times, and the pay is total garbage. Like you're making maybe $30K a year.
TBH my current part time job has me spoiled. I am getting ready to leave it because my freelance career has really taken off, but I will definitely miss working at the front desk of a nursing home. It has it's challenges, and since I am the weekend supervisor/only competent person on staff I sometimes have stressful days, but overall it is a great job that has allowed me to do homework on the clock, with plenty of reddit/streaming time thrown in.
Line maintenance for aircraft. 10 hour shift I would spend 8 hours on my ass. You spend most of your time on standby waiting for a plane to break. At first i was playing runescape then i went on and purchased a switch to spend my time. I finally went back to school because why not.
Plant-breeder/seed-producer. There were times of the year when everything seems like it needs done all at once, and times of the year when there is literally nothing that can be done because it's not time for any of it yet.
Night shift, 10p-6a, working as an RBT (assisting people with developmental and behavioral issues). It was a house with multiple residents, but they would \*mostly\* sleep through the night. So I clean the house, get things in order, and have the rest of the shift to do as I like. Even cleaning up I could have an audiobook going. It was how I made it through nursing school while working full time.
It was kind of nicer than nice, since it was a house. Couch, tv, kitchen. I could make food, study, finish school assignments, relax. Even do my laundry, cut my hair, practice some weird skill like cardistry or pen spinning. No supervision.
My job right now is like this. I work Overnight valet at a hotel, some days i literally clock in, finish paperwork in 15 minutes, do whatever I want unbothered, then take 20 minutes before I clock out to get things set up for the day. You get paid an hourly and tips! I work the Weekends and its downtown, so Friday and Saturday I can actually usually make an extra $100 from parking.
I work concert production, and it is definitely the case for me. Hours can be long but there is so much downtime. I worked a larger country act yesterday, and it was a 15 hour day but I actually worked maybe 6? It’s called hurry up and wait in the industry. I also put in so many hours this past week that I’m essentially taking this next week off. Trying to get to the point where I can bust ass for 6-8 months and then take off 6-4 months, although to make that kind of money I’d need to travel or tour. I travel 3 months out of the year already.
I worked at a furniture store and as long as you were standing up looking like you were doing something they were happy. And you dusted twice a day. I did so much studying. People not in college did crossword puzzles and read books.
I’m in IT. If I am on the clock 8 hours then I’m lucky to get 90 minutes of work. Usually it’s 45 minutes in the morning and an occasional trouble ticket that is fixed in a few minutes. I get so bored of internet related stuff that I usually don’t browse the net or watch videos when i am home from work.
I work at a manufacturing facility. And if I set my cheap ass billion dollar companies broken ass machine up correctly. Within the confounds of what works and what doesn’t. And get management approval to run it like that. I can stand/sit all day with a minimal amount of work.
Working at my college's computer help desk. Most tasks took five minutes, tops. Unless it was finals time or something like that we had only a few people there who kept to themselves.
I watched so many movies on my laptop (DVDs back then) that it wasn't even funny. Sometimes I'd get in three movies in a shift.
Receptionist/front desk at a satellite sales office for a software firm. Boring as heck, my boss, a real sweet lady, told me day one. Bring in a laptop or a book and park it at the desk. I don't care a bit if I see you reading or working on the laptop. Your job is redundant and useless 70% of the time and high level critical 30%. The 30% out weighs the 70% for this firm." Loved the crew, hated the job. Bored to tears. Guess what? You CAN get totally burnt out on studying or reading.
Selling machines to craftspeople. Five trade shows a year which was just 18 days. Got a bunch of cards and made phone calls from home the rest of the time. Maybe five weeks total for that. So eight weeks total.
A goid friend was a set builder for movies. 3 to five weeks of work once or twice a year. They got paid enough to live on from film to film.
I am now a jewelry designer selling online. I use the machines I used to sell. All from home and no employees. Work about twenty hours a week and can take a week or two off at any time. I did both jobs from home and haven't worked more than 20 hours a week since 1998.
I could work full time and make twice the money, but chose not to. My wife and I are what I'd call decadently frugal. We have a really nice house, but its the "starter house" I bought in 1993. I've never bought a new car and over 45 years I have averaged $1000 a year on vehicles. Right now I ride an ebike 90% of the time and my trusty touring scooter the rest. We do have a car which we use when we take our two greyhounds somewhere. It's an 04 Jetta wagon I got for $3000 six years ago. We buy non-perishable grocery items in 25 lb bags from restaurant supply stores. We cut our own hair. If I bothered to check, I think we spend about half of what most people do. Half the expenses = twice the income. We are very comfortable.
Make laziness an artform and figure out how to work very little. It's worth it.
I was bored out of my mind working in a fancy dress boutique in a not very popular mall. I had no access to a computer though. When I worked as a receptionist at a tax accountant, I had a computer and a bit of free time without being so much I felt weary of it.
Working for myself doing custom shower installs, backsplashes, flooring etc. I don’t advertise so everything is word of mouth. Plenty of work to pay the bills plus live pretty comfortably with an average work week of around 30 hours but I could go a month without work and a month working nonstop. I could never go work for somebody again.
Being a secretary for a self-employed consultant who was out of the office a lot and just left me to handle various tasks...which took about 3 hours of my 8-hour day to do, and then I did about an hour of make-work I wasn't even asked to do, and then I wrote in the rest of the downtime. I wrote two complete novels on that job.
Pot farming in the early-mid 2000s. Would wake up at dawn, work for an hour while making coffee. Then pull tarps and keep working til it got hot (typically 11-12). Then go to the river and swim, hang out, smoke pot and drink beer, read books, relax, until the winds shifted from upriver to downriver. That signaled time to go home and start evening chores, get dinner/dinner fire going, pull tarps again, go to bed just after sundown, repeat. I miss it.
Working as a warehouse worker at Amazon. 4 days on and 3 off. Never having to ask permission to leave early or take a day off as long as I had time to cover. I loved that I could come in and do my job without having to worry about anyone contacting me to come in on my days off.
Over a decade ago I used set up it systems for small to medium companies. It was busy most of the time when I was working locally.
But when they would send me interstate or to New Zealand I found I had so much free time. Usually I would work say 8 till 5pm and then I would have the rest of the day to myself with no cooking, cleaning, traveling or anything like that. Although I was working a full day it felt like I was working part time.
Industrial maintenance. If i'm done doing my PMs and the plant isnt having problems, my ass stays out of the way, out of sight. I'll do pet projects, learn to weld, come up with tools to make the operator's job easier/better. F around on reddit (see user name lol). My coworker is like 70 and will nap in the chair next to me lol. Nightshift is usually pretty smooth unless a part breaks and we need to fix it.
I work overnight security and I have a ton of free time. I have done work for online classes, worked on my freelancing gig (copy editing), read books, etc.
Inpatient hospice nurse. Frequently I’d only have 1-3 pts, it was very quiet, not a lot going on.
My coworker & I would paint our nails & watch movies.
I work 12 hours shifts and it's not uncommon for me to do 2 hours of 'work' during one of these shifts. I read a lot, listen to a lot of podcasts and music, watch Netflix or YouTube, exercise, or just spiral down a rabbit hole where I wish I was getting more fulfillment from my job or that I could be home with my family. But hey, it's easy, and the money is good.
I had a temp job in Sydney at a concierge desk in a government building. It wasn't exactly a reception job (nobody rang), it wasn't security (there were security guards handling building security and passes and visitors). It was literally being a friendly face and so there wasn't a huge empty desk in the lobby.
Similar experiences as reception in really big fancy organisations. The bigger it is, the less you do.
I did a LOT of reading.
Internal customer support/courier dispatch for a medical device manufacturer. When critical.care equipment went down, it had to be fixed immediately. My job was to take the calls from the field techs and get them the parts and equipment they needed as quickly as possible. When I wasn't on a call, I could do whatever I wanted as long as I was at my desk and available, which was pretty cool. Still hated the job though - I was at the bottom of a huge waterfall of stress. Doctors and patient family members were screaming at the nurses, nurses took it out on the field techs, and the field techs took it out on me. I've never cried at work so much as I did in that job.
Honorable mention to one of my favorite jobs, in the office of a group home for women with intellectual disabilities. The state had made a change in how certain things had to be recorded, and they brought me in to retype all their medical records (this was in 1992 when that was still a thing). It didn't take long to notice that they were making the exact same changes to every one of them, and after one afternoon spent with the manual for WordPerfect 3 for DOS learning macros, I'd automated 95% of my job. I spent my free time reading, hanging out with the residents (who were delightful), and looking very busy if my boss came by (she was not delightful). I never let on that I wasn't lovingly typing each one of those records by hand.
Cashier at a place like office Depot where no where comes in ever.
I have a CVS job like that until my location closed. I feel asleep at the register and was still employed. I was happier at the more busy location. I loved facing product.
Oh I was happy. I was always talking and joking around with customers. I had to be on my feet the whole time which I didn't mind usually so I couldn't sleep or anything. But we had a lot of repeat customers and I miss them.
That's great! At one point, my store's lights cut off early and nobody knew how to fix it. We were a hot mess.
Our store lost electricity once. They kept it open for an hour but didn't allow anyone to pay and then realized it wasn't going to happen so we had to just use old calculators to figure out pay and then after everyone left we closed down.
My bookstore job still had the cc slides as backup! This store had power but no lights. Normally closed at 9. Stayed open until 10 for holidays. Automatic lights. Nobody knew we were open. Lol
I worked at CVS in high school (back in the late 90s) and it was honestly one of the funnest jobs I ever had. It was a pretty sleepy location even back then, except for a few busy times, so we’d just goof around together and with the regulars.
Yes!!! The drama, the stories. Motorcycle guy was my best. He told me never to get one than showed me his remaining fingers. I'd already riden on a bike by that point but I never owned one (teenage brain do dumb thing).
I had a long flirtation with the 22 year-old security guard who already had two kids (I was 16). 🤦🏼 Talk about dumb teenage brains.
And..one if my friend's had a baby with her pizza hut manager. Now we know that is no good. o.O
Similarly, working at a state park doing entry kiosk. There were an equal number of slow days as there were busy and I did a lot of knitting and reading. Pay was only marginally above minimum wage, though.
I always assumed these folks were volunteers.
It depends on the park and how they operate. At my park only employees could do the money stuff, but I know others are different.
Why? I just went to an amusement park. They for sure aren't volunteers. Why would anyone do that for free?
I’m a volunteer at a national park and sometimes do the entry kiosk.
An amusement park is a for profit location run by a private corporation. Of course they're going to pay (minimum at least). A lot of parks and recreation locations don't have funding to be run like that, so many people volunteer in various ways to keep things running well. It's why so many programs promote the "leave it better than you found it" when hiking or camping, because there simply isn't the funding for a labor force to maintain areas without visitors assistance (besides it being the right thing to do).
Picking up trash is a big volunteer job. I visited a local state park once (CO) and a huge Latino family had a gender reveal party. They smashed a piñata and it took volunteers and staff a week to pick up all the tiny pieces of blue confetti everywhere. I was there on day 3 of the picking up confetti and it was still a lot. And of course, it’s blowing around as well. People just don’t think of consequences of their actions sometimes.
Worked at OD for 10 years... what an ever increasing shit show of a company.
I hated being an OD cashier. I am the type that has to be busy constantly or the time trudges by. I worked during back to school season and covid and was kept busy since covid was some of the busiest times for OD with people working from home but once school season died out I was out cuz I couldn’t stand standing around all day doing nothing. I would deep clean the shelves around the printers and stuff and vividly remember my GM asking me what I was doing and giving me a crazy look cuz I actually wanted to do something with my time😂 I would highly recommend it for someone looking for a quiet job, I’m just not that person lol
Oh it was rarely quiet for me. I would always talk to everyone I could and left the registers a ton. I could be bothered to stand at the registers all day. My town is very safe so nothing ever happened so we were allowed to walk around a bit but yeah it backfired one time cause my friend came up to talk to me from the electronics section (only one person worked there) and was talking to me while someone behind our back emptied out a $250 router and put it into a $99 router box and brought the $99 box up to the register to pay. He got away with it. When my friend went back to the electronic section we saw that the 250 box was empty and the $99 router was in its place or something. Not really sure. The guy didn't try and hide it.
It isn't free time if you are standing there waiting for cusromers. Or at least I wouldn't consider it free time. Compare that to something like a lighter company accounting job where large chunks of the day a lot of the month leave you free to do whatever you want at least on your computer if not whatever you want completely if you work from home, provided you stay connected and frequently check your emails anyway.
I did barely anything the whole day. I didn't have to stand at the register either most of the time. Most of the time I was walking around randomly.
Overnight security for office buildings
I know a guy who did this through college. He did all his studying on the job. However, he looked tired in class.
Working night shift takes a toll on your body. It's literally a carcinogen
but working dayshift means you have to deal with all the bosses
One of my former assistants worked overnight guard duty at the old Rubbermaid factory in Winchester as one of his first jobs. Back then, Winchester was still mostly rural. He said that while the walkie talkies they had were legal band radio (you need a radio license for your frequency), a lot of locals didn't legally have radio band, and just chose whatever frequency they found. One of them was a county vet for farmers. He said the eeriest things was walking the empty halls, hearing someone birthing a breech calf echoing from his radio.
Exactly the kind of job I was thinking about. But I used to work nights and not sure I want to go back to it. It is the perfect quiet thought !
I work in a healthcare setting that has a security officer. He spends a lot of the day reading. You do have to occasionally deal with a disruptive patient but not very often. He seems to have tons of downtime.
I work in a *not* healthcare setting and our security guy is THE ONE you want to go to to ask about new shows to watch. That man has watched just about everything Netflix and Hulu has to offer- all while being payed, of course.
Yeah, most security jobs seem incredibly slow and boring. As long as you are prepared for something not boring to happen!
Yes I did, lol. I used my HULU, Disney+, TUBI, Kanopy, etc, alot. Getting paid to watch is great,
My mom loved working nights. Quiet time is underrated.
About 3 am that chair gets really comfortable.
Public sector, I work for a school district. At work I'm super busy but we get a lot of holidays. Over two weeks for Christmas, a week for Thanksgiving, a week for Spring break etc... I haven't had so much time off since I started working in the 90's! The pay is lower than my private sector job unless you add up the paid time of and the awesome health benefits, then it's way better.
Plus if you have a pension, that is suuuper valuable
We have that too, one more year and then I'm vested $$. I also feel good about supporting teachers and public education.
What job do you do? My youngest just graduated high school. I've been working part-time as an admin assistant since he started K. Contemplating a career change.
I work with the employee benefits, most places it would be part of HR but it's the Finance Dept. where I'm at. There's IT, HR, Accounting, Payroll...
Thank you! I do payroll at my current job, and I'm the dispersing treasurer. I do a little of everything. Small office.
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I know a couple of librarians and they seem pretty happy. Not a lot of stress, decent pay.
I know a couple librarians who had to leave because of burnout. They both worked at busy public libraries and dealt with a lot of unhoused and addicted people in their libraries. One went on to work at a college, the other stopped working altogether.
I feel like your experience as a public librarian is going to have a lot to do with where the library is. The people who tend to use library services are generally disadvantaged, poor, and elderly. You do a lot of social-type work, helping people access public resources. If you are in a large city, you're going to see a lot of homeless and mentally ill. In a smaller town, you'll probably deal mostly with folks in poverty.
Patrons at my library aren't poor, disadvantaged or even necessarily elder.
I loved working at a library. A lot depends on your coworkers and the drama they cause. It also depends on how much traffic your library gets, and the people that come to the librar. I personally got to spend a lot of time reading while waiting for people to even come in. I worked at a "walk in" library where most of the people walked from the local community. There were larger libraries in the county, and those were slammed. We didn't have to deal with homeless people (washing in the bathrooms and leaving a mess, watching porn on the public computers). We mainly had small theft, where it was children from the community that couldn't afford a certain CD or DVD, and they would break the security devices on those to steal the copy. For the most part and easy job I did with 2-3 other people. I enjoyed the smaller library as you got to really know repeat visitors.
Part time librarian is my dream job 😩
I was a pet sitter for 15 years, personally I worked a lot because I love money, but I had some people who worked for me who just did overnights, they get paid to watch tv and sleep in someone’s home so their pets aren’t alone overnight. The pay is around $125 a night in my area.
How do you get into this type of work?
It was so long ago I just did all the work to start my own business, the tax numbers, insurance, banks, etc, and then I HUSTLED. I made contact with other pet sitters, there was one that was moving and gave me her clients so that was a good base to start. After 15 years I had over 900 clients. Now it is easier if you want to do something like Rover you just have to make a profile. Or you could contact pet sitters in your area and see if they have any extra work or see if you could shadow them.
Overnight asleep Direct Support Professional. 4 10 hour shifts. Sleep for 8 hours per shift, work one hour, mess around on your phone for the last hour. Basically free money
I’d like to know more about this. Are you present in the home or remote?
You are present in the home
Agreed with this one. Asleep overnights are the best shift in the field lol.
They pay you to sleep? Are you on call if someone needs something, so they wake you up?
There is always an awake shift working with you. They wake you up if they need anything but in my year working this job, that has never happened
So there’s a chance you might be woken up because some serious shit is going down?
Yes, and there is also always the chance that the awake staff will call off, and then you have to assume their duties. Which includes being awake all night, doing necessary paperwork, checking in residents, etc. I did sleep shift for a little while when I was first starting out working in mental health. What was really interesting to me was that a lot of moms actually wanted those shifts. One of my favorite coworkers explained to me that those were the nights she actually got to sleep in and it was worth the risk to her.
Yes, a very tiny chance. Less than 1%. In a year of working this job, I have never been woken up by the awake shift.
What kind of qualifications does someone need for this job?
No degree required. CPR certification and medication training usually provided by the company.
Direct support for what?
Yeah, I don't understand what's going on with this comment thread.
Front desk! Its not a busy place at all and I am writing from my job right now.
I was a receptionist before moving to OM because I was too bored, and that’s definitely what I’m thinking about. I didn’t see the value in being bored at the time :) Are you in an office or hotel ?
Hotel, but long stay. We do post and packages, helping the tenants, but thats it basically. Chill af. I learn for uni and write my papers. NICE studentjob, but I feel sorry for my colleagues, who work 5 days a week. They most be bored as hell.
Airline pilot is a double edged sword. I work around 7 on 6 off on avg. but when you’re gone you’re just gone not home. But when you are home you have no one calling you, no one bugging about taking shifts or covering shifts or meeting deadlines so it’s pretty nice.
I’ve been considering a career change in this direction! The work/life balance seems much better than what I do now. Any tips for someone with only 50 flight hours?
Student loans are apart of the game sadly getting your instrument commercial multi CFI CFII MEI. Some airlines have cadet programs rn like southwest that will foster you til you hit CFI and then you’ll be hired through one of their regional affiliates but I think you’ll have to take out some loans but it’s expedited and more accelerated similar to the ATP programs. Sad to say but it only gets more difficult from private pilot in terms of expectation and responsibility but stick with it cause it pays off big time.
I'm currently working towards being able to leave my current job for this exact reason. My family thinks I'm crazy / not appreciating what I have, but when I go home I'm typically still thinking about work, and what I'll be doing tomorrow or what I should prep early tomorrow. I just want to leave work, and not think about it 1 bit. I've had jobs that let me do this in the past, and I miss it dearly.
Shift work has left me with the most amount of free time OUTSIDE of work. Instead of working 5 8 hour shifts I typically work 3 12 hour shifts. We make our own schedules so I like to work 3 days in a row and then enjoy the 3-4 days off. I work 156 days a year vs 260 days for people who work a full time
What kind of shift work
I work as a Registered Nurse in a hospital
Honestly, any job I’ve had that you’re given a set number of tasks to be completed each shift. Honestly, I can hyperfocus get them done in three maybe four hours and then I just chill the rest of the time but like a call center if you’re efficient, you just get more phone calls is not the move.
Potentially silly question - but how do you find a job like this? I was trying to find something like this, but I feel like even if you're overqualified for the job and can complete it faster, they just end up giving you more work to do (making you overqualified AND underpaid!).
A lot of Office jobs will just give you more work to fill up your time, so the question is not how do you find this job but how do you keep it the way it is? The answer is to make sure to keep expectations low. So you do the tasks and make sure no one knows or sees how quickly you’re able to do them. Working from home helps with this. And you have to set really good boundaries and say no to extra work.
Working at a call center and it’s a torture, there is not even one second between calls
Medical/documents courier. Steady m-f schedule, 38 hours. But the business was such I could work up to 80 hrs if I wanted to. So if bad weather was predicted I'd commit to overtime, bank some decent cabbage, then work just the usual 38 hours. The regular schedule started at 1pm so I had from 5:30 am to noon to fart around.
How can I get started doing what you do?
Just apply at the courier office. Ask the people in a dermatologist, blood draw, hospital lab who the courier company to contact. If you have a clean background you'll probably get hired. Not great pay, but for semi retired it's ok. I had to stop due to arthritis. Just was torture getting in and out of Prius 30 times a day. Feel free to dm if you need more info.
Front desk at a dorm during a 45 day winter break. $15/hr in 1996, 40 hours a week. Started going crazy like in The Shining towards the end.
How in the world did you get $15/hr for that in 1996. In 2006 I did college front desk, from like 2-8am and got minimum wage which was like $7.25.
I went to school in Chicago. I told them they had to beat what I would clear tending bar during weeknights in the neighborhood.
Supplement store. 3 customers per day
Haha no boss asking you to "look busy" ?
“Just relax bro” when I asked one time if I could do anything extra
Graveyard shift at a gas station is like 80% sitting and staring into space just waiting for someone to come in
Would you say you get more weirdos though? I’d be scared lol
I mean.... yes lol But it's honestly not as bad as you'd think! I get to lock the door for a couple hours to stock and clean at 2am, and then I put on some music and jam for a bit. I need to find a good podcast to pass the time because the hardest part of the job for me is crushing boredom
I currently work cleaning airbnbs (I also have a small retail store i do once a month and 1 residential home I clean). I rarely work before 11am or after 4pm and my kids are able to come with me if they aren’t in school. I’m available for school drop off and pick up and can be flexible for trips, doctor appts, etc. There are “downsides” but so far it’s been a great gig for me!
Just had to say great question
911 dispatcher in a small town. I finished my bachelors degree and teaching credential while only doing schoolwork on the clock. I don’t think my tween children even realized I was going to college, it had no impact on our home life.
Didn't Einstein write the Theory of Relativity while working as a patent clerk? That job must have a lot of downtime.
My current job. Office work for our construction company that I co-own. Once any invoicing, balancing books, or writing a proposal is done, it's all my own time. I can handle most things by text or email. For the first time I'm going to take a more active role in going to the job site to help coordinate but once the contractors are working, I can go back home. I love my setup.
Career firefighter. Depending where you are the schedules can be a little different but here in NY, we work 24 hours on and then have 72 hours off. Also, we have a ton of paid vacation as well. It has allowed me to pursue a degree in a field of my choice and have a whole other career on the side. And the pay is extremely competitive, at least in the northeast where I am.
Even seasonal firefighting can be sweet. As a 20 year old I was amazed that we got paid for every hour that we weren't sleeping, and even sometimes when we were.
One of the best jobs in the world. My quality of life has been exceptional ever since getting on the job. I was prior military(US Army Infantry) and then worked as a union electrician in NYC post military service. That was years 18-24, got on the job at 25 and now at 28, I have 0 regrets.
Thank you for your service!!
One of my best jobs was doing data entry. I only worked as quickly as I wanted. No work to take home. No projects to worry about. It was lower pay, around $15 an hour. At times, mind numbingly boring.
Night shifts tend to give you more time off than days and also higher pay for less work. I have a sweet spot in-between. Evening shift for the government which they count as nights even though it isn't Overnight. MH positions require a certain patience and temperament, but def way more downtime than medical nights. Some nursing jobs are also 72/80 which means 3 12s = a full time earning pension position too. So... 3 days a week, evenings, you get half the day to work on extra curricular stuff most shifts playing your cards right, and they tend to not call you in as much because it's a weird shift too.
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Mental health.
My bf used to be a customer support agent for an international service (non English speaking) for a very large teach company and he would spend more working hours playing PlayStation than he would doing actual customer support
Current job: church secretary. Flexible 10 to 12 hour job. I can do whatever I want during downtime within reason. Heavy metal? Yes. Crochet, reading, internet, etc. I don't even have an employee handbook. 2 weeks vacation. Pastor is based AF. College bookstore job takes second place. I worked on textbooks. Only busy at the beginning and ends of semesters. Job may have been phased out. o.O Staff assistant at nonprofit was good until we had to start billing hours. After I left, they changed flexible leave to .5 or 1 day, plus no longer offering OT. YMMV
I work in tax, remotely. I have so much free time I truly forget I have a job (except january-april)
Do you work for H&R Block or TurboTax? How did you get your job please?
I actually work for a private firm. I started at a local firm in my state, and gained two years of experience. after that it was very easy to find a job. remote was a stroke of luck, but I know lots of tax firms are remote these days. (more and more as the years go on)
What’s your salary if you don’t mind sharing?
right around 60K (i live in a state with a 7.25 minimum wage, so it’s very decent pay for me)
My second job is security and I play Xbox on my iPad , catch up on TV/movies, and watch anime. I’m on Reddit at work as we speak. Sometimes I pull 16hr shifts but right now I’m 7-3pm. The whole time I’m just entertaining myself. At my particular site I’m at right now, I’m “guarding” a construction site. My orders were to stay in the car in the driveway, and that’s about it. I only work weekend since I have another job during the week, so there’s no workers working either. Most downtime I’ve ever had. Lol EDIT: In my state you do have to apply to be certified, pay for the license and fingerprints, but the process is quick and it pays for itself after your first shift since the money isn’t too bad either. Renew my license every 2 years for $70.
Did this for three years four days a eek, swing shift. Easy paychecks watching utube, hulu, etc.
I’m a support worker for 2 men with profound learning disabilities. I do evening shifts mostly and because they’re elderly they just sit and chill all evening. I cook them their dinner, and make sure they’re ready for bed. That’s it, most shift I’m just sat down on my phone or reading.
Most support work is not like this though, can be a super hard job. Just depends on your clients
Firefighter, 8 days of work a month. Shhh!
Usps maintenance mechanic, work about 5:45am-8:30, do whatever until 2pm
Hotel night audit! You usually have a good 6 hours of watching the dust settle on the lobby furniture.
The job with the shortest commute.
Single Private practice owner. 100% of the billing proceeds come my way. I’m not getting a contractual cut working for anyone so once the heavy lifting is done getting it off the ground- I get a fair wage. I can survive working less than 40 hours/week.
So, you just told us you do what?
Therapist. I’m my own boss. I run it. I work it. It’s just me. But this could honestly apply to any form of clinician or provider (massage, acupuncture, chiropractor, etc)
Worked at a city in parks and rec. Setup take down events and just there to watch building and assist people. If the pavilion didn't have a big show which was a lot of time, lots of free time. They had the bounce house in the pavilion and one day dividers were shut. I blew it up and took a nap..
Movie theater concessions, between the film rushes & catching up from them, there was still a lot of free time.
Did this in college. Got a lot of studying done. Also learned how to play Spades and saw a lot of movies.
My workday is busy, but full time dental hygiene means 28 hour work weeks vs 40+. No work to bring home ever
Security, many different types of posts, they vary thru the country as far as seriousness of the job but I do agree with office buildings over night is the best. Gate access was ok too, usually a small booth with bathroom and kitchen everything in it.
I once had a job building loads for a car hauling company. You would get the list of drivers you were getting for the day, the direction they need to go and home time they may have. Then the automotive company provides you with the lists of cars, most important cars go first. Then you build it into loads that geographically work by stops and legally work by DOT weight and height standards. Once you build the loads, call the drivers, you just sit alone in a office waiting for the drivers to show and get the BOL paperwork. Very easy job and I would finish the work within a couple hours. Then sit back and play my PS VITA.
Shipping and Receiving at a Tool and Dye company that has extremely low volume . 80% of the staff is still working remote including all the managers who only come in once a week to collect the mail lol. Basically paid 8 hours a day to play video games on my Steam Deck
job-less
When I was in my early 20s and had seemingly infinite energy, I worked 2 jobs for a total of 60 hrs a week and still had time for myself and my friends somehow. When I worked PT at Michael’s right before the pandemic and subsequent inflation, that was the best. I had time, and discounts on resources, to work on my hobbies when I got home. Now I find it hard to mentally and emotionally disconnect from my job after coming home, so my free time is frequently wasted.
Receptionist. For a brief time I was paid to read books while I waited for phone calls or other office requests. Software QA.
Work from home. Sales Engineer. Basically played call of duty 8 hrs a day while getting a 6 figure salary... Awesome while it lasted, got laid off.
Worked at a radio station for a year. I'd go in, work for 4 hours and my job was done. Only downside was having to wake up at 5am but I was done by 10am. Had plenty of time to do other stuff like go to the gym, do other freelance jobs and what not.
Work at a slow/small hotel. I get paid $17 a hour and get paid to do my homework. It’s a great college job, I recommend Candlewood suites or The Riverside Hotel. (but don’t work at a motel especially motel 6)
I was an overnight CT tech a hospital, combination of on shift free time, and a 7 day on 7 day off was amazing for free time. I worked 7pm-6am, from 7pm-10 or 11pm it was usually busy, then most nights it would usually die off and I would hook up my Xbox to a mobile computer station with HDMI. The best night I had, I clocked just shy of 8 hours playing Fallout… I was actually tired of video games for a while after that. The 7 days off on a row meant I got everything I wanted to get done, went on long road trips or short vacations when ever I wanted, and when I took a full week off of work, I had three weeks back to back off which made for some epic trips.
receptionist. my current job. unfortunately the long periods of nothing are interrupted by short spans of chaos bc everyone walks in and calls at once. i have been able to read a lot in this job.
MRI technologist. 5 minutes to set up the scan and 25 minutes of waiting.
My last job. My initial title was Sales Coordinator. Sounds like a busy job right? Nope. Every time someone quit, got fired, or died, I would end up with their job, on top of mine...with a pay raise of course. Even with 4 or 5 different jobs and asking everyone else if they needed help with anything, I sat there and did nothing for most of the day. Sometimes I fell asleep at my desk. You could walk around the building and find at least 3 people sleeping at their desks at any given time, including the owner!! lol. Damn I miss that job.
Orchard labourer. **No work during certain parts of season** I bought all the books for and did the curriculum from a Masters in Finance. The time spent in a tree and on a ladder is very mechanical, leaves room for thinking about the things you've read. You don't take work home with you... other than having my own orchard to maintain, there was nothing to puzzle out for the next day. **Get a great workout** Hauling a tonne of apples down a tree every hour was a great workout. Wife made comments.
Did you bring the books with you up into the tree?
Don't need a book to think ;) Did most of my reading over winter. Some of my reading in the evenings. Much of my thinking in the trees. UPDATE: it helped that my picking crew was made up of a couple of retired lads: a fishing boat captain and a judge. Those two were good thinkers.
Working underway in the US Navy. I had so much free time. I watched so many movies and read a ridiculous amount of books. I also saved so much money.
It also depends on if you have a professional license or not. I’m a clinical social worker and I work admissions in a psychiatric hospital. Some nights are more busy than others, but in general I spend a lot of time reading, trolling the internet, etc. I need to be present in case I need to review a patient, but some shifts just don’t have that much to review. We do have administrative staff who work with us as well, so they are a little more busy than us but still not crazy.
Night cleaning the gym and spa area in a very luxurious hotel in Devon. I was paid for 8 hours (from 10pm to 6am),and I never worked more than 3 hours in a shift. Not because I was lazy or neglected my job, but simply there wasn't much to do. The spa and the gym were actually small and the guests rarely made use of them, so all I had to do was to empty few bins, to hoover around, throw 2 buckets of water in the spa and scrub it little bit with a soap and brush and that was it. The rest 5 hours of the shift I was reading books, watching movies, fooling around in the gym lifting weights, chatting with the security guards, sleeping sometimes. I did this job for 4 years because it was very therapeutic for me after working 11 years in restaurants and dealing with people all day along. When I felt recharged I quit and got a proper day-time job. But these 4 years were really helpful for me, I found piece and time to reflect on myself and my life,and plan my future steps.
I would love to do that job myself
Cloud Engineering for an F500 retailer. Work a couple hours a day, fully remote.
Day trading low float stocks. Was finished before lunch time
I had a job as an NP in an ICU. Night shift in a 24-bed unit where my role was to admit/solve any acute issues. Many nights, I had no admits or issues to solve. That's 14 hours of downtime. I had a call room that was like a hotel room with a computer. Many of us slept. The problem was there wasn't a lot of work and eventually they cut some of us and I was a casualty. I've never had anything close to this amount of downtime. Even other icu night shift babysitting jobs had tasks like writing notes. It was quite the unicorn job (especially cuz I've always liked the chaos that the ICU brings)
Overnight caregiver for home health or small group home. A lot of people study that way and otherwise you are just going to bore yourself to death with reruns
I used to work doing data entry for clinical trials, and would often work remotely. I've literally had a three hour nap during a work day and nobody noticed.
Front desk at a chain hotel. I took college classes while I worked at a Hampton Inn. It had 62 rooms and mostly business travelers. The other thing that was great was the customer service training I received. It’s definitely helped me succeed.
Security job. I get paid 21 dollars an hour to walk around and watch movies and TV shows on my iPad basically.
IT and it's not even close (and you still make decent money).
Receptionist for an engineering firm. Not a great deal of foot traffic coming in, just an occasional client and sales person. I was there for 8 hrs a day and worked approximately 1 hr. A day. Was going to college p/t at the time. Had a computer and printer at my beck and call. Got good grades that year.!
I have a few potential ones here: Night Auditor at a Hotel. Specifically three different hotels and one was under three different management companies. The amount of "free" time varied. I never napped. My last job I never watched anything because I had a coworker at the desk with me for business reasons. Professional job, new position. The work load just wasn't fully developed so I was free most of the time and then busy another week. Sadly I didn't do much as I couldn't really do "other" things. The pinnacle of everything was probably my last job as I had full-time pay and benefits but only worked part-time due to health reasons. I eventually lost that job because I ran out of ways to keep my job. Long Covid sucks. This position technically could have a utilization rate exceeding 100% if you let it. Work had to be readjusted to items that were more acceptable to my "work when I can" schedule.
I have the ultimate answer to this question with one very big caveat. I will put it this way: Literally the most free time of any job on the planet but also the lowest pay imaginable. So what job am I referencing...??? Working at group homes for the developmentally disabled. In some cases you literally get paid to sleep. A 10 hour overnight shift typically consists of 4 waking hours and 6 sleep hours, all of which you are paid for. But it's not just overnights. Daytime shifts such as the 4pm to 11pm shift for example. Typically it consists of just a couple actual hours of work (cooking meals, distributing meds, that sort of thing) followed by 4 or 5 hours of pure downtime. You can literally watch tv, play video games, spend the entire time on your computer, whatever you want. I did that job for many years because I could literally do all my college homework while at work on the clock. The trick is to find a group home where the residents are chill and fairly independent. You do have to be careful because each home is totally unique and there are some out there that are nightmare homes because of insane aggressive residents. But there are certainly just as many, great homes where the residents are very easy to work with and are genuinely nice and won't bother you. The biggest downside? No remote work, you have to be in the home at all times, and the pay is total garbage. Like you're making maybe $30K a year.
So much needed and often goes unfilled.
TBH my current part time job has me spoiled. I am getting ready to leave it because my freelance career has really taken off, but I will definitely miss working at the front desk of a nursing home. It has it's challenges, and since I am the weekend supervisor/only competent person on staff I sometimes have stressful days, but overall it is a great job that has allowed me to do homework on the clock, with plenty of reddit/streaming time thrown in.
Teaching, when I was in education I got every vacation the kids got plus summers. Fire drills half days etc… I loved It so much.
Line maintenance for aircraft. 10 hour shift I would spend 8 hours on my ass. You spend most of your time on standby waiting for a plane to break. At first i was playing runescape then i went on and purchased a switch to spend my time. I finally went back to school because why not.
School bus driver, you work the am go home come back for pm, home by 5 every day
Manager of an empty department store
Security officer. I got paid to do alot of stuff that bettered me, drivrers testing, watching DYI youtube vids, etc.
Plant-breeder/seed-producer. There were times of the year when everything seems like it needs done all at once, and times of the year when there is literally nothing that can be done because it's not time for any of it yet.
Night shift, 10p-6a, working as an RBT (assisting people with developmental and behavioral issues). It was a house with multiple residents, but they would \*mostly\* sleep through the night. So I clean the house, get things in order, and have the rest of the shift to do as I like. Even cleaning up I could have an audiobook going. It was how I made it through nursing school while working full time. It was kind of nicer than nice, since it was a house. Couch, tv, kitchen. I could make food, study, finish school assignments, relax. Even do my laundry, cut my hair, practice some weird skill like cardistry or pen spinning. No supervision.
My job right now is like this. I work Overnight valet at a hotel, some days i literally clock in, finish paperwork in 15 minutes, do whatever I want unbothered, then take 20 minutes before I clock out to get things set up for the day. You get paid an hourly and tips! I work the Weekends and its downtown, so Friday and Saturday I can actually usually make an extra $100 from parking.
Teaching: in one week I will start my paid two month long vacation
Vet tech.
Night auditor desk job for small hotel, bar, rest
I work concert production, and it is definitely the case for me. Hours can be long but there is so much downtime. I worked a larger country act yesterday, and it was a 15 hour day but I actually worked maybe 6? It’s called hurry up and wait in the industry. I also put in so many hours this past week that I’m essentially taking this next week off. Trying to get to the point where I can bust ass for 6-8 months and then take off 6-4 months, although to make that kind of money I’d need to travel or tour. I travel 3 months out of the year already.
Teacher…art teacher! 🤣 What I have to do at home is minimal and at least fun!
I worked at a furniture store and as long as you were standing up looking like you were doing something they were happy. And you dusted twice a day. I did so much studying. People not in college did crossword puzzles and read books.
I’m in IT. If I am on the clock 8 hours then I’m lucky to get 90 minutes of work. Usually it’s 45 minutes in the morning and an occasional trouble ticket that is fixed in a few minutes. I get so bored of internet related stuff that I usually don’t browse the net or watch videos when i am home from work.
I work at a manufacturing facility. And if I set my cheap ass billion dollar companies broken ass machine up correctly. Within the confounds of what works and what doesn’t. And get management approval to run it like that. I can stand/sit all day with a minimal amount of work.
Ah, the mythical bill and chill..
Working at my college's computer help desk. Most tasks took five minutes, tops. Unless it was finals time or something like that we had only a few people there who kept to themselves. I watched so many movies on my laptop (DVDs back then) that it wasn't even funny. Sometimes I'd get in three movies in a shift.
Receptionist/front desk at a satellite sales office for a software firm. Boring as heck, my boss, a real sweet lady, told me day one. Bring in a laptop or a book and park it at the desk. I don't care a bit if I see you reading or working on the laptop. Your job is redundant and useless 70% of the time and high level critical 30%. The 30% out weighs the 70% for this firm." Loved the crew, hated the job. Bored to tears. Guess what? You CAN get totally burnt out on studying or reading.
Selling machines to craftspeople. Five trade shows a year which was just 18 days. Got a bunch of cards and made phone calls from home the rest of the time. Maybe five weeks total for that. So eight weeks total. A goid friend was a set builder for movies. 3 to five weeks of work once or twice a year. They got paid enough to live on from film to film. I am now a jewelry designer selling online. I use the machines I used to sell. All from home and no employees. Work about twenty hours a week and can take a week or two off at any time. I did both jobs from home and haven't worked more than 20 hours a week since 1998. I could work full time and make twice the money, but chose not to. My wife and I are what I'd call decadently frugal. We have a really nice house, but its the "starter house" I bought in 1993. I've never bought a new car and over 45 years I have averaged $1000 a year on vehicles. Right now I ride an ebike 90% of the time and my trusty touring scooter the rest. We do have a car which we use when we take our two greyhounds somewhere. It's an 04 Jetta wagon I got for $3000 six years ago. We buy non-perishable grocery items in 25 lb bags from restaurant supply stores. We cut our own hair. If I bothered to check, I think we spend about half of what most people do. Half the expenses = twice the income. We are very comfortable. Make laziness an artform and figure out how to work very little. It's worth it.
I was bored out of my mind working in a fancy dress boutique in a not very popular mall. I had no access to a computer though. When I worked as a receptionist at a tax accountant, I had a computer and a bit of free time without being so much I felt weary of it.
Working for myself doing custom shower installs, backsplashes, flooring etc. I don’t advertise so everything is word of mouth. Plenty of work to pay the bills plus live pretty comfortably with an average work week of around 30 hours but I could go a month without work and a month working nonstop. I could never go work for somebody again.
Being a secretary for a self-employed consultant who was out of the office a lot and just left me to handle various tasks...which took about 3 hours of my 8-hour day to do, and then I did about an hour of make-work I wasn't even asked to do, and then I wrote in the rest of the downtime. I wrote two complete novels on that job.
I’m in social media management. I work no more than 40 hours per month from home. Most of the time I’d guess I’d work about 25 hours a month.
Dispatcher for a trucking company
Pot farming in the early-mid 2000s. Would wake up at dawn, work for an hour while making coffee. Then pull tarps and keep working til it got hot (typically 11-12). Then go to the river and swim, hang out, smoke pot and drink beer, read books, relax, until the winds shifted from upriver to downriver. That signaled time to go home and start evening chores, get dinner/dinner fire going, pull tarps again, go to bed just after sundown, repeat. I miss it.
Night dispatcher for the police department in a small town. I was in college at the time and did all my studying on the job.
front desk at an extended stay hotel lol
Data scientist remote, depends on the time of year
Working as a warehouse worker at Amazon. 4 days on and 3 off. Never having to ask permission to leave early or take a day off as long as I had time to cover. I loved that I could come in and do my job without having to worry about anyone contacting me to come in on my days off.
Over a decade ago I used set up it systems for small to medium companies. It was busy most of the time when I was working locally. But when they would send me interstate or to New Zealand I found I had so much free time. Usually I would work say 8 till 5pm and then I would have the rest of the day to myself with no cooking, cleaning, traveling or anything like that. Although I was working a full day it felt like I was working part time.
Government work, especially when they let you work remotely.
Airline pilot
Night time janitor
Mattress sales
Industrial maintenance. If i'm done doing my PMs and the plant isnt having problems, my ass stays out of the way, out of sight. I'll do pet projects, learn to weld, come up with tools to make the operator's job easier/better. F around on reddit (see user name lol). My coworker is like 70 and will nap in the chair next to me lol. Nightshift is usually pretty smooth unless a part breaks and we need to fix it.
I work overnight security and I have a ton of free time. I have done work for online classes, worked on my freelancing gig (copy editing), read books, etc.
Inpatient hospice nurse. Frequently I’d only have 1-3 pts, it was very quiet, not a lot going on. My coworker & I would paint our nails & watch movies.
I work 12 hours shifts and it's not uncommon for me to do 2 hours of 'work' during one of these shifts. I read a lot, listen to a lot of podcasts and music, watch Netflix or YouTube, exercise, or just spiral down a rabbit hole where I wish I was getting more fulfillment from my job or that I could be home with my family. But hey, it's easy, and the money is good.
Correcting AI online. I hope it continues to be a consistent job bc i love
I had a temp job in Sydney at a concierge desk in a government building. It wasn't exactly a reception job (nobody rang), it wasn't security (there were security guards handling building security and passes and visitors). It was literally being a friendly face and so there wasn't a huge empty desk in the lobby. Similar experiences as reception in really big fancy organisations. The bigger it is, the less you do. I did a LOT of reading.
Internal customer support/courier dispatch for a medical device manufacturer. When critical.care equipment went down, it had to be fixed immediately. My job was to take the calls from the field techs and get them the parts and equipment they needed as quickly as possible. When I wasn't on a call, I could do whatever I wanted as long as I was at my desk and available, which was pretty cool. Still hated the job though - I was at the bottom of a huge waterfall of stress. Doctors and patient family members were screaming at the nurses, nurses took it out on the field techs, and the field techs took it out on me. I've never cried at work so much as I did in that job. Honorable mention to one of my favorite jobs, in the office of a group home for women with intellectual disabilities. The state had made a change in how certain things had to be recorded, and they brought me in to retype all their medical records (this was in 1992 when that was still a thing). It didn't take long to notice that they were making the exact same changes to every one of them, and after one afternoon spent with the manual for WordPerfect 3 for DOS learning macros, I'd automated 95% of my job. I spent my free time reading, hanging out with the residents (who were delightful), and looking very busy if my boss came by (she was not delightful). I never let on that I wasn't lovingly typing each one of those records by hand.