Occasionally it occurs to me to get a job. I kind of miss having a paycheck, but mostly I miss the little perks, like sick days. I was sick last week, so I sat around and watched television and felt lousy. During the commercials I remembered that when I had a real job, I could take a day off when I felt bad, and get paid for it. It was a sort of silver lining. Now I have to be sick for free.

It may be corny and old fashioned to feel good about a job well done, but I miss that, too. In a nutshell, I like to make things better. Once I had alphabetized my canned goods and trained the dog to fetch beer, my work at home was done. It was time to get out there and reinvigorate the economy.

Like many people, I fantasize about a major career change but don't know what it might be. My search for the next big thing started with the idea that I could run my own business. After all, I once had a thriving lemonade stand. But what business is for me? For ideas and inspiration, I decided to read the Yellow Pages, which is more or less a comprehensive list of local businesses.

I started with Accordion Rentals and got as far as Organ and Tissue Banks before I had to pause and send the dog to the fridge. Turns out it's exhausting and depressing to read the Yellow Pages. I like to think of myself as flexible and easygoing, but it's a big world of ugly sounding industries out there. No wonder we're at the brink of war--anything to take our minds off our jobs. Finding an easy, lucrative business idea that didn't run on the backs of exploited workers was harder than I thought. I didn't need that kind of karma. I guess I'm destined to be an exploited worker myself. But where?

I picked up every career advice book in the store, and threw out my uninsured back. One was called "Cool Careers for Dummies." This is a real title. How cool can a career be if they let dummies work there? Maybe they just convince the dummies that digging ditches is a cool job.

After skimming the books for tips and jargon, I decided to review my past jobs to reacquaint myself with my "skills bank." Perhaps I could "retool my abilities," "surrender my dignity," and find "cha-ching." Many of the pointers they offer have to do with understanding yourself, which seems to boil down to making lots of lists. My favorite was listing what I wanted to be when I was a kid, as though it revealed some elemental part of my personality. So… is it too late for me to be an Indian Chief? A bionic man? Gong Show contestant?

Career advisors often suggest that you "follow your passion," implying that everybody can name their passion as easily as their social security number. I'm embarrassed to say I don't have a passion, unless "avoiding boredom" counts. My passion is generally anything I haven't done yet that sounds fun. Like driving a bulldozer. I've always wanted to try operating heavy machinery, but it takes training and something tells me the charm would wear off in a few weeks. Still, if you have a bulldozer and a mudslide, give me a call.

I've had a lot of different jobs in my time, which means I've got a lot of experience. Paradoxically, this narrows my options, because it is experience that has taught me to avoid certain jobs and all jobs like them. Optimists will say that experience also teaches us what we enjoy, but that just leads us to do it forty hours a week until it's no fun any more.

Pessimists will say that I'm crazy to expect work to be fun in the first place. "That's why it's called work," they say. "I hate my job, I've hated it for 20 years, and I'm not about to stop now." They have honed their gripes and are proud of them. On days when they accidentally start enjoying their jobs, they put a pebble in their shoe.

It's too late for me to adopt that outlook. I've liked all my jobs, right up until I quit. I like working. I just hate repetition.

Times being what they are, though, perhaps I should quit whining and consider myself lucky if I get any job at all. Santa Cruz county unemployment stands at around 11,600, or 7.9%. They can't all become massage therapists. If any of them have a "passion" for foreign travel, they're in luck. The military sector is expecting rapid growth and high turnover soon. Plenty of cool jobs there.