Ode to the Real Ideal Job

Given my recent posts about jobs, careers, and work, I thought it fitting to take a moment and recite one of my favorite Raymond Carver poems. Again, without permission and hoping I am not sued.

Shiftless

The people who were better than us were comfortable.
They lived in painted houses with flush toilets.
Drove cars whose year and make were recognizable.
The ones worse off were sorry and didn't work.
Their strange cars sat on blocks in dusty yards.
The years go by and everything and everyone
gets replaced. But this much is still true—
I never liked work. My goal was always
to be shiftless. I saw the merit in that.
I liked the idea of sitting in a chair
in front of your house for hours, doing nothing
but wearing a hat and drinking cola.
What's wrong with that?
Drawing on a cigarette from time to time.
Spitting. Making things out of wood with a knife.
Where's the harm there? Now and then calling
on the dogs to hunt rabbits. Try it sometime.
Once in a while hailing a fat, blond kid like me
and saying, "Don't I know you?"
Not, "What are you going to be when you grow up?"

- Raymond Carver
Ultramarine, 1986


[Just for the record, my ideal job is one that pays me twice what I currently make and requires nothing of me.]