(Warning: Friday fun day non-serious post)
We’re constantly told that the end is nigh, that society will soon be collapsing, or at least that the near future is going to be worse than the recent past. The image almost is of a society that inevitably reverts back to a hunter-gatherer society because of, well, take your pick: global warming, global cooling, overpopulation, underpopulation, Obamacare, profiteering insurance companies reigned in by Obamacare, lazy workers, hard workers taking the jobs of lazy workers, etc.
But, come on, things can’t be that bad. After discussing an assignment with my intermediate macroeconomics class about some in-demand jobs (can you guess what “the best job you never thought of” is?), a student mentioned that he saw job advertisements for…
wait for it…
Seriously, I didn’t even know that was a thing you could do.
A major holiday firm has advertised for what could be the world’s most fun job – as a water slide tester.
As part of the £20,000-a-year role one lucky applicant will get to travel the globe for six months visiting the world’s best water parks and rating their slides.
£20,000 is about $30,900; not bad for six months of watersliding. I wonder what the interview process is like (Boss: “There is a lot of ‘woo hoo’ing in this job. Let me hear your ‘woo hoo’”). I suppose you have to take it somewhat seriously; take your waterproof iPad down with you so you can take notes along the way.
Our class discussion of this occupation led to several students lamenting their choice of major.
Back to the salt mines.
Pic by DiscoverDuPage
But consider what it means that this job even exists. 99% of humanity throughout history never had access to what we would consider “recreation.” Roller coaster parks, baseball stadiums, museums, movie theaters, and the like not only were not available, but even if they were the average person would have nowhere near the income to afford them. You needed most of the hours in a day to devote to getting enough food for you and your family.
But now you can thank capitalism, the economic system that best promotes material well-being, for being able to feed your family at a fraction of the cost. Yes, material well-being can lead to materialism, but it also leads to better health, education, opportunities, environment, and leisure. Like being able to take your family to a waterpark paying the equivalent of a few hours’ worth of work.
You may think that a waterslide tester is an extravagant, unnecessary job. I dare say that most jobs of today would probably have been considered the same a few centuries ago. “You get to work inside? You only work eight hours a day? You don’t have to continually pull, push, or lug anything weighing more than ten pounds? You get paid to tell people about economics?”
There are even video interviews for waterslide testers. Here’s the guy who got the job: