Dare to dream

Whether you’re working hard or hardly working, chances are you can name a job you’d rather be doing — some choice vocation that would reward the heart, mind and wallet. Some folks find that job; others just ponder it wistfully from time to time.

Of course, just what that job might be varies from person to person — and some swear they’ve already found work so wonderful they wouldn’t change a thing. To get a sampling of our fantasy occupations, Xpress hit the streets of Asheville, selected 10 people at random, and asked each of them to think big and answer three questions: 1) What work do you do now? 2) What’s your dream job? 3) What are you going to do to get that job? Their answers offer reminders that there’s a whole world of rewarding work out there — if only you dare to dream about it.

Aaron Gunn
Current job: Full-time bookseller/part-time print-shop worker
Dream job: My dream would probably be either running my own printing press or playing music.
To get that job: I’m doing it. I’m studying books and printing.

Phyllis Cobb
Current job: Travel agent
Dream job: Actually, I think I’m doing my dream job. I’ve been doing it for 26 years, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing.

Bryan Carter
Current job: Unemployed
Dream job: Well, what job pays the most money? I don’t know. I’d probably want to be the president’s bodyguard so I could shoot some people and have a license to kill.
To get that job: I guess I’d have to get some schoolin’ at the Secret Service school.

Doug Black
Current job: Odd jobs/farm work
Dream job: I guess some kind of guide, a wilderness guide in Alaska or somewhere.
To get that job: I just need to make it to the north country.

Chloe (no last name given)Current job: Bike mechanicDream job: That’s a hard one. A pirate is what just came to mind right now.To get that job: I guess I’d need to get a ship — and a sword.

Shannon Watkins
Current job: Administrative assistant at real-estate firm
Dream job: I want to be on the Supreme Court at the end of my career. I want to be an attorney before that.
To get that job: Go to law school, in the next couple of years hopefully.

Joy Bradley
Current job: Unemployed
Dream job: I would be the president of Apple Computers.
To get that job: I’ll keep working on my computer, and learn all I can about computers.

Genitta Palmore
Current job: Full-time college student
Dream job: I’d be a model.
To get that job: I guess start by getting pictures to different agencies, and move out of Asheville, to New York or somewhere.

Eric Nelson
Current job: Unemployed
Dream job: What I would like to do is sell my art. I make modern art, mostly geometric patterns. It’s nothing like you’d find in a typical art store.
To get that job: I’d have to talk to store clerks and the person in charge of displays and see if they’re interested.

Vickie Morris
Current job: Certified nursing assistant
Dream job: I don’t know … leisure management. People would pay me to show them how to do stuff that’s fun.
To get that job: Well, I don’t know. How do you get a job in leisure management?