![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Pondering my next job.
May. 4th, 2009 05:12 amI've been pondering about what I want to do with the rest of my life, and here's one of the ideas I've been kicking around.
You know how when you go to a nice hotel, they have a concierge? That's a person who can give you directions around the city, get you tickets to somewhere, direct you to a doctor or pharmacy, and so on.
And one of the big growing fields is home health care, which can also include "aides" that do tasks that a client just isn't able to do for themselves. Many people are perfectly able to care for themselves at home, as long as someone else can take their trash to the curb (if they can't lift things) or can make sure their dishes get clean (if they can't see very well) and so on.
I was reading an article on the Ladies Against Feminism website (will those of you in my reading audience who just burst into flames please hold off until the end of the paragraph? thank you), which talked about how back when young women lived at home until they were married, they provided an unpaid work force, and today now that grown women are running households of their own by themselves, they have a lot less time to help their neighbors and communities. I don't know that I believe that this was historically true, and I don't believe that we as a society ought to expect such a thing from women specifically or from anyone in general. However, it does bring up the idea that there are good things that now go un-done because there isn't anyone who has the time to do them.
Some women who work at home get mighty cranky when their neighbors ask them to help out with the neighbors' children who might need to come home sick from school and so on. They see it as failure to acknowledge that even though they are at home, they are working and their job is important.
I think an awesome job to have would consist of being a sort of concierge for a neighborhood. You could do things like this:
Aside from the cost of one's own labor, plus advertising and such, and maintaining an available method of contact (omg! twitter would be awesome for this in some respects) there would also be some insurance costs, but this would still be a way cool thing to do, I think.
The other question would be what one would call such a job. Well, the old name for "homemaker" used to be "housewife"-- but since one would be traveling around to other people's houses, I think a perfectly fun name would be "Housemistress."
You know how when you go to a nice hotel, they have a concierge? That's a person who can give you directions around the city, get you tickets to somewhere, direct you to a doctor or pharmacy, and so on.
And one of the big growing fields is home health care, which can also include "aides" that do tasks that a client just isn't able to do for themselves. Many people are perfectly able to care for themselves at home, as long as someone else can take their trash to the curb (if they can't lift things) or can make sure their dishes get clean (if they can't see very well) and so on.
I was reading an article on the Ladies Against Feminism website (will those of you in my reading audience who just burst into flames please hold off until the end of the paragraph? thank you), which talked about how back when young women lived at home until they were married, they provided an unpaid work force, and today now that grown women are running households of their own by themselves, they have a lot less time to help their neighbors and communities. I don't know that I believe that this was historically true, and I don't believe that we as a society ought to expect such a thing from women specifically or from anyone in general. However, it does bring up the idea that there are good things that now go un-done because there isn't anyone who has the time to do them.
Some women who work at home get mighty cranky when their neighbors ask them to help out with the neighbors' children who might need to come home sick from school and so on. They see it as failure to acknowledge that even though they are at home, they are working and their job is important.
I think an awesome job to have would consist of being a sort of concierge for a neighborhood. You could do things like this:
- Arrange to walk someone's dog if they have to stay late at work for an hour or two.
- Go check someone's windows to make sure they're closed if it's starting to rain.
- Run to the store for a roasted chicken, salad fixings and a loaf of French bread; chop the tomatoes and cucumber, wash the lettuce, and have them waiting in a bowl in the fridge.
- Deliver fresh-baked muffins, a quart of soup, and half a gallon of orange juice to someone who's home sick from work.
- Get up in the attic and fetch down the decorations for a holiday.
- Pick up someone's car at their workplace and drive it to have the oil changed.
- Pick up a child at a lesson, or at school if they get sick and have to come home early.
Aside from the cost of one's own labor, plus advertising and such, and maintaining an available method of contact (omg! twitter would be awesome for this in some respects) there would also be some insurance costs, but this would still be a way cool thing to do, I think.
The other question would be what one would call such a job. Well, the old name for "homemaker" used to be "housewife"-- but since one would be traveling around to other people's houses, I think a perfectly fun name would be "Housemistress."
