Jobs In The 21st Century

Like the elves of Middle Earth, jobs are leaving these shores and they’re not coming back.  These days, if you are a travel agent, cashier, bank teller, journalist, or in any one of the other 1,001 person-to-person professions of the 20^th century – you’d better start looking over your shoulder.  In the next decade, your paycheque is going to go the way of the dinosaur.  Quite frankly, blacksmiths will have better employment opportunities than you will.  Luckily, however, economics is a survival of the fittest science, and it’s already creating a shedload of new careers.  Here’s just a small sampling of the new jobs being created in the 21^st century.  The crazy thing is – for the most part — these are real.

Harassment Officer –This is the only job in history that’s totally dependent on the employee NOT doing the job.  Think about it!  If a Harassment Officer actually puts a stop to harassment in the workplace, they’re out of a job.

Social Media Consultant – Apparently, there are still people on this planet who don’t know how Facebook, Instagram and Twitter work.

Millennial Generation Expert – Yes, companies hire people to try and figure out what makes their younger employees tick.  My best guess is they wander around the office telling everybody under 30 they’re “awesome” and then, once a week, they give out trophies.

Personal Shopper – This job has been around for a while, but it still amazes me that some people hire people to buy presents for the friends and relatives they can’t be bothered going to Walmart for.

Bikini Waxer – Back in the day, personal grooming was – uh – personal. Now we get professionals in on the plot.  My question is how do these people learn their trade?  Where are the schools?

Cloud Services Specialist – I have no idea what the hell these people do.

Activist – These are the people who make a career out of being pissed off.

Grant Writer – These are the people who convince rich people to give them money to pay the people who’ve made a career out of being pissed off.

Uber Driver – Simplest job in the world.  All you have to do is go to Uber.com and sign up.  According to one person I talked to, Uber doesn’t even check to see if you actually have a car.

Influencer – We used to call these people shills. They worked carnivals and sideshows, trying to entice the local folk into spending their money on rigged games and cheap gadgets.  These days, they prowl the Internet and confine their activities to promoting perfumes and overpriced designer clothes.

Ethical Sourcing Officer – These are the people who make sure the Asian sweatshops aren’t beating the children who make those overpriced designer clothes.

Jean Ripper – I don’t know whether this is a real job or not, but somebody’s got to be ripping those overpriced designer jeans.

But my two favourites are:

Content Creator – These are the people who have YouTube channels, podcasts and — the grandmother of them all — blogs.  Yep, people actually get paid for wasting your time.

Content Reader – These are people who spend their days checking the contents of YouTube channels, podcasts and — the grandmother of them all — blogs.  Yep, people actually get paid for wasting their own time.