My cooking. I love to cook, be it simple meals or extravagant dishes, and everyone I know loves to eat my food - which is exactly why I'd never ever do it professionally. I really don't want to risk losing the enjoyment and relaxation I get from cooking. Being in the kitchen for an hour after i came home from work is my way to unwind after a long day.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
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Also, cooking as a job fucking sucks. Long hours, low pay, high pressure to get things done fast, and people generally seem to treat each other like shit. Why would you do that to yourself if you had different options?
To the extent of what I know of modern cooking, my country is an outlier. If you walk in a restaurant, there will be one or two dishes ready to serve and from that point forward you can order à la carte.
The first will get you served in a few minutes, the second you get to wait. And there is no point in complaining it's taking too long, as you'll get shown the door.
In all my life, the best restaurant I ever went to worked three nights a week, started serving by seven p.m. and closed the kitchen by nine. Last customer out the door by ten thirty, lights out by eleven thirty.
Small room, no menu. If you wanted a specific dish you could request in advance and pay as you'd make you reservation. They would serve around 40 people a night.
Best food and mood I ever had the opportunity and pleasure to enjoy.
I love cooking. Two years ago my wife and I bought a bed and breakfast and it's been a nice way to make my hobby "professional" while not sucking the joy out of it.
It's only once a day, and it's a very small amount of people who you get to actually speak to as opposed to faceless guests in the front half of the restaurant or whatever.
Same. I love trying out different cultures foods, or trying new things with my own cultures. I've had people ask me why I don't do it professionally but reading Kitchen Confidential killed any potential that idea had. I've enough mental issues as a graphic designer.
Same. I love the sizzle of grilling meat or the process of sauteeing onions.
I bake. I'm known for making birthday cakes for people.
I just made one November the 15th, and that night I was bombarded with "how much would you charge to bake one of these for-?"
Absolutely not. People are bastards. The instant my baking turns from "thoughtful gift" to something owed, I will be stuck with all the bullshit that entails. No thanks. Delicious, complex, mesmerizing bakes and absolutely zero strings attached thank you very much.
I fix stuff. I like fixing stuff. Cars, computers, cell phones, appliances, tvs, small motors, etc. It's all like a little challenge/puzzle to me. I like doing it. It's never been in my field of work, but I get asked all the time why I don't do any of it for $$$.
Well, because I want to keep liking it is why.
Cooking. I love to cook for my friends and family. I've been perfecting my homemade pizza for years. It's very good and I love to make it for guests.
I've had people say I should open a pizzaria, especially since the one good one in town shut down.
Fuck that.
My music, songwriting. I've never once had the desire to make money from it. In fact, one of the things that killed my band is I discovered the bass player was charging a cover for what I had assumed were free shows and then keeping it.
Same here. I love having fun making music. Being in a band trying to make money was miserable. I do miss having access to a dedicated practice space and recording studio though.
I miss performing a lot, and I'll probably never really do it again like I did back then
https://github.com/Dakkaron/Fairberry
I keep getting asked if I'd sell these. But becoming a software engineer by trade has already ruined hobby programming for me, so I will not ever make that hobby into a job.
Haha, I love it! What a fun thing that is, maybe I'll make one for my partner!
If you do let me know! Just curious how well the building instructions work.
And if you have trouble, feel free to PN me here or write in the discussion section of the GitHub repo.
Fucking
Shortest career of any profession, if what leaks from the business is true to the slightest.
Massage. I know that if I did it professionally it would become a chore and I would no longer want to massage the people I love.
Faux-IT guy for friends and family. I’d say I’m an “advanced hobbyist” but charging for it/making it a job? No way. Especially not with ADHD. I pick up and drop projects too readily. I couldn’t work in an environment where I have an obligation to fix things I don’t feel like dealing with as opposed to tinkering and creatively helping folks when I feel the energy to.
Also standup/general comedy. I’ve been told I’m very quick witted but memorizing for a stage makes me so anxious. I like to just “perform” when the timing is right and the spark hits.
What do you actually do?
Shooter/editor. Primarily video, some audio (podcast clients), rarely photography. I like what I do overall, but it really takes the wind out of any appeal of treating it as a hobby. I rarely do photography or shooting for myself anymore.
Photography.
It's fun, but not something I want to do professionally or even as a side-gig.
Full time camera op/editor here. You are correct lol
Writing. Specifically, tech writing. I've got an intuitive sense for it, but other than business communication and the occasional bit of internal documentation I don't have any desire to do it professionally.
I get along great with our tech writer, though, since I'm the only other person at the company who can hold a discussion about the Oxford comma.
Your opinion on the Oxford comma?
I'm for it, mostly because that's how I was taught to write in school.
Argentine tango. I like doing it with my partner, but I have zero desire to compete or travel to Argentina or even seek out the best teachers available. I can lead strangers and have enough variety in vocabulary that I don't get bored. That's enough.
I can respect that feeling. Especially the competitive part. It feels as if every and anything nowadays needs to become a competition.
Electronics repair and manufacture. I do this sometimes professionally -- however my special talent is doing it with none of the right tools or parts. It's mostly hilarious and not useful at work, where I need to use the right parts so you can scale to manufacture.
I once fixed a DVD drive using a gas stove. A graphics card with a tube of toothpaste and some rubber bands. A Macbook with half a cardboard box. Today I built a microphone amplifier from a broken Android development board, a IC from a particle detector, and surface-mount resistors and capacitors from a dozen different things. I could probably work as an engineer in Kerbal Space Program :D
I would watch the shit out of this YouTube channel.
Sadly, my irritation with YouTube is fathomless and eternal :P
I can clue you in the the first case though -- A faulty motor was unable to eject the drive, and a magnet held it in place. So I used the Curie effect to weaken the magnet by roasting it for a short time and putting it back in. I was very poor in those days so knowing these things was pretty useful.
Is your name Gyro Gearloose?
I did this thing, stretching decades back, where I would publish every project under a different name, then throw away the password.
Even I don't know everything I've done, or all the names I've gone by.
Writing, specifically long prose. When there's a story that just has to be told and I feel it in the marrow of my bones I'll write and I'll love it.
If someone ever handed me a deadline, all joy would be lost. Some things just aren't meant to be a job for me and forcing the issue would only make me depressed and the writing abysmal.
I had been involved with the labour board over a wrongful termination dispute. I made complaints about about an abusive workplace and was shitcanned as a result.
During the final settlement where the lawyers were fighting over what my settlement payment would be, my lawyer and I had a bit of a discussion revolving around mental health.
She suggested I should consider a move into mental health services as I was essentially writing off continuing my trade apprenticeship by this point. She noted that I am a good listener and have a very clear understanding of mental health. She even offered to get me in contact with those in the mental health field.
It's been heavily on my mind to go down that path but a part of me is intimidated. I've been able to help a few close friends who all experienced some heavy mental issues over the past couple years but these are people who I've become close to and am able to help them through a deep understanding of them.
I tend to get attached to people easily and I'm not sure how I'll be able to separate work thoughts from my own thoughts meant for my own time. What heavy burdens will make it home with me?
Would I be good at working in such a field? According to my lawyer and those closest to me, I'd be great. But what am I going to do about my own mental health if I follow that path path? I can barely handle children and I'm the biggest kid in my own life. It's already a monumental effort to keep myself fed and not spontaneously running into traffic.
Hey :) I'm working in the field.
Lot of social workers or mental health workers are using their own experiences to improve the support provided to their beneficiaries. Also, if you undergo training in the field, you will obtain tools that can help you better manage your own experiences. And finally, it's important to know that you're not "helping" anyone; they do it themselves. You only provide them with the tools or a perspective that might motivate them to take action.
Music. I can play close to a dozen instruments with enough skill that I could sit in as a stand in player for a large variety of genres. I do everything in my power to avoid letting people around me know.
I make music as a way to meditate and relax. I can throw down a synthesizer drone and spend an hour+ noodling on the piano, guitar, cello etc without doing any recording or writing down stuff. I've got probably 100 or so short 4-12 bar ideas saved on my computer. I probably will never do anything with them but I like going back and rediscovering where I was musically/emotionally.
The dubstep phase was, in a word, terrible.
I am in a similar boat. I don't have the chops I used to, but I have taught music and played in a lot of bands over the years. At several points in my life I had experiences that led me to believe that if I made music my job I would end up hating it! Currently I am not "doing anything with it" except for very slowly recording my songs. Home recording is something I have not delved into too much, but I would like to properly record some of my stuff because it means a lot to my friends and family. I would also very much like to be in a band again, but just for the fun of playing in a band. I am not at all interested in brand, image, promotion, or all of the other bullshit that is involved in the "music industry." I do really miss having friends to just jam with and have "musical conversations."
My wife has something of a natural talent with music, but never really had the chance to explore it when she was younger. She is working really hard at learning guitar, and I really want to support her so she can have a good experience with music.
Right out of high school I got a job as a mechanic, something I loved doing as a hobby before and got real good at. It’s the customer, it’s like doing family IT work. “You changed my oil 4 months ago and now one of my headlights won’t work”. Between that sending out vehicles that declined a bunch of work. I swear we only held one plumbers van because it was so unsafe.
I still love working on my own cars. However I’ve refused to touch any family members or friends vehicles. Not worth it.
Coding, photography, public speaking/advocacy, writing...
Art. I'm not judgy against people doing it, but I always see all these people with advanced modification tools and using them to make their art "better", like photoshop contrast tools and color stuff, when to me, if my art is good it's good. I got eighth place in an art contest once, yet I know (without really complaining about it though) that I would've gotten second place if people hadn't put steroids into their sunsets.
What irks me a little is those same artists who use the metaphorical steroids are in the campaign against AI art, and I'm like dude, there are people from whom it would be more fitting to hear complaints from. Say what you want about AI art, I'm not going to severely invalidate the arguments from either side themselves, but considering the actual critics involved, it's at least 90% hypocrisy from the "anti" side, and you'll have seen me having said this since day one.
wish I had one I could share.
Genealogy. I've done a couple of research projects for friends just because I find it interesting and challenging even if it's not my family.
Y’know, I dunno. I have a tendency to want to use what limited skills I have professionally. I’ve been working with tech for so long that I suppose the only real place I see to actively use what I’ve learned is in a professional setting, as I don’t really have need to use said skills in my personal life. At least, not to the same extent.
Knowing how to partition a hard drive is only so useful. Being able to hand-solder tiny diodes and resistors doesn’t come up much in my day-to-day life.
Tech I'd guess, nothing really specific. Maybe contributing to documentation or translation of some projects that interest me but no coding at all.
Sex, writing, being a good listener for people's emotional problems.
Is't that just being a basic educated human being ?
I don't mean I'm better at them than everyone else, it's just that two of them are things people do sometimes nag me to do professionally, as per OP's question.
I find saying "so what, I'm good at sex too, doesn't mean I have to be a sex worker" gets my point across and stops the nagging, because that's something many people only enjoy as a hobby.