Inventing a Job: Advice from a Doer to a Dreamer

The Takeaway

Yesterday, we talked with two people who stopped applying for jobs, and invented their own jobs instead. And we asked you, if you could invent a perfect job, what would it be? A lot of you wrote and called in with some fun ideas.
A listener in Oregon said:
I’d be a beer taste tester.
And a listener in New Jersey wrote:
My job would be to test resort locations and report on the optimum length of stay and food and drink to consume.
But of all the calls we got, one that stood out had nothing to do with drinking or relaxing. It had to do with toilets.
Abby Hallowell, a listener in Augusta, Georgia said she dreams of turning what’s in our toilets into sustainable energy. She’s in the very early stages of her dream, taking classes in chemical engineering and business management.
But how do you take a dream about human waste and turn it into a reality?
Jason Kass has some ideas. He’s the founder of Toilets for People, a company that makes very special toilets for the developing world. The toilets produce compost that is pathogen free, so it won’t make people sick. This is a breakthrough in areas with limited drinking water and flooding. Jason’s company is also looking into ways that that compost from his toilets can be used as fuel.

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