Southern California Careers / Dream Jobs : These Folks May Have Perfect Jobs, but They Still Dream

OK, so you’re the founder and chief honcho of the world’s most powerful software company not to mention a mega-billionaire. Or you’re the creative force behind one of the nation’s most revered restaurants. Or perhaps you get paid to visit beautiful places to recruit, train and oversee the Gentils Organisateurs who coddle guests at posh Club Med resorts.

Fine. You have arrived at the enviable position of having a dream job. But tell us: What would you really rather be doing?

Here’s a look at the daydreams of a few of the ideally employed, who, of course, wouldn’t trade their jobs for anything unless they absolutely had to.

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Bill Gates, founder, chairman and chief executive of Microsoft Corp.

“When I was in school, I always had a dilemma: Did I want to be a scientist; did I want to be a computer programmer; did I want to be an economist? You have to pick; you can’t do everything.

“Although I don’t know what those other jobs would have been like, I suppose I might have liked to be a mathematician or to have focused on work with artificial intelligence. I’m a big fan of scientists. [The late Nobel Prize-winning physicist] Richard Feynman is probably my favorite.

“I like so many things, but I think that I chose the right job for me.”

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Alice Waters, founder of Chez Panisse, a world-class restaurant in Berkeley.

“I’ve always fantasized myself as a vegetable vendor at a farmers market--in Italy. I only had an awakening when I was about 19 that I liked food. After those trips to Europe in my early 20s, it was mostly wanting to eat in the same way that I had eaten there--both in spirit and in terms of the food. So I thought the only way to do that was to open my own place.

“I love picking and handling the produce when it’s sort of still alive, freshly picked that day. It’s got some energy in it, and giving it to people and seducing people . . . [are] very appealing in that sort of Renaissance Italian vision of things beautifully piled and arranged.

It has to do with “the sense of the season. It’s certainly part of their life [in Italy]. Everybody--the old people, the young people--they’re all part of the marketplace. It is the best job you can get, the most respected spot. That’s where farmers should be. There’s a little bit of the farmer and a little bit of the educator in there.”

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Sylvio de Bortoli, Club Med’s director of human resources in the United States and Canada and director of village operations at the Sandpiper resort in Florida.

“Since 1968, when I went to work for Club Med in Yugoslavia, I’ve been in many different countries--including Turkey, Greece, France and Switzerland. If you can deal with people all day long, it’s not a job.

“My dream jobs would be: a guide and ski instructor in parts of the Canadian Rockies where there is only [helicopter] and powder skiing. You have a lodge on the mountain, and this is what you do all day long in incredible mountain scenery.

“Or I find driving a plane kind of exciting. Flying a big 747 would be very intriguing.” *

Trip Hawkins, founder and CEO of 3DO Co., a developer of pioneering hardware for interactive multimedia.

“I’ve always said that as a CEO my job is to do anything I can’t get someone else to do. The job description is an inch deep and a mile wide. I founded 3DO to improve the technology for interactive entertainment and education in the hope of turning it into something that everyday people could use and benefit from.

“This kind of job is a continuous adrenaline rush. On the one hand, you could not ask for more stimulation. On the other hand, I’m not sure we’re intended to be out slaying mastodons 24 hours a day. This kind of job does not leave a lot of room for relaxation and leisure pursuits.

“Here are my job fantasies, and I hope to actually do all of these things, if I have enough time!

“Software director-producer. I’d love to be in a creative mode all day long instead of ‘taking care of business.’

“Theatrical actor. I’d love to do tragic Shakespeare, like Hamlet.

“Classroom teacher in a new kind of school environment where the kids are mainly acting out fantasies and role playing and ‘learning by doing’ while using software and hardware that I’ve designed.

“Musical performer. I play a little guitar now, and if I had time to really study I’d learn electric guitar and drums and be in a small-time band.

“Minor league baseball team manager. I picture being in “Bull Durham” in a small town.

“College professor. Cardigan. Thick glasses. Bike to class. Leaves turning. Students asking countless questions and hanging on every word.”