Is there any such thing as a perfect job?

What is a perfect job? A job where you can earn millions of rupiah each month? A Baywatch kind of job where someone else's lives are counting on you? Or would it be the entertainers that make people happy?

For me, my present job is nearly perfect. For almost three years now, I've been writing regular reviews on films, food and books, which started back in my last year of college.

What more can I possibly ask from this job? Not only that I get to go to the movies for free, but free food and free books, and on top of that I get paid sample all those things and bitches about them.

It does not stop there. I also get regular information about new places to dine, upcoming films and the best books before anyone else does.

And my friends envy me. They ask me for the movie schedules (I'm not a human version of 21 hotline, guys!), good affordable places to hang out, or they simply come over to borrow my books.

So, no complaints about how I earn my living so far. I'm basically doing all my hobbies and getting paid for it. The job can even make me almost forget that I actually have a bachelor's degree in civil engineering.

However, I grew irritated and sick of how people around me constantly whined about how boring their jobs were and keeps telling me how very lucky I am to have a perfect job.

Well, it is a great job and I enjoy it very much, but like any other job (and like life itself), it does have its downsides.

First of all, I have to watch the movies before they actually get screened at the cinemas, before the audience (including my friends) see them.

So it has begun to cut into my quality time with friends. Every time they ask me out to a movie, all I can say is "Sorry, but I've seen that one". They then watch the movie together, while I stay home. Not a very pretty scene.

So, after some time of this type of rejection, my friends just stopped asking, assuming that I had seen all the movies, which is not always the case.

Once I found out that they watched a movie that I had not seen without even bothering to ask me first. I was dumb-founded. When I confronted them, they simply asked, "Well, we thought you had already seen it."

And that, again, left me to watch the movie by myself, which is not half as fun as watching it with friends, or a girlfriend.

To avoid that whole scenario, I now find out which films are not scheduled for a press screening, and then make a date with my friends to go see it with me. Smart or desperate, I don't care.

Sometimes it works, often I still have to stay home while they have fun at cinemas.

As for book review, it requires deep concentration, and most of all, time. That's not a problem. Not unless the book is so bad, dictionary-thick, and you have a deadline to catch. And that becomes hectic and stressful.

No matter how bad a movie is, it's done in around two hours. But many books need more than two hours to read. I get headaches, and it's usually exacerbated when the editor keeps reminding me about the deadline.

I wish I could just burn the book, drink the ashes and write the review. A friend advised me to do scan/speed reading, but it doesn't work for me. It's either read it or leave it.

Food reviewing, however, never seems to be much trouble. I'm trying to find what's so bad about being a food reviewer but I couldn't find anything, sorry.

But some of my fellow reviewers have some problems with that, despite getting free meals at five-star hotels and numerous cafes in town.

One of them said that she was always worried about gaining weight while tasting all those sinfully delectable high-calorie desserts and meals. Ah, that's it. Women worry about their weight, and not all food reviewers are as fortunate as Laksmi Pamuntjak with that great body.

Another fellow food reviewer got too bored to taste any food that he just tastes a bit of this and a bit of that instead of complete dishes.

And one must understand that it's not uncommon for food reviewers to eat as many as seven times a day when they have a deadline to catch. I happened to have Japanese food for three consecutive days for lunches and dinners. As good as the food was it still got boring.

My point is, I love what I'm doing and it is indeed a fun job. It's just sickening to hear wow-what-a-perfect-job-you-have from people. It's not, guys. Perfect is boring.

Sometimes I envy my journalist friends who get to travel around the world for free. But my jealousy faded as I find out that they have to cover things like crime or listening to babbling politicians.

So, next time you think your job sucks and envy others', remember that we all think the same. The difference is, maybe, is that you can gripe about your job, while I can gripe about mine in written form and... get paid for it.

-- Kenny Santana