These days, it would seem that a lot of people are unhappy with the static nature of their jobs. We are seeing a lot of research and surveys coming out that indicate that most employees wish their jobs were more interesting. What do we mean by interesting? Well, in particular, it would seem that many people wish they were granted the opportunity to take more risks in their day to day working life, and to be able to profit from those risks when their bets are correct. Studies show that people who are granted this kind of power at work are much more likely to be satisfied employees than, say, someone who just sits at a desk and creates reports all day long.

This is an interesting thing to hear, but we did not need studies to tell us this. Just look at employee migration numbers, particularly over the last few years of the recession – for whatever reason, we have seen a lot of people move into more fast paced and risk oriented jobs, such as (to use just one example) gold trading. During the recession, a lot of people were suffering from cash flow issues, and looking for ways that they could raise liquid cash – as a result, they sold a lot of their old gold jewellery. In response to this, an entire generation of gold merchants arose – people who would buy gold scrap when gold prices were low, and resell that gold when scrap gold prices were high.

Activities like this are the very definition of risk, and many of these people who buy and sell gold seem to be very happy in their lines of work. By and large, a very significant portion of them also appear to be quite successful – as we all know, the prices of gold have risen to astronomical levels during the last year or so. What does this mean for you, the bored employee? Well, perhaps it means that you should start a small business on the side.

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