If the idea of getting paid a decent monthly wage to do nothing for the rest of your life sounds appealing, you may be interested in this Swedish experimental art project that plans to hire a very lucky person for a responsibility-free job with just one very simple requirement.
The government in Gothenburg, Sweden will select one very lucky applicant to show up at a train station currently under construction in the city every day and punch a time clock to let everyone know that the useless employee shows up at work that day. After that, the person is free to do anything they want, or nothing at all, just as long as they return to the station to clock out when their shift is over.
You might be wondering what a job that basically only requires you to clock in and clock out every day pays. Well, the selected candidate will earn a monthly salary of about $2,320, plus annual raises, benefits, vacation time and a guaranteed pension fund.
In 2017, the local government announced an international competition for artists willing to contribute ideas for the design of Gothenbug's Korsvagen train station, offering a prize of 7 million Swedish krona to the winner.
Only instead of coming up with actual design ideas, Swedish artists Simon Goldin and Jakob Senneby suggested that the prize money be used to pay one worker's salary and give them absolutely nothing to do all day. And that's how their "Eternal Employment" project began.
The jury apparently loved the artists' original idea as their project was announced as the winner in October last year. There was an uproar in Sweden about it, with politicians from all sides accusing them of wasting taxpayers' money. Others just called the idea stupid and worthless, which the artists fully agree with. They acknowledge that paying someone to show up at a train station two times a day just to punch a time clock is unproductive and pointless, but that's the whole idea.
If you're already thinking "where do I sign up?" I have some bad news for you. Because Korsvagen train station is still under construction, the position will only become available in 2026, after the station is inaugurated. The artists will start taking in applications a year earlier.
