For many of us, journalism was once the ultimate dream job. (And even in dire times, it still is for a lucky or plucky few.)

Now the dream has turned to fantasizing — about alternative employment. Fantasies such as, writes the New York Times’s Judith Warner after surveying her colleagues, turning a Master’s of Journalism into being a truck driver or an Afghanistan warlord.

Warner’s fantasy for her own husband, who was recently revealed to be an ace sharpshooter, is a somewhat more interesting American-style fantasy: “Freelance sniper. Sharpshooter. Professional assassin.”