There are people who work tirelessly at their jobs. Day and night they have their nose to the grindstone, working to be the best at what they do. Regardless of the hour, they are on call to handle the next crisis or solve the biggest problems.

No position is closer to this than the job of being a homeowner. It never stops. Once you own that house, it becomes your kingdom, your castle. It doesn’t matter if it’s a leaky kitchen sink or a clogged up gutter, you as a homeowner are on call 24/7/365.

I know a number of people who’ve had some serious problems with their homes over the past few months due to the crazy amount of storms that have hit the East Coast this winter. These people are up at all hours of the night bailing water from crawl spaces, fixing rooftops in the middle of thunderstorms, or even repairing damage from a downed tree during a sleet and snow storm (all true stories!).

If being a homeowner was just a job available on Monster.com, I don’t think it’d be the most popular of occupations. But none of the people that I referenced would change their position for anything. It’s their castle.

Sure they probably wish that it would stop pouring rain or that they had a better drainage system or that things wouldn’t happen to their property, but all of them know that this is the job they wanted, that they worked so hard to attain.

While reality shows and fairy tales may tout the idea of a dream job, the real American Dream is a job that’s equal parts challenge and satisfaction. It’s the job of the homeowner, and it never ends.

Picture from Flickr user rioncm