The best job I've ever had, and I've had quite a few, was neither short hours, nor a decent wage. It was cultivating and harvesting shiitake mushrooms. What made it so great was that I worked alone 90% of the time, and it was in the mountains amongst nature. 40/ wk for 140,000 ¥/mo. (about 1,175$/mo), so like not really a livable wage for a grown-up with a family, etc…, but there was zero stress. It was physically quite hard work; carrying logs every day in the summer and cutting down trees, cutting them into 1 meter long sections, and hauling them out in the winter. Very strenuous work.
The boss was almost never around, but there were lots of birds, flowers, snakes, frogs, etc… If I was really tired I would just lie down on a mossy patch of ground and take a little nap.
I guess I'm just thinking about the nature of work. In general, I don't it's work that is bad, but jobs. It's still amazing to me that a hard, low wage job could be so satisfying and fulfilling. I was only there a year, though, before he made up a story to let me go. The boss was the kinda guy that generally tried to avoid paying his bills. He never messed with me, but I found out that before me he would use only short-term part timers and generally rip them off as best he could.