I knew a guy who was sent to work on a Bridge on State Highway 12 in the OBX. The job gets all set up and then a stop work order came from the state due to environmental impact. All the construction guys stayed in the Outer Banks for like 6 months doing nothing. They'd call in or check emails and then just leave for the day, all while getting paid full salaries.
Another missed opportunity, after college I was working for a sports marketing company, thinking I wanted to be a sports agent. I was tasked with doing statistics for this company or that, pretty much sitting in a cube doing excel all day. While I was there they opened up a position to be the company rep for College Game Day, pretty much make sure the sponsorship stuff was right at every venue, hand out Home Depot shit, etc., but all fall you were going campus to campus being at Game Day. I applied, got a phone call, and then the guy realized I was already working at the company, and said he didn't want to step on anyone's toes by transferring me. After that I left and moved out west to be a ski instructor. To this day I think of how awesome that job would have been to be right out of college and get paid to go to some the of the best football games of the year.
Ski instructor in Colorado and Cook/Caddie on Seabrook Island were not bad consolation prizes I will admit.