View from the North 40: In pursuit of the meatballs of happiness

I respectfully submit this column to my current employer as a tentative notice of my possible eminent resignation should my application for a job in Denmark as a happiness investigator pan out.

Ikea, the assemble-it-yourself furniture and other-home-stuff company based in northern Europe, is working on a promotions gig in its Denmark branch. Specifically, they want to fill the full-time, temporary position of “happiness hunter.”

It’s a two-week, all-travel-expense-paid trip to Copenhagen, Denmark, where the successful applicant will stay in an Ikea-furnished home and be taken around...