When I was a kid, I could never make my mind up about what I wanted to be when I grew up. The thought of going to University scared the crap out of me because it meant that I’d have to make a decision and stick to it. In fact, I went to a grammar school which is currently rated at 8th in the entire UK for results and the pressure was on from an early age.
At 13, we had to do really well in our end-of-year exams so that we’d be allowed to take the subjects we wanted at G.C.S.E when we took our options and of course you must choose the right G.C.S.E’s so that you have the right subjects to allow you to study at A-Level, which in turn would need to correspond with what you want to study at University….”AAaaarrgghhh, ENOUGH”, my tiny, thirteen year old brain screamed. In fact, seeing as I was one of the youngest in the year, I was probably 12. “No…” I wanted say “no, I do NOT know what I want to work as until I can draw my pension in approximately 60 years time”.
The problem I have now is that I never seemed to quite snap out of that mentality. It’s not so much that I don’t know what I want to be, it’s that I want to be everything! At the moment, I have three jobs. I work in an Accountants office as an assistant and general jack-of-all trades doing payroll, basic accounts and crap like that. I also manage some Social Media pages for a couple of brands and I also pick up the odd bit of freelance writing here and there. Three pretty different jobs and strangely, I actually feel quite satiated, in terms of my career.
The thing is, I still have it in the back of my mind that I’ll still get to be an astronaut one day or that someone will walk past my bathroom window, hear me singing my heart out and offer me a record deal and world tour. That’s not to mention the book I want to write, the career as a stand-up, the prime time TV comedy that I’m going to both write and star in. And I’m not even exaggerating here, these are all genuine aspirations of mine.
When I was in my last year of school, I was determined that I was going to join the RAF. I wanted to sign up, get sponsored by them to attend Uni and then learn to fly planes. Then, I was told in an interview with their careers officer that I couldn’t fly planes as I’m as myopic as a bat and as coordinated as Bez after taking a heroic amount of Ecstasy. So, that scuppered that little fantasy and I don’t think I’ve ever got over the disappointment.
The thing is, I’m going to be 30 in a couple of years and I really need to start knuckling down. Just after Sausage was born I started an OU degree in Psychology but two yeas and 120 UCAS points later and I’ve realised that I think Freud was a twat. So, where do I go now. Well, I’ve signed up to do my Accounts Technician Training. I don’t want to be in my thirties and have the same earning potential as I did when I was 18, so fuck it, let’s have a go.
But in the meantime, if anyone needs me to stand in for them in a Broadway show or ghost write their life story, I’m happy to give that a punt too!
Oh how familiar this all sounds 🙂 I remember sitting in the office with Mrs Buckley going over my A-level choices (drama, physics, graphic-design and English lit) and being told that they were too broad so I probably wouldn’t get onto a university course with them, and that I should either just do arts or just do sciences. The thing was that I wanted to do everything and the thought of picking just one thing to study in favour of all others was ridiculous to me. It was hard enough shrinking down to just four A-level choices without going down to just one!
Needless to say I don’t have a degree. I’ve worked doing just about everything from project leader to wedding photographer, and I’ve just finished putting on a huge charity event all by myself whilst on maternity leave (go me!). I believe that some of us are just too fabulous to be restricted to one area 🙂 Plus being a mum gives you super powers, if you were good at multi-tasking and creative thinking before having a kid then you will be truly astonishing after having one! The event management stuff has been great as it has meant working in lots of different areas at once – promotions, design, accounts, logistics… If I ever get bored of one thing I could do something else for a while.
I have no idea what I’ll do next, but there are a million things left on my list so I’m definitely not ready to put aside any of the dreams and follow just one career path. I, too, just realised that I’ll be turning 30 at the end of next year. I don’t know where the time has gone but I do know that I still have a lot to get in before it’s over 😀
You’re SO right about things being easy – the job I do now is the same one that I was made redundant from before I had Sausage. I swore I’d never go back to helping rich people pay less tax, but they happened to be advertising my old job around the time that I was looking and it made sense. I didn’t need to learn new systems and they didn’t have to train someone new. The thing is, I do like accountancy and most things related and was always good with numbers – I think I’m suffering from the realisation that whatever I do, it’s not likely to be very glamourous!
I know how you feel love; as much as I love being the assistant manager in an awesome pub, it’s not something I envisaged myself doing when I’m closer to 30 than 20!
I’d love go back to uni and train in forensics, but who knows. Either that or get some further qualifications in accounting, copywriting, proofing etc. The world’s your oyster if you can be arsed! And that’s mmy problem – what I have at the moment is really bloody easy to remain doing. Too easy.
xx