For most of my life I have had no ambition. I didn't want to be anything when I grew up. I wanted to have enough money to avoid being troubled by things like taxes, bills, and other everyday expenses, but beyond that I didn't really care. I don't care much for luxury and I don't think I would make any dramatic lifestyle changes if I suddenly became rich. So working hard to get a high paying job didn't hold much interest for me.
When I first entertained the notion of a career, I was about 13 years old. Like most boys my age, I had a healthy interest in pornography. Possibly unlike kids my age, I thought it would be a perfect career. The people that owned porn studios made tons of money and it looked easy as shit. I can draw reasonably well and I thought that with practice I could draw hentai for some start up cash to get a business going. After things started up I thought I would just sit back, take my cut, and live out the rest of my life without a care in the world.
In high school I had all but abandoned that dream on the basis that it was stupid. Still, out of spite for the teacher of my career counseling class I listed "pornographer" as my number 1 career choice. (Its been a long time. The class might have been called "life skills" or some stupid horseshit class where they tell you to lower your standards and accept your exciting new life working in data entry.) She sent me to the principal's office and I got detention for a few days, but fuck that smarmy cunt. (She was pretty much a real life Umbridge from Harry Potter.)
At 16, when they pretty much force you to pick a career path, I decide I want to be a Pharmacist. My neighbor is a pharmacist and it looks like a pretty sweet life. Tons of money just for counting pills all day and knowing what they do. Also, there's no ladder climbing involved. Once your a pharmacist, that's it. No promoting from Assistant Regional Senior Manager of Douchebaggery to Head Regional Senior Manager of Douchbaggery. That might be fine for people who want to feel like their life is a video game and you have to level up in order to be anything other than a peon, but that's not for me. So that's what I went to college for.
Fast forward to my second year of college and I am coming to the end of the prerequisites to enter the actual Pharmacy college. On the application, there is an essay portion where you have to write why you want to be a pharmacist. And for the life of me I couldn't answer that question. I had no idea why and for some reason I didn't think writing "money and bitches" would win anyone over. So I changed majors. I was already mostly done with a biology degree so I went ahead and finished that out. Got my bachelors in 3 years and graduated with honors. I was on the fast track to nowhere.
So I spent about a year dicking around. Something like 8 months passed before I even started looking for work. I took a few online classes trying to find something that interested me, but for all the good it did I might as well have burned that money on my lawn. The grace period on my student loans was coming to an end so I needed to find a job. It turns out I am overqualified for entry level positions, but I lack experience for anything else. Funny how our system works. I ended up taking an ad out in the paper for a private tutor. I said in the ad my price was negotiable but it turns out no one really knows how much is an appropriate amount so I walked away with fistfuls of cash every time. Some time later, a friend of the family calls me and asks if I would like to work full time as a tutor at the local community college. She is in charge of the tutoring center and hired me for the semester. That same semester, the math department was short staffed. In addition to the new tutoring job, I also taught classes for the math department. After about a year of this, I find out that almost all the science professors are going to be retiring soon. I hear that if I can get a masters degree by then, I stand a good chance of getting one of those jobs.
So here I am now. I start grad school in about a month. Maybe more school isn't the best thing for me, but I like working at that college and liking work isn't something I have experienced before. Sometimes I regret changing my major, but I am more or less happy with where I am now.
|