When I grow up I'm going to be a.....................

[belfastboy]

I never had any concrete aspirations for an adult career when I was a youngster (no realistic ones, anyway), and I’ve been somewhat less than specific in that regard ever since. And here I am at what we used to call “retirement age” and I’m still passing much of my time working, but I wouldn’t call it toiling. I’m still bringing in some scratch and I have no plans for quitting any of my money-making activities. It’s not that I couldn’t “retire,” but work gives me some sense of purpose. It’s not such a bad existence.

A friend came into a wad — more than a million — when certain of his relatives croaked. He tried retirement and found it didn’t suit him. And I found that totally understandable.

I too never had any grand goals or even ideas on the 'what' of adulting. University for me was a grand adventure in pursuing the 'big ideas' not as vocational training. 5 years of drinking coffee, discussing philosophy, solving the world's ills and smoking cigarettes is not real career prep. At one point I figured I would just continue the work I started at 12, in the carnival, and that would be my life's work. Not a bad gig with winters off. But at some point I acquired loftier ambitions. Depending on one's definition of career or the length of time a job needs to qualify as a career I just might be on my 7th or 8th different one. And I am totally fine with that.......it has been an interesting ride so far.

Hat making likely will be my last until my body fully breaks down and I am relegated to fulltime sitting in my easy chair watching baseball on the telly.

 

[Sertsa]

I fear we’ve been trained for shorter and shorter attention spans. People see a page of text and are intimidated by it.

I’m no exception, alas. I often jump from a book or magazine to my iPhone to the TV. For a several thousand word magazine piece to hold my attention it has to be exceptional. Such pieces can be found in the Atlantic and sometimes in the NYer, but in that latter example not as reliably as it used to be.

I haven’t seen my name on a byline in several years, and that’s fine by me. Going back 20 years and more ago I was editor and major copy contributor to an every-other-week startup, funded by the publisher (and other major contributor), a Microsoft millionaire who sometimes seemed to be of the belief that it was her great talent rather than her good luck that got her all that scratch. She was a quite capable writer, though, as was I, but so were countless others.

I insisted we run no bylines for the first several issues, until we got enough capable freelancers in the stable so that her name or mine wouldn’t appear above every story.

I agree. The articles for the non-profit I mentioned--which I do as a volunteer--have a 500 word limit and need to be interspersed with photos, otherwise I'm told people won't bother. Speaking of the photos, I am occasionally concerned about the choice. I did a fireworks safety piece, which included an interview with a trauma nurse, but when the article went up it had several stock oh-ah fireworks photos. Had the effect of, "Hey. these things are dangerous. But oh, pretty! No, really, they will seriously mess you up. But the colors!"

Good idea on not running bylines until you had a few names. Also, the importance of a byline has decreased as I've aged. Shortly after college, I wrote and took photos for a county tourism guide, back when they were still printed, and was quite upset I wasn't credited anywhere in the guide. But I was still in the resume and experience building phase. Now I'm fine without them.

By the way, I've never worked with a Microsoft millionaire, but I did work with a Microsoft billionaire's sibling. She was quite capable and understandably told very few people about the family connection.

 

[belfastboy]

I agree. The articles for the non-profit I mentioned--which I do as a volunteer--have a 500 word limit and need to be interspersed with photos, otherwise I'm told people won't bother. Speaking of the photos, I am occasionally concerned about the choice. I did a fireworks safety piece, which included an interview with a trauma nurse, but when the article went up it had several stock oh-ah fireworks photos. Had the effect of, "Hey. these things are dangerous. But oh, pretty! No, really, they will seriously mess you up. But the colors!"

Good idea on not running bylines until you had a few names. Also, the importance of a byline has decreased as I've aged. Shortly after college, I wrote and took photos for a county tourism guide, back when they were still printed, and was quite upset I wasn't credited anywhere in the guide. But I was still in the resume and experience building phase. Now I'm fine without them.

By the way, I've never worked with a Microsoft millionaire, but I did work with a Microsoft billionaire's sibling. She was quite capable and understandably told very few people about the family connection.

I grew up in the 1950's....no warning labels, no disclaimers on........ anything. We played war during the evenings leading up to Hallowe'en, divvying up into armies and then shooting roman candles and throwing bombs at the other side in attempts to gain territory. Probably miraculous that no one lost an eye but my buddy did have a candle blow up in his hands.....kept all his fingers but he did burn the crap out them Then in the summer months we chased and shot each other with our pellet and BB guns. Childhood back then was more of a Darwin Awards kind o thing.

 

[Bugguy]

I always imagined myself as a herpetologist. From elementary school on, I collected, ID'd, bred and released snakes, frogs, etc. My daughter grew up in Wisconsin and shared my interest. Now my granddaughter is hunting snakes and catching them by hand. We just need to teach her about copperheads.... many in the North Carolina mountains.

Ultimately I ended up as a high school science/biology teacher in Chicago. Three years overseas and a graduate degree and I fell into hospital administration.... forever.

I have mixed feelings. My career has been rewarding and I know I had a positive impact on many lives. Nonetheless, I didn't follow my dream and allowed external forces to guide my choices. I'm left with "what if..."

 

[tonyb]

^^^^^
Hanging over my Dear Old Ma’s head is a thought bubble reading “what if.”

Her time is running short and, much as she refuses the help her elderly self is increasingly needing, it’s apparent she knows the end is in sight.

Almost all of her contemporaries are gone (a woman she’s known since kindergarten died a week or so ago). She’s twice widowed. She’s buried one of her kids and the others have health “issues.”

She comes to the defense of the husband who knocked her and her kids around and ruined her finances and fathered two children (that I know of; there could be more) by other women while married to her, but in so doing she’s attempting to convince herself more than anyone else, because she knows within herself that staying with him came at too dear a price, for herself and her kids. And now it’s waaay too late to do anything about it.

There’s no need to discuss any of this with her. She’s knows, and she knows that I know, as does pretty much everyone who knows her and her history. No point in rubbing her nose in it.

 

[Turnip]

„Glücklich ist, wer vergisst, was doch nicht zu ändern ist.“

-Schopenhauer-

 

[Tiki Tom]

Happiness is good health and a short memory.

 

[GHT]

„Glücklich ist, wer vergisst, was doch nicht zu ändern ist.“

-Schopenhauer-

"Rache serviert man am besten kalt."

 

[Turnip]

"Rache serviert man am besten kalt."

-Ted Bundy- ?

 

[earl]

Thought I wanted to be a lawyer til my senior year in college. Even took the LSAT, applied to several law schools where I was accepted and then put the brakes on and didn't go for it after all. Thereafter, it was a journey to figure out what I wanted to do for a living. While I settled on something, I always joked that I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up. Been retired now nearly 4 years and it quickly became obvious to me upon retirement that I really didn't want to work anyway. Much prefer play.

 

[Who?]

I went through a phase of wanting to be a veterinarian, but didn’t follow through.

It‘s probably just as well I didn’t, because I’m sure I would have found the owners difficult, and I would have gotten entirely too attached to the patients. Once you get that much education, you are pretty well screwed if you decide you really don’t like doing that thing.

Also, the ones I couldn’t fix would have grieved me deeply.

 

[tonyb]

I can’t say that I’ve enjoyed every minute of every day I’ve spent on the job, but I can say I didn’t spend an inordinate number of those days doing things I just plain didn’t wish to do.

Living involves making a living, or at least it does for those of us of humbler origins, which is the great majority of us. And life has always been something of a struggle. I don’t lose sight of just how good we moderns have it compared to the lives our ancestors lived, and how billions still live today.

I’ve made some good decisions, and I’ve some not-so-good decisions. I don’t downplay the role luck has played in my generally pleasant circumstances at present.

 

[Turnip]

Having almost pinched my butt from cancer some time ago changed my perspective on several themes, especially those work related.
Many folks still mix up professionalism with doggedness and even in case some really read „their Clausewitz“, what has been kind of fashion for white collars here for a while, they (still) didn’t understand it.
Meanwhile I locked my dog away and replaced it with ratio, changed deregulated work to a union job and am well off with the circumstances being in place; made my peace with working for life instead of living for work.
The lack of professionals here in Germany should additionally keep conditions comfortable for my remaining working slot…

 

[Edward]

I've never regretted becoming an academic, even if it's something I fell into by accident. I love the teaching especially; the lack of value and respect for it across the sector (as compared to research, or, more specifically, the grant income research can generate) less so. Not a career I'd want to be coming in on now, where most baby academics I've known in the UK are deep in debt and more often than not working on a casualised basis into their early thirties. Before the money men got hold of universities and turned a tertiary education into a commodified product, with teaching staff a resented mark in the 'expenses' column, though, it was great. And when you can forget the bureaucracy and the Philistines in senior management and really get a class excited about the finer points of privacy or defamation law, or broadcast regulatory policy, it's still a joy.

I wish I could have made it as a performer. I'd have been best as an actor, I think, though I'd have enjoyed being in a band or - had I gained the requisite confidence - stand-up comedy. Probably why I enjoy lecturing - there's an inevitable element of performance in that as you're up against similar challenges of communicating to an audience. I learned a lot about communication skills with an audience by watching some great stand-ups.

If the big lottery win ever came in, enough to not have to worry about working for money ever again, I might just pursue some level of performance more seriously.

 

[belfastboy]

I always imagined myself as a herpetologist. From elementary school on, I collected, ID'd, bred and released snakes, frogs, etc. My daughter grew up in Wisconsin and shared my interest. Now my granddaughter is hunting snakes and catching them by hand. We just need to teach her about copperheads.... many in the North Carolina mountains.

Ultimately I ended up as a high school science/biology teacher in Chicago. Three years overseas and a graduate degree and I fell into hospital administration.... forever.

I have mixed feelings. My career has been rewarding and I know I had a positive impact on many lives. Nonetheless, I didn't follow my dream and allowed external forces to guide my choices. I'm left with "what if..."

I began an entirely new career at 60 and worked it for 10 years. Then at 70 started a home business that has me eager to get out of bed each morning. So I ask.....what is stopping you? At the career from 60 to 70 years old I never advanced beyond entry level but that was the wonderful aspect of it. Going to work each day was about the work...solely.....not about career advancement up the ladder, not about pay raises. It was purely about doing the work, which I loved, without all the extraneous things that muddy the water. Now at 70 I am engaged in something new that I love without the angst of having to meet payroll, having rent to pay, .....so now it too is purely about doing the work and enjoying it. This to me is the reward of having a career from the age of 30 -50 that I did not necessarily love. It was challenging, rewarding and that work afforded me the many comforts of a good paycheque and I have been blessed with 20+ years of reaping those rewards.

 

[belfastboy]

I've never regretted becoming an academic, even if it's something I fell into by accident. I love the teaching especially; the lack of value and respect for it across the sector (as compared to research, or, more specifically, the grant income research can generate) less so. Not a career I'd want to be coming in on now, where most baby academics I've known in the UK are deep in debt and more often than not working on a casualised basis into their early thirties. Before the money men got hold of universities and turned a tertiary education into a commodified product, with teaching staff a resented mark in the 'expenses' column, though, it was great. And when you can forget the bureaucracy and the Philistines in senior management and really get a class excited about the finer points of privacy or defamation law, or broadcast regulatory policy, it's still a joy.

I wish I could have made it as a performer. I'd have been best as an actor, I think, though I'd have enjoyed being in a band or - had I gained the requisite confidence - stand-up comedy. Probably why I enjoy lecturing - there's an inevitable element of performance in that as you're up against similar challenges of communicating to an audience. I learned a lot about communication skills with an audience by watching some great stand-ups.

If the big lottery win ever came in, enough to not have to worry about working for money ever again, I might just pursue some level of performance more seriously.

I went to university in the 1960's and did my fair share of drugs and lived to tell. However the highest high, the biggest rush I ever received was the little bit of stage work I did. The rush of the performance each night, the abject fear of bombing and then the audience applause erupting at the end is a rush I will never forget or ever approach replication. However I could not abide the life of an actor.......every actor I know, even the ones that have been fortunate to forge a life time career from it have suffered. Taxi driving, serving, bartending, temp work and worse during the lean times whilst waiting for the next part. The auditions, the many rejections helped to point me in another direction. No regrets it was never the life for me. Whereas the ones that did persevere did it because they were compelled. They saw no choice as they had to act to live and were willing to put up with the vagaries of the trade. Not I.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meh. Writing to make a living is almost dead. People write just to see their words on a website. For free, or almost free. mostly it’s an ego thing. On the one hand, it’s the democratization of ideas. On the other hand, it’s a race to the bottom.

Yep. I used to make a third of my income with freelance writing, but that's all gone now. Now there's companies active pushing to cut out even the incompetent hacks who wrote for "exposure" by replacing them with AI writing robots. Race to the bottom indeed.

 

[Who?]

……. cut out even the incompetent hacks who wrote for "exposure" by replacing them with AI writing robots. Race to the bottom indeed.

The robots will no doubt do a better job than the semi-literates who are writing today.

I am absolutely appalled at what is called an “article” these days.

 

[Edward]

I went to university in the 1960's and did my fair share of drugs and lived to tell. However the highest high, the biggest rush I ever received was the little bit of stage work I did. The rush of the performance each night, the abject fear of bombing and then the audience applause erupting at the end is a rush I will never forget or ever approach replication. However I could not abide the life of an actor.......every actor I know, even the ones that have been fortunate to forge a life time career from it have suffered. Taxi driving, serving, bartending, temp work and worse during the lean times whilst waiting for the next part. The auditions, the many rejections helped to point me in another direction. No regrets it was never the life for me. Whereas the ones that did persevere did it because they were compelled. They saw no choice as they had to act to live and were willing to put up with the vagaries of the trade. Not I.

That's really what killed it for me, sadly. The downside of having come from a fairly bourgeois background of relative privilege: sufficient financial security to really miss it were it gone, but not enough to be able to work for free or for pennies for years on the off-chance of making it enough to have a stable income. Maybe one day - if (now there's a word doing a lot of heavy lifting, given the decimation of academic pensions in the UK in recent years) I can afford to retire when comes the time, or at least use the pension to supplement going down to three days a week instead of five (i.e. working five days and getting paid for three instead of, all too often, working seven and getting underpaid for five...), signing up with an extras agency appeals. It's not the dream, but having done a bit of that kind of work I did rather enjoy it.

The robots will no doubt do a better job than the semi-literates who are writing today.

I am absolutely appalled at what is called an “article” these days.

I think it's a clear case of getting what you pay for. The big newspaper publishers, seeing their profits diminish, aren't, as a rule, prepared to pay the money out to develop new journalists any longer. And journalists being paid a pittance aren't generally motivated to produce quality. Same old same old.

 

[Who?]

As I think back to my childhood, and both sets of grandparents, my family could be described as “never wealthy, but always comfortable”.