Ok, internetizens, here’s a question.
What should I do for a living?
Comments, suggestions, thoughts, critiques required. The wilder the better, all are grist to my mill. In the words of the small ads ‘anything legal considered’, though I reserve the right to consider some suggestions very briefly indeed.
I had planned to sit out the rest of my working life in a condition of pension-building predictability at a place I’ll call Carthage. I’d chosen Carthage because I wanted to work for a Great Big Company and be based well away from London. I liked what I’d seen of the culture and I badly wanted to settle down. I thought I could work for them until I retired or got bored. Now Cato is getting his way, and it’s entirely unclear whether I’ll have a job when the dust has settled and Rome is in power.
Rome and Carthage - who'd of thought?
So… what do I want from a new job?
Well, first things first: I need to pay my mortgage. Hopefully only for another 8 or 12 months, because I plan to move in with my shiny new husband, and then there’ll be my half of the rent. And alongside that, there is my pension, which frightens me every time I think of it.
Then there’s geography. I’m tied to the North West for at least the next five years and maybe the next eight. It’s not a bad area to be tied to, but there’s no way of knowing where my shiny new husband (still shiny I hope, but not so new by then) will have to move to in five or eight years time.
The next thing is intellectual challenge. I get bored very quickly. (Who’d have guessed?) So I need something to make my brain sweat otherwise I resort to sarcasm and sexual adventuring and I’ve a shiny new husband (did I say?) and I don’t want to hurt him. Up until now I’ve got the intellectual challenge from work, but I guess it doesn’t have to be like that: the OU is full of cool courses.
If I am employed for my expertise (which is mainly in what they call Web 2.0 technologies) then I want to be listened to. When I was consulting I was an Expert, and at Carthage I earned my stripes and became an Expert again. I don’t expect that what I say should go, but if I have some expertise I like to be able to make a contribution.
I don’t want to travel; there is only so much of your life you can spend at Heathrow, and I’ve done more than my fair share of time there. And I’m too old and have too much else in my life to want to ‘go the extra mile’ or ‘work as part of a dynamic and highly motivated team’ or ‘have my ambitions richly rewarded’ or to fall for any of the other ways that companies suck the naivete out of 25 year olds and turn it into money. So no travel and no sales, or not if I can avoid them.
Then there is what the Buddhists call ‘right livelihood‘. I think it’s time I did something useful in exchange for the oxygen I use up. I’ve always worked in the private sector and I am unnerved by the thought of moving away from the profiteers and into the public sector or to charities, arts organisations and places like that. I still need to pay the mortgage, and I perceive the public and third sectors as paying less well. I am also nervous of them because I lack the subtlety and self-discipline to deal with political machinations. But all of that said, I like the idea of working for the greater good.
So where does this lead me? I’d love to manage the Web 2.0 strategy for a museum – Tweeting for Art would be fun, don’t you think? Other ideas I have had so far are learning sign-language and translating for the deaf in courts and in hospitals, and becoming a humanist celebrant. I’d worry they wouldn’t pay the mortgage and though they’d both be ways to make a difference to peoples’ lives, I’d have to get my intellectual kicks with the OU.
In truth though, I don’t feel quite ready to walk away from the corporate world, and given the chance I’d take the easy option and stick with Carthage until geography forces a move in five or eight years time. But push may come to redundancy, and then I have to decide do I do my Big Career Change now, or do I do more of the same (if I can get a suitable job) and transform myself.
Any suggestions for ways of earning a living will be gratefully mulled over.
5 responses so far ↓
Z // September 14, 2009 at 11:29 pm |
MMm – it would be an interesting excercise to actually follow every suggestion made by every poster to a blog.
Then write a book about your expeirence – along the lines of “Yes Man” by Danny Wallace.
Wanting to help people is a universal sort of goal:
Many people deal with this by joining an organisation that helps people. But the catch is that any organisation can only help a certain percentage of people.
You have to work out a way of dealing with the 10% of cases where you can’t help. Perhaps because you don’t have the resources or because the organisation is a bit rubbish.
Me? I take pleasure in helping the 95% and don’t stress too much about the 5%. Managers manage.
Aphra Behn // September 15, 2009 at 5:17 pm |
Good point, well made, Z.
I think I am old enough and cynical enough not to expect to change the world. But I feel uneasily parasitical at the moment.
That said, in some respects my life has been very cushioned…
In the meantime, I’ve got in touch with two or three charities about volunteering either to help with their websites or to support teachers teaching teenagers how to use ITC wisely. But that’s more to nudge me in the right direction, than anything else.
C’mon internets, don’t let me down! There must be more ideas out there.
A/B
storm23 // September 22, 2009 at 11:59 am |
tweeting for art isn’t as badly paid as you might think my mum does it and earns around £200 a day but its 6 month contracts which doesn’t give you security. Although of course I’m currently realising that perm jobs only give the illusion of security. She has no discernable IT skill as far as I can tell so I won’t name agencies here!! She does have to travel but only about 2 days a month and all UK. She is north west based.
There is also making soap which seems bizarrely popular but I don’t understand how its lucrative. I’ve met 3 people this week who make soap- although one actually made hand made herbal treatment soap for dogs….is this really worthy?
After Zz comments I want to suggest wildly inappropriate things…but can’t think of anything exciting but not stupid! What about life coach i think you’d be good at that…I can see you saying stop pissing about and get on with it….mind you if your going to boss people about for money there may be more lucrative ways….
jackheron // October 18, 2009 at 7:15 am |
As a former Londoner who moved his modem to the place called Turdetania on your map – currently plugged in on a small spot of rock in what I suppose you’d call Magna Graecia – I’d suggest you look at ways to deploy your 2.0 skills at places on the net where they actually pay you. I believe it can be done. Oh, and that caption; it should, of course, be ‘have’ thought, no?
Aphra Behn // October 18, 2009 at 9:08 pm |
>> Oh, and that caption; it should, of course, be ‘have’ thought, no?
I know. It’s ironic. Innit.
My mortgage provider however will be grateful for your advice about making sure I get paid.
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