#oneaday Day 701: Deadline

First up, a shoutout to Mados’ excellent post on Telephobia, which makes use of one of my cartoons as well as quoting me, making me look wittier than I remember being about that particular affliction. Thanks, Mados.

Now, onto today’s discussion

At what age are you supposed to have “it” all figured out? And by that I mean be doing what you’re “supposed” to be doing, looking toward the future rather than dealing with the immediate present and being in a position to buy super-expensive things like cars and houses. Is 30 a reasonable deadline? Because if so, I don’t think I’m anywhere near.

Since leaving university, I’ve had a number of different jobs. I’ve been a teacher in both primary and secondary education. I’ve been a freelance writer. I’ve been a shop-floor salesperson. I’ve been an in-store personal tech trainer. I’ve been a regular long-term contractor for a video games website. This isn’t even considering jobs I had while at university, which included mopping up sick, collecting glasses and making a badass prawn cocktail.

The thing, though, is that I don’t feel like I’ve made a lot of “progress” along the way. The only position in which I’ve had what you might describe as a “promotion” was when I went from being a shop-floor sales person to an in-store personal tech trainer, and that was more a change of role (or, more specifically, the formalisation of something I was already doing anyway) than a “promotion” per se. That particular job was the one I held the longest, staying there for around about two and a half years. Other jobs I’ve move on from in a year or less, leaving no time to be promoted. And others still I’ve left simply because there wasn’t a job there for me any more — this happened with my first teaching post thanks to the school being half a million quid in the red, and more recently with the sudden and sad closure of GamePro.

It’s worrying me a bit, to be honest. I know plenty of people who found themselves jobs after university and have been steadily working their way up through the ranks ever since. They seem quite happy with what they’re doing, even though it’s not in the slightest bit related to their degree, and generally just seem to be far more “sorted” than I feel.

Now, granted, I don’t live inside their heads and thus can’t say for sure what they think about their whole situation. It’s entirely possible, of course, that they feel that the job they’ve been making such good progress in is actually a dead end, and long to break free and do something they really want to do.

Thing is, the whole “follow your dreams” thing is sort of what I’ve been doing, only the trouble with dreams is they have a habit of not living up to what you expect — largely because, being dreams, you tend to ascribe somewhat unrealistic expectations to them. And after the fact you’re just left feeling slightly bewildered and disillusioned by the whole experience.

I don’t have a solution for myself. From January, I have some work that I’ll enjoy, though I’ll need more to be able to live comfortably. I do also have an interview for something lined up in January, too, which would, to be honest, solve a lot of problems if I do manage to get, even if it’s arguably something of a step backwards in terms of salary and whatnot.

Fingers crossed, I guess. And if not… err, is anyone reading this looking for someone to write the news on their website? And pay?