This is my take on Genie @ … in a Bottle’s 10th Living Out Loud project
I was never one of those people that always knew what they wanted to be when they grew up. I sorta muddled my way through, tried this and that, and, luckily, wound up with a career I currently enjoy.
Jobs I’ve actively pursued and/or seriously thought I might like (in rough chronologic order):
- aeronautical engineer: I wanted to design and build cool human-powered vehicles like Varna’s Diablo and MIT’s Daedalus, but I discovered very quickly that I was much more interested in (visual/industrial) design than thermodynamics and vector analysis
- Army helicopter pilot: I thought semi-seriously about joining the Army to fly Blackhawk and/or Apache helicopters, but the whole dying/killing-for-my-country thing is not really my style
- bilingual something-or-other: back in the day, I thought maybe I could parlay my Japanese or Spanish into some sort of money-making endeavor…maybe teach English in Japan or something
- history professor: I graduated with a BA in history, so I thought I might eventually teach the subject, but I wasn’t accepted into the grad school of my choice, so I moved on
- librarian: data organization/retrieval seems sort of fun to me (I know, I am one wild and crazy guy!) and I enjoy research, so I thought I might like to be a reference/academic/corporate librarian or a private information broker or maybe work in a library-related IT field, but I discovered I enjoyed web design/development more than librarianship
- web designer/developer: I thought I would enjoy the combination of coding and visual design…and I do! Plus, the web is cool
- writer: I tried writing a novel and thought about writing for a tech blog, but I write v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y and dislike the idea of writing under a deadline
Jobs I’ve actually had (in rough chronologic order):
- data entry clerk: I worked part-time at my Dad’s office entering…*yawn*…data — it was a bit boring, but I liked the office atmosphere
- rent-house maintenance guy: I worked part-time for my Mom cleaning rent houses, mowing lawns, etc. — eh, not my cup of tea
- accounting assistant: my wife’s aunt got me a job in the accounting department of a direct-mail company — the owner once made me and another guy mop the warehouse floor…on Saturday!
- dj (intern): for one semester, I was an early-morning, university-radio dj — cool, but I didn’t like having to get up so early
- librarian (intern): for one semester, I interned as a librarian in the Texas Comptroller’s Office — the nail in the coffin for librarianship
- web designer/developer: for two years I worked at a boutique web design firm during the dot-com bubble (woohoo!), then the bubble burst (boohoo) — I’ve been a freelancer ever since
Go, Freelancer, Go! :-)
When I was in high school, my plan for college was to double major in Russian and Physics, and become an astronaut (this was back in the 1980s when the Soviet Union and NASA were both still Powerful-with-a-capital-P). Because Russian lab and Physics lab conflicted, time-wise, I dropped the Russian idea. In hindsight, that was a great decision to make, seeing as Chinese would have been a better choice anyway.
Ahh, the ’80s, back when astronauts actually went into space and did things. ;-)
[...] When I grow up I find it really funny that Wil’s list of potential dream jobs is not far off from my own [...]
i once worked in a boutique store with concrete floors ~ painted white. ~ i spent an entire Saturday steam mopping that thing and then going over it with one of those Mr. Clean Magic Erasers to remove all the scuff marks. yeah, that was not fun.
Hey karal, thanks for stopping by! Hmm…I’m starting to see a pattern: Saturday mopping –> self-employment. ;-)