Cue: Exasperation. You may have been wondering when it was going to happen. Or maybe not. Maybe no-one is even reading this. Maybe I'll just stop.
I couldn't. Stop, that is. Because I have to do something. You, on the other hand, have probably had to steal a few minutes from something for which you get paid in order to snatch a glance at this. Or maybe you just accidentally clicked on it when all you were trying to do was decipher the blog's title, made difficult by the lack of gaps between words. Or maybe I flatter myself.
Either way, whether you care or not, enjoy or not, value it or not, I will continue to write it. I think it goes back to my OCD days. At the age of five I remember feeling the burning desire to describe every single action completed from my first step through the school door to leaving at half past three. My mum would sit and listen every morning to how, the day before, I had placed (not thrown) my My Little Pony lunch-box into the lunch-box trolley (a seemingly bottomless green pit on wheels which snoozed in the corner of the classroom to be awoken just before 12 and wheeled into the hall in time for lunch. Why we couldn't carry them I don't know.) and then who I had spoken to, what I had coloured in and in what colour and to which questions I had put up my hand. I left nothing out. And she listened patiently. This desire to tell my own story, however mundane, has always been present. Except that now it is one of only a few things that I am doing and I find myself increasingly reliant on it. I derive so much pleasure out of creating this, producing this. And it is saving me from the brink of exasperation. So anxious am I to achieve something, anything, that when observing some French classes in a local secondary school last week in an attempt to set the teaching ball rolling, I caught myself raising a hand in answer to a question from the teacher. A spectacular new low.
I'm not going to blame the crotch-thrusting radio man for this feeling of professional desperation. Well, not for all of it anyway. I won't mention the two rejection letters I have already had from the pipe-dream jobs I applied for. Nor will I lay all of the blame on Avon for their spontaneous offer of employment, which I haven't, as yet, taken up. It would be convenient if I could blame the recession, but then again, I had a job which I willingly left. If I really stretch it, I could sell it as an act of brilliant clairvoyance in having resigned before being made redundant - as opposed to an act of utter lunacy. But none of these sit quite right. No, this feeling of exasperation stems from an inability to do nothing and a great, over-developed ability to panic. Instead of seeing this time as fruitful, full of potential, a time to explore new career avenues, learn about myself and find a better professional solution for myself, I find myself in the middle of a life examination of my own making. I have begun weighing up my age against other textbook life achievements, which I have not achieved. 26? Shit, if it takes another two years to find a job, when will I get a house? And a man? (I've dropped down a notch from the dizzy heights of husband, the still giddy heights of long-term boyfriend to, simply, 'man') and then obviously there are those children, but then I was pretty irate when a baby cried on the train the other day so maybe that's one thing I can cross off.
In an effort to speed up the process of attaining these goals (which, inconveniently, were not goals of mine when I had a job) I have been forced to cast the professional net a little wider. This has led me into the dangerous waters of 'high-paid careers that don't interest me and have, so far, been avoided like noxious gases'. This has taken me on a wild and, quite frankly, frightening adventure through the concrete jungle of law, finance and marketing and has brought me face-to-computer with other, even more nebulous companies who hide their purpose under an impenetrable barrage of buzz-words and financial incentives. It would take an expert code-breaker to figure out what these organisations actually did. And this code-breaker would probably end up severely disappointed because he'd discover that the big, multinational corporation with offices in every major city and with the opportunity to rise to Chief Executive in three years actually just sold cardboard. What a let-down. These companies often feature a 'profile' section on their website because a description of what they do just isn't enough to sell them to bright, young graduates who still have life and optimism left in them. These profiles introduce prospective employees to people like Steve. Steve, I read on one website, studied for a degree in media and communication (vaguely related to me, I muse). He then went into film production (Wow, I think. What is this company? If it takes film producers it MUST be doing something right in the creative department). Here's what happened to Steve, the film producer:
"Steve joined our International Management Trainee Scheme in 2003 after realising a career in film production wasn't really for him. He quickly moved up the ranks from Trainee to Sector Manager in only three months [what this sector did, I never established]. He was then asked to head up our Amsterdam office where he recruited and trained newcomers to the company [still no explanation of what they're training to DO]. There he was part of a team who thought up a new strategy for carrying out the development plan that Bob had implemented last year. He was then asked over to our San Francisco office to do the same thing [WHAT??! I'm now screaming], where is he now Chief Executive."
Arghhhhhh. Get out of my head Steve! I can't think any more! You're clouding my brain with your nonsensical business jargon. Minimise the window! Minimised. Barely four lines of type and I was scared out of my mind. I expanded the window again just to see if I could stomach any more. Steve's jeering smile. Right click Close.
"Find a job you love and you won't work another day in your life." Correct. And you will also be on the dole. Because it seems quite clear to me now that only boring, awful jobs pay well. I wish I'd known this at the age of 18. I would have just hoisted myself onto the career ladder then and there. At least by now I might have been rich. I could even have been retired. It's all about building, apparently. You have to start building things from early on: careers, deposits for houses, relationships. As a professional idealist, I just imagined that these things would fall into place at the time that they were supposed to. Lovely. Only, they don't. The ten pounds I invested in the Halifax aged 16 did not mate with the other ten pounds I stuck in the following Christmas to produce a mountain of gold and silver, which I can now hand over in exchange for the period property with the feature fireplace and the wood floors. No. This, I am told, will take me years now.
It is at this point that a couple of very unhelpful people have interjected with: "Well, you would leave a job at a time like this. It's easier to find a job when you're in a job, you know. You could have been saving for that deposit."
However, despite all of the negativity, I am sticking to my decision to be in this situation. You've got to admire my tenacity. I believe that leaving my job was the right decision. I think that the problem lay in how I dealt with the next bit. If I had been wise, I would have planned myself a round-the-world ticket and taken off to make something of this bit of my life. I would have talked of all the places I wanted to go, made everyone jealous and then written this blog from a Moroccan desert or an Amazonian tribal hut. My travelling experience would have 'enhanced' my CV, made me more 'marketable' on my return. It would have been, put simply, more acceptable. But pulling out of a job you are not convinced about in order to pursue a scrape of a dream or even just a different career path, is seen as just a little bit ludicrous and singles you out as one of society's desperados. I am now one of the people Gordon Brown spends so much of his time talking about. I am beginning to think that if this had been a pregnancy I would have had a better time of it. At least it would have been a plan. There would be no floating around, wondering what was happening next. Nine months - baby - life as mother - life purpose. Bingo. I wonder if people would wait nine months for my literary masterpiece to hatch from underneath me? Would they encourage me every day and let me off for not earning any money because the end result would be reward enough itself? I fear not.
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