What were your best subjects in school? Are you using those talents now? How did you get into your current career? Did you drift? Did you plan? Are you doing the wrong thing? Did it all turn out okay in the end?

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Answers

My only talent at school was English, and I don't really write anything at all (although this may soon change, as I may start some editorial web-based stuff before the end of the year).

I drifted entirely, and didn't plan a thing while at school, but have become more focussed in the past couple of years. I now which I could turn back the clock to when I was 17 and starting university, so I could do a commerce degree from the start and cut out all the buggering around. I should have done Economics and Accounting at school.

Actually, I wish I was at school now - I bet there'll be all sorts of web design and e-commerce options available to school kids soon.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I was a music major in college, and at one time I was a damned good trombonist, getting lots of free-lance work in the Dallas area, doing well in auditions, teaching a big studio of students and really sort of going somewhere. (In the event that I sound arrogant there, it's only fair to point out that my horn gathers dust mostlynow, and when I do play, I am not exactly a hot commodity. Yikes.)

Through the twists and turns of life, I am now doing computer support in a mental hospital.

Sometimes I do feel like I lost my way. I like my job and my life now. But I do think I'd give just about anything in the world to find myself sitting at the back of an orchestra again, playing my horn. That's where I always felt I was at home.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I'm not doing the wrong thing, but I did get onto the path I took by process of elimination. I've always had great respect and envy for people who know what they want and go after it (even though I know a lot of those people end up unhappy, too.)

My best subjects were English, History and Art. I am sort of using English now.

I got a clerk typist job after college at Bank of America - hated that - then got into a programmer training program they had. I was okay at programming and liked the people better than the ones I'd worked with as a clerk, so I kept doing that for the next 15 years or so, moving through various jobs. After I got laid off, my skills weren't really up to date and I was tired of being on call, so I looked into technical writing, which is what I'm doing now. It feels like a good fit.

But I always thought I'd be an artist, making textile things. I just got email from a high school classmate that reminded me of this.

I hear that lawyers have a high burnout rate, Beth. I know a few who do things like research who like the niche they've found. Maybe it's time to explore a different way to use your knowledge?

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Good heavens, reading this journal entry brought back memories.

I verged on math geekdom, in high school. I was good at it. I went to competitions. I won prizes, because of my math skills -- I think it's also partially because, like Beth said, it's really, really hard to do poorly on a multiple choice math test. I was pushed towards science, and math. In fact, I ended up going to a school for 'gifted' kids, called "North Carolina School of Science and Math" or 'S&M' to most of us.

That was crazy. Hard. I came from a tiny little rural school, and when I went to S&M (which was a residential school for the last two years of high school), I was in the absolute lowest math class possible. I wasn't used to doing homework. I didn't know how to study. So, I flunked out. I ended up back home the next May, having done a lot of work for the first half, given up for the second half, and eventually realizing that there was no way they'd let me stay.

Unfortunately, the school I came from made me repeat the grade. This was bad for me, almost as bad as having to leave the other school in the first place. This meant that I took classes that I already knew all of the material from; S&M was an accelerated school, and I had completed what amounts to entire classes in the first semester I was at S&M. I became incredibly, terribly, apathetic. I wasn't remotely challenged.

It's no excuse, of course. I know that now. At any rate, I eventually graduated, still ranked highly in my classes, and went off to college with a full scholarship! I dropped out in three months.

But, yeah, what I'm getting at is that adolescent fuck-ups can be haunting, no matter how much I tell myself that they're in the past, and that it shouldn't matter, and all that. I tried to take Calculus a year ago, and while I'm positive that I could eventually do well in it, I panicked and dropped the course after a few weeks. It scared me. Barbie says, "I hate math! Let's go shopping!"

Am I doing the wrong thing, now? I ended up majoring in linguistics, after taking a few years off from school, and I'll graduate next spring. I liked language a lot in high school, and I've always read voraciously. I love linguistics, it's this weird sort of compromise between science and humanities that suits me perfectly. Unfortunately, I've recently realized that, well, I'm not so sure I want to be involved in the academic world, and there isn't a whole lot else I can do besides go to grad school with a degree in linguistics and enjoy. I'm going to get a masters in library science. I'll get a job as a librarian. After that, I don't know. More degrees? Write the great american novel?

I think... I think I'm doing the right thing. I think it'll all turn out alright in the end. Right now, I just want to graduate.

Ask me in a few years whether I planned to be where I am, then I'll be able to answer. Right now, no, I didn't plan to still be in college at 24. It's not so bad, though.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

That entry was a little painful for me to read. I am using some of my talents (ability to handle a lot at once, critical thinking, etc.) and I can't say I've wasted my education, or I'm not doing something that is "appropriate for me". But I did not plan, I didn't try all that hard, and with just SOME more effort, I could be having a different, perhaps more satisfying worklife. I'm a librarian, a noble profession, even, but I'm a smart girl, and I often feel like I am wasting my mind sitting around here futzing with these computers and explaining stuff to people who really are not that interested, and frankly getting paid pretty badly (though that's not the important thing, really, if I do like my job).

I do believe that very few people have a calling. I think there's a lot of luck in the world, but you make your own luck.

My path happenned to me, just based on a few wacky decisions and a healthy dose of denial. I don't regret it, but I wish I knew/felt then what I do now. I wish I'd thought a bit more, experimented (work wise!) more and really put myself out there. I was just afraid.

I can tell I need to pull myself up and get going on my career or some kind of mind/intellectual work in a really fierce way. I need to feel like I haven't wasted my working life, which is a different feeling than I had when I worked a slacker job and had a more imaginative free-time life and inner thoughts. It gets boring to go to bars and hear bands all the time and there's something to be said for working in a satisfying career and really developing your mind and life outside the coffee shops. I think I'm willing to sweat a bit more. And face rejection! I do actually believe this is called maturity instead of denial.

I really do often think I'm the only one who's so fucked up, so I appreciate you candor, Beth!

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I can't say that I am doing the wrong thing, since I do enjoy my job and find it challenging. I can say that it wasn't what I planned on doing. However, when I graduated from college in 1985, no one was planning to be a webmaster. I fell into this job.

In school, my best subjects were English, history, and science. I sucked at math in a big way. I was premed when I started college. I was going to be a third-generation doctor. I wanted to be Quincy, i.e., a medical examiner. I don't really know what happened to change my mind. I considered teaching and being a librarian, but when I graduated from college, I had no real idea of what I wanted to do.

I found an entry level position in publishing and stuck it out long enough to get promoted several times. I loved editing and miss it now that I'm a webmaster.

I'm not sure that my future lies on the web. I really do enjoy the job, but I don't feel passionate about it.

I guess I'm still kind of drifting.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I don't know if it's the *wrong* thing, but it definitely wasn't on my schedule.

I managed to get away with sleeping thru my 12th grade math class, it wasn't hard at all. English I hated. Art was taught by, gosh, a real artist who actually took the time to teach real art to those that were interested and had talent. I may have ended up being a graphic artist of some kind. I think that would have made me happy, career wise. I can still hear my motehr saying "Art doesn't pay, dear. Study business, you can always get a job as a secretary."

But I drifted. That's another way of saying "pregnant at 17". For some reason, the year after that, I enrolled in a computer programming course, stuck my kid in daycare and was generally unhappy. But I was trying to forge a new life.

If you're paying attention, the side of the brain that gives you a flair for design and art and all that stuff, is compeletly opposite to the side of the brain needed for efficient computer programming. I sucked big time. It helped that partway thru the year, I just didn't care anymore. I was intending on quitting right after Christmas.

I hate to say this all pivots on a man, but he just made things crystal clear. So I married him, had two more kids, moved far away from family, did the housewife thing, and now run my own business, a craft store. You could say it all turned out in the end, but after I recently turned 30, I have this niggling feeling that my true talents are wasted. If only I could figure out what those talents now are...

I also wanted to be a coroner, but the thought of all that medical school makes me shiver.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

It took about six years worth of doing all the wrong things to get myself back in college and on the road to the right thing.

I gave up my dreams for what seemed at the time a better dream.

So, I quit doing theatre, I quit writing, I quit school.

In six years I worked as a veterinary technician twice, ran an animal shelter, was a pet store manager, a pet store fish room girl, a webmaster, a web designer, a babysitter and a salon coordinator. I was a admin. assistant for a roofing company for three hours.

Now that I'm back in school doing theatre and writing again, I have that "at home" feeling Rob talked about. I won't jeopardize that again.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Everything is sweetened by RISKS

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I had the same sort of lost feeling for awhile. I was a secretary when college didn't go as planned and I was the world's *absolute worst secretary.* Why? Because I *knew* I was wayyyyyyyy smarter than my boss and I wasn't allowed to think - at all.

I'm currently a web content developer, but I don't want to do this forever either. For example, instead of spending my time doing my job today, making sales literature pretty in HTML, I'm writing this. Not a lot of devotion.

But! I am 26 and I go to school full-time. I'm working on an International Studies degree, which I don't know what exactly I'm going to do with, but it interests me - WAYYYYYYYY more than my work does. I'm just putting one foot in front of the other and I figure I'll eventually end up where I *am* happy.

I have a friend that quit his job as an engineer when he was 36 to go to law school. Didn't work at all. Put himself on a tight budget, took out loans, and finished his law degree this past December. He's an inspiration to me. He looked at it as I'm 36, I *hate, hate, hate* my job and the thought of doing it another 20 or so years appalls me. So I'm going to chuck it and go do something I might like more. Life's too short to waste.

Beth, it sounds like your co-workers are inconsiderate elitists. Regardless of your age, you should be able to contribute in your work environment. I'd quit & find a nicer working environment.

I also took those aptitude tests offered at colleges. There are companies out there who can also do the same thing - for like $900. Mine didn't tell me *what* to do, per se, because I came back with an aptitude in all but one area, which coincidentally included that secretary job.... But what it did do was validate my likes, dislikes, dreams, and ideas. Big help.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

My best subjects in school were English, History, Geography and a bunch of other non-science courses. I sucked at math. Really sucked. I had the same teacher three years in a row, and I never learned a damn thing. I once had goals of becoming an optometrist, but because my math was so bad, and Chemistry was passed by the slimmest margin possible, I wasn't able to get into physics or advanced math courses. So I decided, by process of elimination, to get into radio.

I studied Creative Arts in college. Somewhere along the line, I became interested in journalism, and I went to university to study Broadcast Journalism. I did well in my courses, but about halfway through my studies, I decided I didn't really like being reporter all that much. I watched all my classmates soar ahead of me, determined to get that perfect journalism job, and I coasted along, not knowing what to do. It wasn't that I wasn't a good writer, but I just couldn't handle being objective. I get too involved. When I lived in Winnipeg in 1997, I cleaned up flood damage. I saw family homes destroyed, senior citezens homeless with nothing of their former lives left, kids shell shocked and scared. One day, I was at the home of an 80-year-old woman, and I was cleaning away a pile of junk that had been removed from her house. There was all kinds of stuff-- food from her fridge and cupboards, a brand new couch that was now covered in contaminated mud, old clothes, a fridge and stove. I loaded all that stuff into a big dumpster bin, and I was totally OK with it. I opened a drawer in a bureau to see if I could salvage any of the contents, and I found an dance card from 1929. Then it hit me: This woman has just lost everything. Every momento, every picture, every stick of furniture, every article of clothing has just been destroyed. She will never get any of it back. She's 80 years old, and she has to start over from scratch. I went behind the remains of her little house, which was going to be torn down, and I cried. I can still see the dance card, and I can smell the mud that coated it-- coated everything, including me. I can remember the old lady helping us load her stuff into a huge dumpster, doing her best to be cheerful and positive. That was three years ago, and I still see it fresh.

That's how I know that I can't be a journalist. We're supposed to be objective, jaded. I can't do it. I don't WANT to do it. I don't think I could have gone up to that sweet old lady with a microphone and a camera and asked her how it felt to lose everything, and not have the memory of what I saw influence my story. And I was trained to do exactly that: Go in, get the story, and get out. Don't let it get to you. And, above all, do not let your emotions influence the story.

When I moved out here, I had a job as a production assistant at a television station, but I lost that job. This is not the best city to be in if you want a job in media, and I couldn't find another job. I ended up telelmarketing, and I sucked at it, for some of the same reasons that I couldn't be a reporter: I care too much. If someone tells me a sob story about how their business is failing, and they can't pay their bills, let alone buy an advertisement from me, I believe them, and I don't push it. Sales people must be pushy. So must reporters. I had 3 telemarketing jobs in 8 months, and didn't do well in any of them. So I left. I'm a receptionist now, and I love my job, but if you had told me two years ago that this was what I'd be doing with my education, I would have laughed at you.

I'm at a crossroads now. I want to find my true calling, but I can't figure out what that true calling is. I thought it would be working in the media, but that has sort of fallen by the wayside. I wanted to be a writer, but I've had writer's block since I lost my job at the TV station. I like being a receptionist, but I don't know if I want to do this forever. I would like to move up in this company, but this is a computer company-- sales and service. I don't know how to do either. So I'll stay where I am for now, and see where it takes me. I hope it's somewhere good.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I also completely slept through my AP English class my senior year - but I still made an A. Could've used the info on Canterbury Tales in college though - my high school teacher was doing his PhD dissertation on CT. If only I'd been awake!

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Can I just say that it NOT all that hard to do very badly on some multiple choice math exams if you just don't think that way?

Have to admit, I sort of stumbled into my current career (if that's the word), but I don't necessarily think it's the wrong one. I just think I'm in the wrong branch of it right now. (Although if you'd told me 15 years ago that I'd be a librarian computer geek, I and everybody who knew me would have laughed and laughed and laughed...)

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

My best subjects in school were English and anything that required writing. Writing came naturally to me, because I did and do read voraciously. However, all I've ever done, job-wise, is drift, going from one low-paid secretarial-type job to another. I'm currently not working, and have no idea what I want to do with my life.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

My god, this stuff speaks to me. I was an English major in college, too, and I have a lovely BA degree tucked in the bedroom closet somewhere.

I knew - knew - that if I had to do anything math, science or business-related I'd drop out in a year or two. I like English, and my English teacher, in high school, so the choice was natural. All through college the faculty was like, "you DON'T have to teach, you can do ANYTHING with an English degree."

Which I've found to be true. I kind of had a vague idea of copywriting or something when I got out of college. Since then I've done photo processing, various types of clerking and increasingly webby jobs. Did I mean to end up here? No. But I really didn't have a destination in mind.

"What are you doing after graduation, Harold?" "I'm gonna drink a lot of beer and stay up all night!"

- Harold - wonderland 2 - http://jennyseat.freeservers.com/wonder/ -

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I hate to see you going to a job every day that you hate. I've been there myself. We have a columnist in the Indianapolis Star who writes stories similar to your journal entries, but I think yours are better. I'm not sure what else he does for the paper, but I think his is a full-time job. However, he probably makes 1/3 what you do as a lawyer, even as a lawyer flunky. Have heart....eventually you'll end up doing something you love. You can always go back to school part-time or explore volunteer work in fields you like. Why, you'd make a super horticulturist.....how about writing a horticulture column or writing and submitting articles to horticulture magazines? I think you could pretty much do whatever you set your mind to. You have oodles of smarts and talent. I was an English major, had no idea what to do with it, tried teaching, was a terrible teacher and, by a fluke, "fell" into an assistant school librarian's job and found my career. However, since I was home for 10 years with my girls, I didn't get the MLS until age 46. Now I'm the cataloger in an academic library. I'm getting somewhat bored though, despite my wonderful co-workers, so if I were not so close to retirement, I'd be taking classes in botany with the goal of creating a new career for myself... a horticulturist, a park ranger or naturalist, or the librarian in a special horticulture library. I could still do it, of course, but right now I look forward to not working at all.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I was lucky.

I moved in the middle of grade nine, and in the new school they were teaching what they'd already taught in the old school in math, so I missed half a year. When I went into honours math in high school, I nearly failed, because I didn't have the background. I was terrified, and I learned how to study. I pretty much sailed through my other classes, but that math thing was a good learning experience. I got up to second year of university calculus before I was stumped again, which is pretty good for an English major who wants to be a writer for a living.

I drifted into a really amazing career - it isn't what I want to do, but it's an interesting way to pass the time until I figure how to make a living doing what I want to do. I went to choir camp when I was twelve and thirteen, and then worked for them starting at fourteen, through to nineteen. So when I was looking for a summer job at the end of my first year, I asked and they hired me to do office administration - very low level stuff, but as one of only three employees (arts organizations are small) I got a lot more responsibility than I would have had otherwise. I just kept working in the arts, as an administrator.

Joanne (Parietal Pericardium)

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I decided at 10 to be a journalist. It's my only skill [other than fast typing and other secretarial talents]. I got a degree in Mass Communications, and have spent most of my working life in a wide variety of publishing jobs. I like newspapers best.

Heather...I think good journalists are not jaded. Curiousity [ie., nosiness] keeps people in this business. Objectivity is almost impossible, but I try for fairness and professionalism.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I'm in the most wonderfully right job in the most ass-backward wrong place. Saying much more about it will make me cry, but I will say that it is in university student services. The whole job experience will end soon, leaving me feeling both bitter about how utterly toxic the environment is and very pleased by the fact that I now know that a job that is so fully and completely ME truly does exist. I now have no doubts about my career path from this point forward. I'm learning valuable lessons in strange ways.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Following up on Linda, let's think of some more jobs for Beth ...I wouldn't give up on the law thing just yet because being a lawyer is like wearing a badge that says, "I am an adult. Don't make me answer the phone for you." OK, maybe in offices where everyone's a lawyer this doesn't work, but let me fantasize a bit. 1. Start a website / magazine / law firm for lawyers who hate law. Could be a Critical Legal Studies thing, or just a personal support thing.
2. Plant patent law.
3. Animal rights law.
4. Write mystery novels.
5. Programmer! Get paid to spend all day fiddling with Web pages. Go work for a startup and roll those dotcom dice.
6. Run for office. You've already done most of the public disclosure stuff that new politicians fear, right? When you've posted your life on the Web, there's nothing left to subpoena. :-)


-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I don't think what I'm doing now is the wrong thing, it's just not the right thing in the sense that I don't feel excited by it or passionate about it. Work is something that I do to support my hobbies. It didn't use to bother me, but it's starting to a lot more lately. Maybe it has something to do with being on the cusp of 30, who knows.

For a long time, my best subjects were English, history, and languages. I didn't have any interest in science at all until I hit calculus and physics. I ended up in math due to a volatile combination of genuine liking, family pressure, and the fact that all my friends were math or science people. I wanted to be an academic (the long holidays were the big attraction), so I went to grad school for a few years. I quit/was fired because I loathed the department and didn't much care for doing math for more than four hours a day. Since then, I've worked in various high tech jobs; I'm usually considered the bright underachiever of the group.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

My best subjects in school were always English and history, and I've been reading the sports section of the newspaper since first grade. So it's pretty natural that I'd wind up as a sports journalist.

The thing is, I'm also finishing up an MA in International Affairs because I'm not sure I am doing the right thing now, even though it's something I'm pretty good at (at least according to my parents). Maybe there's more to life than writing about people throwing a ball around. Besides, a lot of journalists burn out after awhile, particularly in sports.

So who knows.

And Heather, to sort of echo Joy's comment, I don't think you can be a good journalist if you're jaded -- although a lot of reporters certainly are jaded. I don't strive to be an uncaring, unfeeling automaton. I just try to be fair. You have to bring some emotion into the writing or it's just words on paper.

I'd distinguish things by arguing that, if I were a news journalist covering a political campaign and thought one of the candidates was a scum-sucking weasel, it's my responsibility to stick to the facts and not to put my personal opinions into the content of the daily reports on the campaign. On the other hand, in the situation you described with the 80-year-old woman who lost everything she owned in a fire, I'd assume that if the story touched me, it was my task to make sure it touched the reader. You just can't be jaded and tell that story in a "just-the-facts-ma'am" model, or you cheat both the reader and the subject.

Stepping off my soapbox now ;) Just wanted to make sure you didn't shy away from journalism because you though all of us are jaded spoilsports.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I'm doing the wrong thing now, but not for much longer. I did finance for years because I sort fell into it (long, boring story) and when I was forced into a career change (another long, boring story), I decided to get the heck out of numbers and into words, which I've always liked better.

I'm 40, in grad school getting *another* Master's degree, because I needed to do something different with my life. I'm working at a dead- end job now because it pays the bills. I'll be 41 when I graduate and plan to start a new career in a new city.

(And, yeah, I'm scared, but so what. Facing down fear is called courage, and it's a virtue.)

Life is too short to hate what you do every day.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I think it's just a sh*tty time to be a lawyer, Beth. When I talk to the lawyers in my home town of Farmington, Maine, who are all in their fifties and sixties, now, they say they went into law so that they could have some intellectual stimulation, use their brains, etc. I generally run around like crazy on a paper chase -- not a whole lot of thinking going on. It probably tells you something that there aren't any young lawyers in Farmington -- I know of one who tried to start a practice there a couple of years ago, but he wound up making three times as much money as a massage therapist, and closed the law office.

Hmmm. I'm definitely not doing what I expected, today. I came back to NYC to build a war chest, and I expect that in four years I will be able to change professions . . .

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

The subjects I enjoyed the most were english, economics and music. I loved classes that involved discussion, opinion, argument, and you can't argue with a calculus derivative! I was offered a full scholarship at the University of Toronto but turned it down to take a chance on applying to veterinary school. I took advanced level grade 13 classes starting in grade 10 (we had grades 9-13 in high school then) because I was bored out of my tree. I went to grade 13 french whenever I had a chance while in grade 12, but didn't receive credit for the course as I had a full course load already and wasn't allowed another credit course that year. I attended an advanced only level high school and many of my first year university courses were repetition... that sure helped me get into a very competitive veterinary program!

I write health and training articles for many of the dog clubs I belong to, and have just been approached by the California Narcotic Canine Association to write for their newsletter after the editor found a few of my articles on the internet. I still play several musical instruments and sing. I own my own business, so the economics background comes in handy as well... It's not too late to make a change if that's what you want Beth. A significant number of students in my graduating veterinary class were in their 30s and several were into their 40s. Professional programs often prefer to admit 'mature' students who have practical life experience and who have *decided* to follow a particular path, rather then a younger student who has fallen into it. You will have to resign yourself to being poor once again, but it can be done!

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Beth, it's not too late!

I did well in English and really well at history in high school. After I graduated there was really no discussion about what I wanted to do. My step-dad was the Dean of a college at the local private university. Since I had no clear goals, and tuition was free, I became a student in his school....an Aviation Managment major. What the hell...

I learned to fly which was cool and graduated with a BS when I was 21. Got a job working in Airport Mgmt and absolutely hated it. Completely. It was business for God's sake. Talk about hell.

I ended up following a boyfriend to Alaska and going to work in Airport planning & design and then in Operations for a small commuter up here. I scheduled flights and loads, checked in passengers, the whole nine yards. Okay work, good friends, but BORING!!! I decided to go back to school for a degree in history just to have something to do that I enjoyed. After I got the BA in history I went on to a Masters in Northern Studies. In the meantime I quit my job and began teaching American history to soldiers on the local army base. Right place, right time and a BA in history were all of my qualifications. It's been three years and I'm still there, now teaching Aviation History as well.

I got my masters last December and wrote a thesis on aviation accidents in Alaska. I combined my aviation knowledge and experience with all of the research abilities I learned getting the history degree. I'm writing articles based on my research and in the planning stages of a book about it. It wasn't an easy ride, but I ended up right where I wanted to be. I also learned a valuable lesson in the process. You have a very short time on this Earth, and there is no excuse for being miserable in a job that you hate. Get out and find your dream, period.

JUST DO IT

Colleen

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I don't think I am doing the wrong thing but I think that there is a better thing. I fell into my job and enjoy it most of the time.

I changed schools between 9th and 10th grade. Took a multiple choice using this method: It can't possibly be A or C and B looks closer than D. That took me from nearly failing 1st year algebra to passing right through to geometry. I failed second year algebra and scraped by it when I was able to repeat it. That ended math. Graduated from HS did 6 months of trade school to be a drafter/illustrator. 9 years at Boeing. Took a ton of free computing classes and now I work the geeky side of a sales in a graphics software company.

I took the Washington Pre College Test which told me I should be in radio. I wish I had tried because I think it would fit nicely with my interests and passions. It's hard to change jobs or start over now with the responsibilities I have. 2 kids etc.

My suggestion is to really look at what you like and enjoy doing (easier said I know) and then try to apply that to something to sustain lifestyle. I am now diligently pursuing simplification in my life like being debt free etc. that looking at future options is less painful. I have always liked my work but really think there is something that I should be really good at and enjoy at the same time. Of course the real and only block is fear.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I can't believe how selfishly relieved I was to read Beth's journal today, and the posts here in the forum. I've been going through a crisis about what I'm going to do now, and how I've let circumstances dictate how I've lived my life, career-wise. I've never been career-oriented, never defined myself that way, and now I feel stuck.

I'm a published novelist, with a second novel coming out, which some people might think should make any career problems moot. But unless I make a fabulous deal on the second book -- long story -- very few writers make enough on one novel to quit their day jobs. And right now I'm at home just writing, because I married a man who has the means to allow me to do that. But since I didn't marry him for his money (contrary to one or two sniggering friends), I feel like a leech, and I'm used to the daily ins and outs of workaday life, and there is a big part of my character that is wilting without more contact with people -- not to mention the self-esteem a paycheque gives you (which you don't realize until they stop). In my twenties I had more high-powered jobs, as director of marketing for a large firm and also in journalism, but the stress burned me out, and ultimately I didn't give a shit about any of that stuff. My life -- my friends and relationships and writing -- were more important than anything. So I quit, travelled for a while, came home and started temping. And for several years I was firmly in the pink collar ghetto as a legal secretary, and while in most ways it sucked, now I almost miss it. But the idea of going back to it makes me v. afraid! So I'm frozen. And, I can't think of anything else to do. So there is a rut happening that I'm valiantly trying to work out of.

Sorry to rant. And Beth, I agree with several of the previous posts. You really do have more options than you might see at the moment. I can honestly say that I know exactly how you feel. I used to write for a legal newspaper, and all of the other writers were disaffected lawyers who couldn't stand practicing for one reason or another, so chose to make a life writing about the law. Lots less money but a better life.

I'm not sure you need specific suggestions or solutions, as much as a certainty that, hell, the world is your oyster, and just because you have recognized areas that are weaknesses for you doesn't mean there aren't even more strengths that you haven't tapped.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Right now I'm stuck in a dead-end job, answering phones and stocking the refrigerator at a very well-off software company. I have many friends here, which is why I stay, but I hate it. I get so damn bored, especially by mid-afternoon, that it's all I can do not to just walk out - quit dramatically. But I need the money, so I don't.

I've recently decided that I'm going to go back to school in the fall of 2001 to get an MFA in Creative Writing. I want to have time to write; I hate coming home drained from my boring job, unable to sit in front of the computer and work on what I love. I don't expect to get a great job as a result of this - nay, I expect to almost be in a worse position when I get out, as I'll have a higher degree but no real-world skills . . . Oh! To be interested in computers! I wish I loved something lucrative, but I don't. I love the arts, but I hate the suffering involved. But I'd rather suffer than stiffle myself any longer.

By the way, my mom (Linda Shaw, who posted earlier) is one of my heros because of the way she went back to school and got her MLS to support our family. She got straight A's too, as I remember. I suppose I won't tell the gritty details, but let's just say *I* wouldn't be able to study in our house around that time (I was about 12 years old and probably not really helping all that much, either). Anyway, watching her do that has made it easier for me to make life- changing decisions, no matter how daunting change might seem at first. You're not stuck in what you do; you can do anything you want. Yay Mom!

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

NEW JOB FOR BETH...

Intellectual property attorney with a specialty in internet issues.

An up & coming field where being youthful will be an advantage to the others in your group!

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

Getting back to my previous long-winded rant, I don't think that all journalists should be jaded. You're right, the best ones know how to bring humanity into a story. My problem is I'm not jaded enough-- When that lady lost everythingin the flood (not a fire), I cried for days. I cried when I met the little girl whose family had to sleep on the floor of a crappy trailer because they lost their beds in the same flood. I felt good when I got to send her to summer camp, though.

But in a way, I'm glad I never became a journalist, at least not in this city. Edmonton is not very media-friendly. I think I'm making excuses for myself, though. I mean, come on, a year-long writer's block? I've got to get those creative juices flowing again. Maybe once I start writing again, I'll have the urge to jump back into Journalism.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

My best subjects were English, Art, History, Languages (French, Spanish, Latin and Japanese) and Science (Biology over Chemistry later on). Math dragged my GPA down like a stone, a consistent C/C+ on a report card otherwise studded with As and Bs.

PE was another burden until I grew a little, developed some more upper arm strength and figured out which sports I actually liked, as opposed to the ones that were imposed by the school.

The funny thing is that I liked Math, I just couldn't seem to do well in it. Invariably, I always understood the theories, but the simplest errors in arithmetic would trip me up. I'd get As on my process and Fs on my answers. I either never finished tests and only got credit for half of the work, or if I did finish, all of the answers would be wrong and I'd still only get half credit for my work.

I used to dream of being an astronaut, but my poor record in Math and a severe lack of self-confidence turned me shy on Math. Despite the fact that I was placed in an advanced Math class, I was convinced that I couldn't do math at all. Until I took geometry. Geometry was finally a math class that I could handle. My sophomore year of high school was a good year. My math grades finally matched the rest of my report card, if only for a little while. A year later, in pre-calc, I went back to my usual C+ in math, except for a brief spike into the As when we did our segment of Trig.

In my senior year of high school, I found out that I didn't have to take math any more. I'd fulfilled the requirements and by then I was sick and tired of that damn C pulling my average down every year.

So I opted out and signed up to take Japanese in the new satellite program my high school had just started.

When I got to college, my Dad encouraged me to take math again, saying that math for non-majors would be a much less stressful environment than the math classes in high school.

Yet I never summoned the guts to do it and now I regret that I didn't, because there's a chance my life would be very different now.

My degree is in French and it was a cop out. I couldn't figure out what I wanted to major in at college. I thought I wanted to be an interpreter or translator going in. I declared a medieval studies major as a sophomore and was going to switch to history when I got back from my junior year abroad. In my senior year, I gave up on history due to the exhaustive number of credits I still had to complete. Tired and suffering from depression due to events at the end of my junior year, I took the sure and easy path to my degree. I only needed two more seminars in French to nab the B.A. So I changed my major to French and took a minor in History, cobbled together from my medieval lit and history classes.

What I do now has nothing to do with what I was good at in school, either high school or college. In fact, it hearkens back to what I was good at in elementary school.

I'm a Web Designer and my career sort of dropped into my lap completely by accident. I got into Mushing while at college and got my introduction to Unix that way. I started working as a computer lab assistant, so that I could Mush while I making money and helping people out.

Right before I graduated, I realized just how hard it was going to be to find a job with a liberal arts degree and no practical experience. I didn't want to do what a lot of my friends were doing: taking clerical jobs at companies where they could get their foot in the door. Conversely I'd had enough school for a little while and couldn't figure out where to go for graduate school.

So I wound up finding my first job at a newspaper in D.C. working for their web site. I started reworking my personal site late in 1996 when I stumbled across some of the "pioneers" of the journaling community and eventually put up a journal myself in 1997.

My personal projects became the jumping point for my career as a web designer. When I was in high school, the idea of becoming a graphic designer or even an artist, was always tempting, but I'd reject it out of hand because I never thought that I'd be able to support myself doing that.

Yet I deal with graphic design and layout every day, with no formal training other than a handful of drawing classes, and make a living at it.

The funny thing is that the web really is the ideal field for me to be in -- my interests are too varied, my skills too hodge-podge to really fit into anything else. There are elements of both science/math and the arts in web design, I make pretty pictures, I code up templates, I smooth out text to make it more legible, edit content when needed.

Sometimes I get frustrated with the steep learning curve that the tech requires -- I like to learn new things, but the breathless pace in IT gets tiring. Sometimes I want to slow down, maybe do something a bit less demanding and focus my attention on my personal projects, write a book or two, go back to school and get that history degree I keep fantasizing about.

But for now, this will do.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

the breathless pace in IT gets tiring.

Agreed! I hate it. I hate always, always, alwasy having to learn new things that I just do not want to know about. I hate having my thought process taken up with this boring, mundane crap. SSI, ASP, JSP, there's just no end to it.

Computing was such a bad career choice, in terms of my enjoyment. But I followed the money... the money does help.

-- Anonymous, May 12, 2000

I've had three careers. I loved being a musician, and I miss singing, but lord, it didn't pay. I hated being a paralegal, but lord, the pay was good. And I'm perfectly happy as a travel agent, even though I'm currently deeply stressed from overwork. I don't get tired of the product, I never stop being challenged, and the occasional perks are too, too fabulous. It's a very good sort of job for my personality, except for the part where I have to be nice to people.

I don't have a college degree. I have a very fine college education. The lack of degree has held me back a little, but not from anything I really wanted. I offer myself as living proof that you can change careers fairly drastically in your 20's, 30's, and 40's without being penalized financially or emotionally. Also, it's very empowering to throw over the old routine and just kick ass someplace new.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

I specialised in languages (French, German, Latin) at high school and was fantastic at them. Maybe I could use them to become a translator or interpreter or something. And then in 1991, Year 11, things suddenly seemed to slip from me. One extremely bad German test (and mediocre result) that year threw me completely and I lost a lot of ground in all three languages. This and other circumstances meant I stopped doing French altogether and only did German and Latin for my HSC. Wound up scoring 70% for German, which was a bit of a drop considering that I was scoring 90% and above only two years earlier. Let's not even talk about Latin, that just makes me angry.

So being an interpreter was out and if anyone's been reading my recent messages here and at other forums they'll know I wound up doing film studies at university instead. And in my last year I suddenly discovered a use for Frenchcos I was doing my Honours thesis and the university library held some important articles I needed, but they were only in French. Still, I got them copied to see if I could translate themand, to my happy surprise, despite having gone no further with any of my languages in the previous 4= years, I found I could actually read them fairly well; even though I needed a dictionary for some words and others escaped me altogether, I was still able to get about 85% of it (and it was useful stuff, too).

So in the end I did find a use for one of my languages eventually. Ironically enough, it turned out to be the one I never quite finished. As for German and Latin, they've pretty much left me altogether. And where I am on radio, none of them (least of all Latin) is much use to me

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

In high school, my passion was theater. Despite the fact that it's practically impossible to be successful at it, etc., I just loved it so much, I wanted to go to the UCLA school of theater. I went in for my audition not very well prepared, not knowing what to expect, and 2 days after the boy I loved broke my heart and the play I was in collapsed. (Needless to say, I did very poorly.) Instead of picking myself up, dusting myself off, and trying again, I convinced myself and others that I had "lost the drive" to be in theater. (I never had the "thick skin" required by the profession; I'm still not very good at receiving criticism.)

So I started at UCLA as an undeclared major, and decided on psychology (the largest major there), because it was easy and pretty interesting. I almost minored in Greek and Roman Classics, but I wanted to get out of college in 3 years. For a while I was seriously considering getting a masters and PhD in psych, and being a therapist. I was going to throw myself into this new field that I had chosen. But by the end of school, I was really burned out. I had graduated, and I was going to "take a year off" before grad school.

That was 3 years ago, and I have no desire to ever become a psychologist. Ever. I've been working as a secretary (it was only supposed to be a temp job), but through it I've learned a ton of computer skills like web design, etc. I do web pages for fun, and just recently started doing them on the side for profit.

Part of my "secretarial" job right now is teaching computer classes for high school teachers. Since I'm only 22 and technically a secretary, the teachers who are my students have zero respect for any of my skills. And I HATE being a secretary, and I'm not real fond of teaching.

So I'm leaving this job in a couple of months. I'm going to try for a tech type of job; who knows if I'm qualified enough to get one. But I certainly don't want to be a secretary the rest of my life.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

Just when through that "who am I and what the hell am I doing with my life" phase. Came on the other side with a lot of the same answers, and glad I questioned it. There's a great book out there, "I Could Do Anything, if I Only Knew What it Was" that goes through a lot of questions for the type of work you want -- from hours to fields, etc -- as well as all the different obstacles people set up for themselves (because everyone does).

Really recommend the book.

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

My best subjects were science, & languages. I used to watch TV and I loved McGyver, Quincy, and all sorts of detective shows. I wanted to be a forensic pathologist or Medical Examiner. In all the detective shows it was always the coroner who noticed the needle mark in the freckle or the carpet fragment under the nail. I felt that's its a way to be a crime fighter or superhero. When I grew up though I found that often or not people viewed the career choice as morbid. I'm doing data entry now, It's definately the wrong thing - I'm headed into my third year of College and I hope I can make a choice which will make me feel like Columbo at the end of the day. (no I can't be a cop, I can work with dead people, but I don't think I could kill someone even if it meant death for me)

-- Anonymous, May 13, 2000

When I was 30, I thought I was going to be an anthropology professor.

I had graduated magna cum laude, won a one-year fellowship to graduate school, at FSU, then won a three-year fellowship to Tulane.

I loved anthropology and wanted to be a teacher. To live in a college town. Live the life of the mind, among congenial colleagues. Engage in the disinterested search for truth, with my peers, or fellows. Collegially.

I saw in graduate school that being an academic, a faculty member, wasn't like that.

It was trading favors and fighting for turf. Using students as pawns.

Keeping your mouth shut, going along to get along. Ratifying a deceit. For the credential. The certificate. The union card.

Think of the members of the Soviet Writers Union who expelled Solzhenitsyn, at their party masters' behest, or the East German writers who informed on each other to the secret police, to keep their dachas and their chit books at the nomenklatura store.

I walked away from that like amputating a septic foot.

Of course, I had a call, to be a writer, and I was naive, about the profession of writing. The career.

I thought there'd be less office politics in writing. More ability. Individual effort.

I stole the last year of my fellowship to teach myself to write.

I thought if I could learn to do it, what I wrote would sell.

It hasn't. Yet. New York doesn't want to publish what I write, and I don't want to write what New York publishes.

To support myself, I work as a technical writer.

It was that, write journalism, advertising copy, training materials, or the kind of potboilers New York wants. Write to formula.

Writing as much as I do--a book a month, for the last four years--and working full-time is hard to manage. Throw in raising two kids, when your spouse works too, and doing your share of the scutwork, at home, and there's not much time left for relaxation.

I tend to slight the job, and pay the consequences.

But so far, I have managed to keep my head above water, or rally, after a disaster. Resurrect myself.

There are a lot of hassles to anything someone will pay you to do. Strings attached.

The thing you love to do, no one will pay for. And you wouldn't want to compromise it, for money, anyway.

I write about the hassle. How I deal with the negative emotions my situation engenders. Emotions like fear, envy, anger, and depression. Guilt, self-pity, and shame.

It's not everybody's cup of tea.

There's joy there, too. Humor. Language that sings.

I hear back from people who appreciate what I am doing.

I'm glad I'm not an academic.

I'm glad I became a writer, when I did, and stuck to it.

The road has not been easy. The future is uncertain. If the past is any guide, spasms are in store. Dislocations. Perturbations.

I'll just do my best to cope, and write about it. Make it available to other people.

I stuck by my family, and they stuck by me. We made it through, together.

I'm no worse off than anybody else. In their job. There's a lot of alcoholism, mental illness, child abuse, divorce, suicide, financial ruin, the sack, the blacklist, suppression of one's work by unknown forces, typewriters that eat Brazilian aquatic centipede powder and secrete mugwump jism.

Books get published, movies made. I mashed my finger, moving.

People move. People mash their fingers.

I'm 60. The kids are grown. Brenda keeps chickens.

We go to a matinee, or a bluegrass festival together, on the weekends. Some corny art show like Norman Rockwell. Folk Fest in the North Atlanta Trade Center.

We read, listen to the radio, and watch television. The Braves.

We cook and eat and wash the dishes, clean the house, go for walks.

Marriage, the birth of children, death. Stagflation, recession, the defense drawdown. Bull markets, continuous rebalancing. Force Management Program.

You haven't been busted, you have been reverted to your permanent rank. Yardbird.

Don't get above your raisin', Lester Flatt says.

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

I don't think I'm doing the wrong thing now. I got to pick my own title when we redid business cards a few months ago, and I decided on "Website Producer." I'm doing coding, editing, and production on our article flow at StockCharts.com.

I picked a music major at college (and I picked it in high school) merely because I enjoyed band best out of English, science, history, etc. though I did well in all of them. But I didn't want to be a high school band director, which a music ed. degree would have pointed me to. (Okay, I should have realized that before my senior year in college.) So I switched to a music business concentration (the equivalent of adding a minor in business).

I did an internship at a local symphony in Northern Virginia, and realized that I wasn't suited for the managing director job there.

So I was in a dead-end job for most of the eighties, making reasonable money though.

I moved to Seattle in 1988, to act as caregiver to my elderly, ill parents. After they died, I picked up a temporary job at a family friend's accounting firm. This was my first experience with PCs and an office environment, in 1990!

I saw an ad for proofreaders at a legal publishing firm. they would hire people with no experience, if you could pass their proofreading test. The only good parts about this place: we really developed our proofreading skills (because we were under assembly-line type pressure to proof fast and accurately, *OR ELSE*, and we were proofing municipal codes -- plumbing codes, zoning codes, and so on), and my coworkers were a congenial bunch. Management was totally whacked and had made some bad business decisions, that ended up sending us out on strike. (You know it was bad if we shy, retiring, slothful, underemployed-and-staying-that-way editors and proofers got so riled up that we went on strike!)

We lost the strike, of course.

But that was really a good thing! This was when Microsoft was gearing up to start publishing a lot of content-based CD-roms. They needed editors and proofers, and they needed them right away. About half of the people who went on strike ended up as Microsoft contractors.

It took a while for me to get the call, though. While I waited around after listing myself with agencies, I bought a PC (good thing I had the money to do that, and to live on while waiting) and spent the days practicing on it, improving my keyboarding skills and knowledge about various apps. I finally got an assignment -- due to my music background! They were porting a music CD from the Mac to Windows, and needed someone who could verify if the music snippets were synchronized correctly. This did require some music knowledge since the CD was all about Stravinsky's Rite of Spring!

So I was originally scheduled for three weeks, but ended up staying at MS for over six years, adding skills and getting better assignments along the way. It's really been great for me! and led directly to my current job.

I was well over thirty before I did anything in the high-tech field. I think the lesson from my story is, it's not too late, even if you've piddled away a decade of your life. That's one of the good things about the USA at the present time, you can go back and start again.

Commitments to house and family might make this more difficult, I'll admit.

I did see a career counselor when I was in my dead-end job, and even though I didn't take her advice and get off my duff at that time, she was helpful to me, helping me see what factors in my dead-end job, and in other things I enjoyed doing, would be good things to look for in a real career-type job. An outsider could see the commonalities that I couldn't.

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anonymous, May 14, 2000

Makes me happy to note the (many) other librarians chiming in here!

I'm a poet.

I became a librarian because, as per the cliche, I was starving, while working 2 teaching jobs, etc.

I now have a really good, and consuming job as a librarian (it's more than answering reference questions, folks--it's building infrastructure & functional specifications for a 40 million page data set, etc) and I am not living the poet's life, I am not writing, indeed, I'm too tired even to go to readings, too tired to do much but cry my eyes out every few weeks about feeling I've betrayed my vows to poetry, have jumped the path of my true avocation.

This is probably temporary. I will probably find a balance. But the terror of feeling I've ripped myself away from something essential is strong.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

Well, I might not be doing the right thing, but I don't know what the right thing is, and what I am doing is not the "wrong thing". I think my current angst is more of a right job/wrong location kind of thing.

I sort of fell into my career in an accidental way, though.

I was always a smart kid. Not freaky smart, I was 17 when I graduated high school, but top of the class. School was very easy for me. My dad was an academic, although he was an administrator by the time I was old enough to remember. I grew up with the idea of graduate school and a Ph.D. firmly implanted in my mind. That is not to say that I actively wanted to be a professor.

Things that I have, at various times, thought I'd like to be? Chef, writer, yoga teacher.

Things that I knew I didn't want to be? Middle-level management/administration with obscure and indefinable duties.

I went to college. I did all sorts of things: chemistry, religious studies, and art were my three favorites. I was 3 classes short of a triple major. I went to India, on a whim. Got back and discovered that a) the major that I could complete in my remaining semesters was chemistry and b) it was probably the most economically viable of the three. Again, school was pretty easy for me, and I liked it.

I took my GREs late and had no idea if I'd even get into graduate school. I also didn't have any plans for finding a job. I applied to 10 graduate schools in biochemistry, biophysics, physical chemistry--whatever sounded good at the time. I got into all of them, mostly before they ever even saw my GRE scores. Apparently American-born graduate students were at a premium. I went to Illinois because they gave me an NIH fellowship. I went into computational biology partly because it was less of a pain in the ass than lab work. Now all of a sudden it's the hottest specialty going, but did I plan to be in it? No.

After I graduated from Illinois, I would have just hung around as a well-paid, superannuated student/tech forever if my boss hadn't decided to move. I wanted to move to a research scientist position in a quasi-industry setting. In part due to my boss' failure to send some letters to the right people at the right time, I ended up a junior professor at a research university instead. Everyone thinks I got a dream job; I feel like I drifted into it almost without volition or even against my will.

School is easy for me. What's not easy for me is getting myself out of school.

Now I have six years of intense pressure to look forward to as I try to establish my own research group (which is sort of like trying to get a small company started) and prove myself in science, all the while participating in academic politics, teaching, etc. I won't lie and say that I totally hate it--it's an attractive challenge in a certain austere workaholic way.

I've promised myself that if I do not like the situation or if I do not get tenure this time out, I will exercise my will to get out of academia and into something/somewhere that I actually want to be.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

Seems like Beth and some other people posting are tending to blame themselves for drifting or not planning out their future. I'd just like to point out--for whatever solace it may provide--that planning ahead isn't foolproof. For example, by the time I was in jr. high, I knew I was going to major in English, and by the time I actually went to college, I had to the best of my ability mapped out my path towards being a professor. Got excellent grades in college, lots of honors and awards, acceptance to almost every grad school I applied to. And I had to drop out of my master's program during my very first semester, due to a number of uncontrollable personal, family, and financial factors. My cousin went through a similar experience with vet. school, which was his lifelong dream; his mother died of brain cancer during his first year, and he ended up flunking out.

These days, I'm pretty happy with how my career path eventually worked out. Nevertheless, there are still times I fall into those low self-esteem funks, but instead of accusing myself of drifting, I make myself miserable with "if only this wouldn't have happened, if only I could've done something to prevent that or if I had managed to react differently; I was on my way and I could've really accomplished what I'd set out to do if only...." In reality, it's probably not useful to either blame yourself or to agonize over unforeseeable misfortunes; things happen, and we have far less control over our lives than we'd like to think we do.

That said, it's never too late to try again if you know you really want something. I've been intensely proud of my best friend this last year because she's gone back to college at the age of 33 after three kids, two divorces, and a bunch of deadend jobs. She's majoring in a completely different field than when she was first in college, but she's more determined than ever to get her degree and go on for a masters. Also, my partner started his PhD this year at the age of 36, and he's considered one of the younger people in his program. His father received his PhD two years ago at the age of 63 and has embarked on a new career--his third so far! This is a man who grew up herding water buffalo in the Philippines in an isolated village of less than 100 people during WW II and the Japanese occupation, during which there was no real schooling to speak of for kids his age. He hasn't always held jobs that he's liked during his life, but he's definitely got persistance and dedication and is very happy, even at his age, to finally be doing something he has always dreamed of.

So that's my inspirational spiel for today :->

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

I think it's interesting that many people blame themselves for drifting or not particularly planning their paths... when it seems to me that the bigger fluke is deciding at age 13 (based on what, exactly?) what you want to be in life... and then getting the right combination of school acceptances, scholarships, internships and jobs necessary to end up in that chosen career... and when all is done, still liking it.

-- Anonymous, May 15, 2000

Very good points, Brenda. And besides - we're all supposed to change careers a couple of times at least now, so there's no shame in admitting you don't enjoy what you do and would rather do something else instead. The key is always striving for transferable skills, so its easier to make a change.

Beth - that idea of Grace's was very good. It's definitely going to be a growth industry, and you've no idea how many people are setting up dot.coms with no real knowledge of the implications.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

I thought this might be an appropriate e-mode test. It's fun to take even if you aren't an attorney.

Are you a Disgruntled Lawyer? http://www.emode.com/emode/tests/lawyer.jsp

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

Oh, lord, why did you have to post that test? This is what it said about me:

Face it, you have no intention of leaving anytime soon. Can you say risk-averse? You have probably put your exit strategy on hold until you have gotten your bonus, your loans paid off, trial experience, or until that dream job falls out of the sky and lands in your lap. Yeah, right. The reality is, although you spend more time complaining about your job than doing billable work, you have no immediate plans of leaving. Maybe you listen intently when friends talk about their internet start-ups, or you may even have contacted a head-hunter or two, but your heart is just not in it. You may feel trapped for financial, social or other reasons, and unless you overcome them, you might as well start enjoying the view from your office because you are not going anywhere.

It's true; student loans and a mortgage make that lawyer salary (even a small one like mine) awfully hard to turn your back on. But a big chunk of my debt will be paid off by November ... we'll see how I feel then.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000

Am I doing the wrong thing?

Every freakin' day of my life, it seems.

When I was a child, I desperately wanted to become a veterinarian. But I don't know what happened to that dream. Somewhere along the way, it was derailed. If only I had stuck with my love of animals, I probably wouldn't be worried about having a career right now.

My best subjects in school were English and History. Instead, I end up majoring in Economics with the required advanced math/calc classes required for the degree. I was miserable. I hated every second of it (unless of course, we were studying economic systems, which I loved and could deconstruct in a heartbeat -- seems anything that didn't require math I excelled at).

I had no job seeking skills out of college. I had no idea what I wanted to do, so I drifted. I know now what I want to do (write for television), but I still need a bread and butter job to support me. Hence, all the secretarial work on my resume. I'm tired of being poor, treated badly and smarter than most of my bosses. I'm on a hunt now for a job that will hopefully use my writing and computer skills. I have no idea if I will be successful, or if I will need to go back to the secretary/assistant route again.

I need autonomy. I need a job that stimulates me. I need another tv writing gig that will enable me to hoard enough money should I find myself unemployed for an extended period of time, I won't need to temp. It seems the choices I make aren't necessarily bad, they're just not working. I hope it turns out ok in the end for you, Beth. You're very intelligent and very driven. As for me, sometimes there are days when I think I'm just slamming my head against a wall.

-- Anonymous, May 16, 2000