I think I am in the midst of that ubiquitous middle-class affliction: the too-young-to-have-it-but-I'm-having-it-anyway mid-life crisis. Thankfully, my version of the crisis doesn't involve sports cars. And being a very happily married young female, it also doesn't involve comb overs or having it off with a secretary. What it does involve is a mild concern that maybe, just maybe, there's more to life than working with a chronic farter in a job I don't particularly like.
That said, career dissatisfaction is nothing new for me. My employment history to date has hardly been a successful one.
When I was very young I wanted to be an actress. I achieved some minor success, appearing in a number of TV commercials and voicing a number of radio commercials. Perhaps the high-point of that career came when I played "young girl" in a Red Rooster TV commercial when I was ten years old. When my mother (an actress who, disturbingly, was only ten years older than me) asked if I wanted Red Rooster for dinner, my job was to say in an enthusiastic voice: "yes please!" But that success was never repeated. Once I hit my early teens, the offers dried up and I realised that talent scouts were not looking for a short, pimply girl with braces to become the next Pretty Woman.
After my acting career sank, I decided it was time to get a real job. I accepted a job on occasional Thursday nights and weekends during the football season, selling the Football Record (football programme) at the Subiaco Football Oval. It was a commission job - for each $1 football record we sold we got 10 cents, or something like that. On the days I was assigned to work I found myself donning a fluorescent yellow suit and standing outside the stadium, regardless of whether it was raining, hailing or the sun was shining, screaming at the top of my lungs "records, get your records. Football records". Eventually I got sick of counting my desultory earnings while trying to squeeze the water out of my clothes. I also got sick of having to pretend to laugh at customers 'jokes. These jokes showed a startling lack of originality (the most popular was "football record - but how do I play that on my CD player?". I lasted only one season before deciding I had had enough.
That said, career dissatisfaction is nothing new for me. My employment history to date has hardly been a successful one.
When I was very young I wanted to be an actress. I achieved some minor success, appearing in a number of TV commercials and voicing a number of radio commercials. Perhaps the high-point of that career came when I played "young girl" in a Red Rooster TV commercial when I was ten years old. When my mother (an actress who, disturbingly, was only ten years older than me) asked if I wanted Red Rooster for dinner, my job was to say in an enthusiastic voice: "yes please!" But that success was never repeated. Once I hit my early teens, the offers dried up and I realised that talent scouts were not looking for a short, pimply girl with braces to become the next Pretty Woman.
After my acting career sank, I decided it was time to get a real job. I accepted a job on occasional Thursday nights and weekends during the football season, selling the Football Record (football programme) at the Subiaco Football Oval. It was a commission job - for each $1 football record we sold we got 10 cents, or something like that. On the days I was assigned to work I found myself donning a fluorescent yellow suit and standing outside the stadium, regardless of whether it was raining, hailing or the sun was shining, screaming at the top of my lungs "records, get your records. Football records". Eventually I got sick of counting my desultory earnings while trying to squeeze the water out of my clothes. I also got sick of having to pretend to laugh at customers 'jokes. These jokes showed a startling lack of originality (the most popular was "football record - but how do I play that on my CD player?". I lasted only one season before deciding I had had enough.
My next foray into the working world was working at a sales assistant at a clothing store. That position actually lasted for a remarkably long time (given how useless I was) and until I finished school when the shop happened to shut down.
During university I tried my hand at waitressing and working in a bakery before finally graduating and becoming a lawyer.
Becoming a lawyer should have been my happy ending to the work crises. But it hasn't been. There have certainly been high-points in my short career (such as working for a Judge). But equally there have been a lot of low points, including very late nights, boring document review sand inhaling air that has already taken a turn through someone's anal passage.
I know that I'm in a privileged position to be able to ponder options. And I know that there are many people out there with far more serious problems than my own. But that doesn't stop me wondering, and even agonizing, as I ask myself: what now??
Becoming a lawyer should have been my happy ending to the work crises. But it hasn't been. There have certainly been high-points in my short career (such as working for a Judge). But equally there have been a lot of low points, including very late nights, boring document review sand inhaling air that has already taken a turn through someone's anal passage.
I know that I'm in a privileged position to be able to ponder options. And I know that there are many people out there with far more serious problems than my own. But that doesn't stop me wondering, and even agonizing, as I ask myself: what now??
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