Got a Job Yet?

Well, it has been over year now since my last post. In said post I talked about my exit from trying to get a teaching job and to finding something more suitable to my interests and desires. Since writing that post I have thought a lot about what I should do for a living and aimlessly applied to many a job postings to no avail. I don't mind, though. In the end I'm glad that I didn't get a job I didn't really want to begin with.

377 days after the last blog post I think I may have finally settled on a career path. I want to be a technical writer.

My friend Greg is helping along the way as I meander towards some sort of career. He has been writing professionally for about a decade now so he knows a thing or two about the industry.

A few days ago he asked me why I wanted to be a technical writer. I suppose he wanted to know my intentions to make sure that they were for the right reasons. I see why he asked. Going into a field for the wrong reasons, say, for money, will most likely end in failure or worse - an unsatisfying career. You should do something because you want to do it not because you think you have to do something. Best to ignore the societal pressures that tell you to make a buck so you can do the whole American Dream thing as fast as possible. You know; tended lawn, white picket fence, dog, 2.5 kids, the whole nine yards. I do want those things. I want my own backyard for my son to play in. A house to call my own. A little extra in the bank account for a rainy day. But really, what's the rush? Helping with the family business is paying the bills for the time being. Besides, I'm wise enough to know that attaining the material version of the American Dream won't bring me to complete happiness anyway. There's always more to want. Still, it would be nice.

So why do I want to be a technical writer? I simply want to write for a living. I want to express my thoughts even if it may be in what is perceived by many as a very square format. The truth is I think I would be better writing in a more cerebral, analytic way than a more free and creative way. I can't write fiction - or at least I never really tried - and I don't want to write copy. Writing witty lines to sell designer jeans might be fun but I can't see myself racking my brain all the time just so I can sell a brand name. Don Draper does makes it look interesting, though.

Now my job is to focus my efforts and develop a skill base. I have potential but no real useful skills to an employer. For the next few months I will hyper-focus like a laser to achieve my goal. After all, my problem all along was that I never could focus. I wanted to do everything. Everything was interesting and I didn't want to limit my options. I'm a generalist at heart but unfortunately our economy doesn't want generalists (university professors are a rare exception). Our economy demands people with very specific skills to complete very specific tasks; plumbers, programmers, web content writers, carpenters, policemen and other village people. It needs people that have crafted themselves enough to do something that no one else can do. It doesn't need people that can make a witty joke about Marxism at a dinner party. Those people are interesting and probably know lots of neat stuff, but they are functionally useless.

I have an unfortunate resistance to learning a craft too well just so I can find a place in the division of labor (maybe an unconscious rebellion to "the man?"). I learn a little bit about something and move on to the next thing. I can change the spark plugs to my car but I'm certainly no mechanic. I can play a few Beethoven songs on the piano but I'm not a pianist. I can make a key-rack out of wood but I'm no craftsman. I can write in a personal blog but I'm not a writer... yet.

Rethinking My Career Path

I chose to major in English in college for reasons I don't totally understand. I am a reader of fiction but I prefer current non-fiction to the classics. I think it has something to do with my quiet, introspective nature. English classes tend to have lots of philosophical discussion. I am the philosophical paranoid type that has to know everything. I briefly considered majoring in philosophy but that didn't appeal to me very much. There was something very austere about academic philosophy that I didn't like.

Anyway, I eventually came to the decision of majoring in English. All the while, during my drifting in college, I wondered what I wanted to do for a living. I wanted a decent wage and I didn't want to feel like I was selling my soul to the devil. There didn't seem to be any job out there that appealed to me. All jobs are rather dreadful from my perspective and I couldn't ever imagine myself to do one thing day in and day out for the rest of my life.

I began to think about teaching high school English for a living. I loved my English classes in college. I could see my self pouring into books and telling other people what I found in them.

So, after I graduated, listless and depressed because I didn't know what I wanted to do, I pursued and eventually obtained a my teaching certificate and Masters Degree in Education. I was certain I would enjoy teaching. The thought of it really made me happy. It seemed the only ray of hope in a less than spectacular job world. I could influence kids and continue my passion for reading. But it turned out to be too good to be true.

It turns out that I'm a lousy teacher. Well, I know everyone is at first, but I really cannot see myself doing what I want to do in the classroom. There will always be some obstacle that will prevent me feeling like I made some kind of difference in students lives. Personally, my biggest obstacle is fitting into a world of talkers. All teachers that hold out in the classroom are talkers. I'm just not wired that way. I'm a thinker (not that the talkers don't think). I'm too quiet to run a classroom and if I wanted to get anything done and it would require a whole personality shift, something I can't do, to be a teacher.

It's not uncommon for teachers to burn out in there first few years of teaching and I see why. When you think about all of the problems in our education system it depresses you to the point of losing hope. There is no diversity. It's all the same from coast to coast. All the kids are bored because they don't feel like they're doing anything useful. They're right to think so. There's no time to do anything useful in school. The bell eventually rings in a few minutes and you have to move on to something else totally unrelated.

I'm happy that I'm finally coming to realize this and I don't have any regrets (well except student loans). Better late than never. I could have been doing something I didn't want to do for a long time. I can finally put my energy into doing something I want to do. I'm not quite sure what it is yet but I'm confident I will find it.

Consuming Children

To kick off this blog I think it would be appropriate to point to this great documentary about childhood and consumerism in America. I am genuinely worried about the physical and mental environment that my child will be living in in the future. I just hope that I shield him well enough from the inundation of advertising trying to influence and control his behavior. You should watch this if you have children or are planning on having them. I couldn't recommend it more.