Diceman Generation

Discussing career choices, salary, ambition with Bails and ML outside the Royal Festival Hall on Friday night. So while rueing the fact that we are not in the right business to make lots of money it transpired that none of us had chosen the field we were working in but had, by various means, fallen into it. I was first given a job in a learning centre by a woman I used to cat-sit for - she was short of staff one day and called me (I was unemployed) and asked me to get her out of a hole and be at work for 11.00 - which I did and remained on her temp payroll until the job was officially advertised. Bails got a job in the learning centre at Lewisham College because when she returned from South Africa she needed work and a temporary position became available that I suggested would suit her. ML first came to Lewisham College because the temp agency he was working for had a contract with the college. So we all ended up in student support at further education colleges. And it seemed odd that all three of us had left this extremely important life decision to chance - by not actively deciding which particular field we would a. like to be in, b. make lots of money in, we had left our career choice to fate - we may as well have rolled the dice for the amount of active choosing that we put into it.

Also in love we often leave the meeting of our partner to fate - waiting to be approached, not being very active in the decision making process and expecting this to lead to successfully meeting our lifepartner.

Equally although falling into a field of work by accident as long as you are open to opportunities it is possible to reassert your judgement on the decision making process. My problem was always that I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up (after college I wanted to be an artist but having no purpose was extremely difficult) so stumbling along for a while suited me while I figured out that in order to live the lifestyle that I wanted I would need money, therefore needed better jobs which eventually shocked me into action. Just sometimes wish I had realised all this earlier. I still sometimes wish I knew what I wanted to be when I grow up.

We were also talking about how often we changed jobs. I have found that I generally change roles, even if within companies, about every 2 years partially to increase the challenge, partially because the field doesn't have natural promotion or progression routes, and maybe because we are the TV generation - used to flicking between channels so as not to bet bored.