I’ve never known. I started out working at places that would hire me with no skills and then when my son was 5 and I moved with the ex to Florida I decided enough was enough and I started to seek out jobs that paid better and provided me with opportunities to gain training and skills. I taught myself all of the Microsoft Office software programs by reading “for dummies†books and I upgraded with each and every job I took. I worked quite a few jobs between 1998 and 2004 when I got my current job. I worked for HSN (yes the television store!), worked for 2 electronic distributors, one crazy lady who sold assisted living reports to people, a collection agency and a few strange other jobs during that time prior to the job I currently have. I learned one major thing from all of those jobs and that one thing is and was that every person who makes the real money had a college degree. I also noticed that the people that had worked their way up over the course of 20 years were desperate to keep their jobs and seemed to not have the skills necessary to compete in the workforce any longer because their skills were deemed only valuable to the company they worked for 20 years.
In light of the recession and my having just completed my undergraduate degree, I have been considering long and hard “Where do I go from here?â€Â I enrolled in my Masters degree and slugged through the first few weeks of class wondering if I made the right choice. I have been looking at the job postings with curiosity and I imagine that most recent college graduates would and are doing the same thing. It’s dismal.
So while emotionally and mentally I am ready for bigger fish to fry, I am trying to re-grease the frying pan I’m currently in because I am grateful to be in any pan so to speak.
The biggest frustration to me is that I didn’t obtain a degree that is specific to one job title. I can do a lot of things with my degree; however this also means that I can’t simply do a job search for “Elementary Teacher†or “Podiatrist†etc. It means that I spend a lot of time looking at all sorts of jobs and try to figure out exactly what all the verbiage really equates to. It’s insane the way some job ads are written. I imagine some of them are really file clerks but the job duties make it out to sound like rocket science before the ad is over.
All of this just to reiterate that this recession sucks but yet I’m thankful that I spent the last 4 years getting a degree instead of taking expensive trips to Mexico on boats or spending hundreds on custom made frames for pictures to be hung on the living room wall. (That might not make sense to you…but it makes plenty to me!!)
When I was 18 I wanted to go become a phlebotomist or become a courtroom stenographer. I still see both of those jobs as valid and dream worthy. I just can’t see myself pulling blood for $12/hr or getting carpal tunnel in front of some fat judge day after day. I see both of those jobs as working with the public and probably no fun at all. However, I can easily close my eyes and see myself doing either of them happily. Yah insane right?
But really the bottom line is this. I search through job listings and try to place myself within those jobs. I saw one today for a Credit Analyst for a company I always admired…but I was a Credit Analyst without a degree and sure this job probably pays a great deal more because of the “degree required†in the job description but really, do I want to do something I’ve already done before only for more money? Errr…wait, isn’t that why I went to college?
Oh by now perhaps you see my real conundrum. I still have no earthly fucking idea what I want to be when I grow up. And so …I trudge along in my 2nd class gaining my Masters degree for the sole purpose of being the ONLY person in my family to have ever achieved that goal.
Oh …my priorities? Yes, they are fucked. By the way I now find that I work for someone that doesn’t have a degree and makes far more than I do. She even asked me recently if I thought she should have a degree. I smiled and said kindly “I work for a University, have done so for the last nearly 5 years, I think EVERYONE should have a degree, don’t you?â€Â  I got a blank stare.
*sigh* It would have been so much easier to go to a phlebotomist program or …uh…been a stenographer. Did you always know what you wanted to do? Are you doing it? If so, do you love doing it? If not, do you wish you were doing it?
p.s. I do really love my job….I just never planned to be doing this..so it makes me quiver sometimes.
Edited to add:
Average Phlebotomist Salary: $30000.
Stenographers are now referred to as Court Reporters, Wage and salary court reporters had median annual earnings of $45,610 in May 2006. The middle 50 percent earned between $33,160 and $61,530.
Perhaps I want to be a court reporter? hmmm
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