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Naked ambition — 15 Comments

  1. “But I’m sill not quite sure what I want to be when I grow up.” (buttons still not working btw)At age 14 or so, the euphemistically named ‘Career’s Guidance Officer’ asked me what I wanted to be. Still haven’t found an answer to that question 35 years, and about the same amount of tonnage of raw tobacco & hectolitres of alcohol, later. Infact I have always envied the kids from the ‘lower streams’ at school (back when ‘streaming’ was not yet recognised as child abuse) who KNEW what they would be, usually either a fisherman like their dad or work for the local builders either as a ‘bricky’ or a ‘chippy’ and as long as they left ‘skool’ with a CSE (an english ‘exam’ that basically just required turning up to the classes occasionally) in woodwork they would never lack for money nor girlfriends. If I had my time again I still wouldn’t know. Mind you the job I enjoyed the most and, relatively, earned the most money doing was as a petrol pump attendant on the German motorways…about as far from My Mother’s wish for me to become a ‘professional’ as possible. People would say ‘make your vacation your vocation’ (ie make your hobby or interests your job) but being interested in sex without a porn star body & ‘length’ and being fairly uninterested in the tobacco I was smoking until the Smoking Ban came along….

    • The general ambition when I was a kid was to be an engine driver [remembering that that was back in the age of steam].  Nowadays all they want to be is a “celebrity” or just “to be famous”, for fuck’s sake.   Why the hell would anyone want to be famous?  It is the very last thing I would want.  I like my privacy.

      I know the buttons don’t work, but only in a primary comment.  They work perfectly in a reply to a comment which is puzzling?  Anyone out there know anything about computers?

  2. I think you’d have to say you’ve had a successful life! Many people have “doors opening” and don’t walk through them! And many people want to force doors to open, and they never do. I think if you look back over your life, you might feel it was lived by you by following a “map” –  the intricateness of which you could not have deliberately planned in your wildest dreams! “But I’m sill not quite sure what I want to be when I grow up.” I think what you were meant to be has happened!

    • In retrospect, I was incredibly lucky.  For example, I loved maps as I said, and the cable television job involved planning the layouts which meant I was working with Ordnance maps all day every day.  I was in that job for years an then came across computers and got interested in them.  Somehow I ended up programming and then working on the Interwebs.

      None of my jobs ever left a lasting legacy – they were just a means to an end.  My legacy to the world is my daughter and grandkids – a legacy I am more than happy with.

  3. From my experience, there’s nowt much wrong with a random path through life. It served me well, anyway. (I’m now trying to grow up disgracefully. Sod the “old” bit!)

  4. I was all of 17 and just beginning my senior year in high school when one afternoon after getting out early I found myself with an hour to kill before my mother picked me up. So, with no particular plan in mind, I wandered down to the old train station (a beautiful structure by the way) to kill the time in a nice old building.

    I noticed a wide staircase leading down which I hadn’t spied before so down I went curiosity leading the way. Gaining the bottom I saw myself in a long, rather narrow room with 4 doors leading to small offices labeled:

    Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines.

    By the time I went back up the staircase I had joined the Navy with the stipulation of serving in the (Cold War) submarine force under the Advanced Electronics Field with a one year delay so I could finish high school. Funny thing was I didn’t really feel any different than before I went down the staircase.

    Then I went home and told my parents over dinner. I thought that was a nice touch.

    And just ‘cuz I can’t resist…a basic button test:

    Bold

    Italic

    Underline

    Strike

    Quote

    And last time I posted a comment all my paragraphs went away so everything was scrunched up together when posted. Let’s see what happens.

    Oh, and what happened to the “notification” check box? Seems to be missing?

      • I did indeed.  If anyone is interested – it was a plugin conflict.  Kill the offending plugin; all works perfectly.  Took me a while to isolate it though…….

    • It just goes to show – if you hadn’t left school an hour early your life would have doubtless been utterly different.  It’s an example of The Butterfly Effect  and how it affects us all.  How did the parents react?

  5. Just out of interest, has your walk in walk out close down phenomenon followed you into your life outside of employment?

    • Fortunately not.  I don’t want my last employers to go bust as they pay my pension.  Then I set up my own business which I ran for a few years and then more or less closed down.  I don’t know if that counts?

  6. This is just a test comment because Granddad’s site didn’t like my trying to inject my nasty little…

    ….opinions..into it. Although personally I’m betting it was my mentioning ‘Cherry brandy’.

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