Am I well suited to a career in careerism?

If your employment history is anything like my own – a spotty, disjointed mess of inconsistency and abstractness – it’s highly unlikely you’ll find yourself in any sort of enviable position when it comes to job prospects. So what should one do?

While I’d love to serve-up a platter of novel ideas, or a comprehensive approach in point-form about how to go get ‘em, it’d be nothing more than seamless, ridiculous conjecture. Plus, I’m saving it for tomorrow’s posting. In all likelihood, if you’re over thirty, and you don’t already have some semblance of a loosely fleshed-out career plan, there’s a strong chance that you’re not particularly well suited for any sort of conventional career path in the modern business world anyway.

When I think back to my own foray into the corporate world at the tender young age of thirty-two, the first thing that comes to mind is affirmative action. Prior to working for a sizable utility provider in an administrative setting, the bulk of my employment history involved toiling away in blue-collar surroundings where the attitudes were relaxed and the humour was as dark as a fully redacted CBC invoice obtained through a freedom of information request.

The second most memorable recollection, is wondering how long I might endure an environment dominated by humourless feminists (both male and female) on high-alert for the slightest breach of political correctness. A bunch of miserable broads (and “gents”), sitting in front of computers with their ears cocked, just waiting for me to say something… anything that might even remotely remind them of some personality quirk exhibited by any one of the men (gay men) in their histories of failed relationships. I shudder just to think of the strained, sordid courtships and co-habitation period their significant others were forced to endure!

It was hardly all bad. There were potluck lunches, a nice coffee station within seven steps of my partition, and an appreciable amount of eye candy in the form of pantsuits. It paid about the same as any entry-level stock-person-type job on the market, and it paid-out weekly. If memory serves, I made around $500 / week for investigating loose-ends, finalizing accounts, and scrutinizing the complaints department. For such a paltry sum, I’d rather move data in a quiet comfortable office all day, than boxes in a dusty, dangerous, and noisy warehouse!