I often think to myself about what I would want to be when I grow up, and then realise I’m 35 and that I still don’t know! 🫠
I wish I’d had better education around the breadth of arts / digital skills and opportunities when I was young (my conclusion was always ‘you only study art if you want to be an artist’ etc. I hadn’t even heard of graphic design…) but like you, I do worry that ‘content creation’ is creating a massive gap with fewer people wanting to do those important but admittedly less glamourous jobs that hold up our infrastructure.
I do think we need to team up for a post on the value of having a job you hate too (retail, hospitality, call centre work) because honestly, those are the jobs that are surprisingly tough and do actually make you a better worker, a better citizen and frankly, a better person IMO 😂
Thanks Nicola, I also had no idea what arts roles existed, which is probably why I went down the languages route. As far as I knew, my options were teacher or translator, and I chose the latter as I knew I could not return to the school environment. Then when I realised translation wasn't for me, it was only a coincidence I ended up working in content.
Looking back I should have done graphic design but it felt like that would abandoning writing... and there was no way to do both even though I kind of do both now??
Yes omg we should because I am 100% of the belief that these roles make you a better, thicker skinned person. I worked at McDonalds, Starbucks, Greggs and two pubs (I think that's all?) and and I would never in my life be rude to a person working in hospitality. These were the most brutal roles of my entire life and where I was paid the least.
I wanted to be a lot of things as a child, a mountaineer, a pilot, a writer (did it!) a silversmith (also did it!) and a therapist (did that too!) - all mostly in later life.
I wonder if kids want to be YouTubers etc partly because it is what they see - so it feels like an option. Surely no kid says 'I want to be a lawyer' for example, unless pushed by someone. It's a shame it's all so inauthentic and unattainable. I fear that it's the kids without good parents to guide them in realistic ways who get lost in these mostly unrealistic dreams.
I also wanted be a mountaineer... I wonder if it was because the word sounded nice, as I am definitely more of an indoor cat in general hahah.
This is such a good point I didn't consider about kids not necessarily seeing people in other roles. There are some local initiatives here in the North East to get kids from unprivileged backgrounds into businesses, especially STEM and tech ones, to see what it's actually like working there, and that is so cool to me because otherwise how would they ever know what is possible?!
It varied what I thought I wanted to be when I was a child really, but like yourself Ellen I was content just drifting into things rather than being laser focused on a particular job/career.
Growing up I received far less careers advice, during education and at university though.
It took 25 years in the workplace, before any externally funded reasonable adjustments were put in place so I learned resilience.
I also learnt in that 25 years (coming up to 26 years) of being self-employed, that in the workplace an alarming amount of people are winging it, making it up as they go along and just going to be mean/nasty to anyone who tries to help them improve. Sorry if that sounds jaded and cynical.
My time as a journalist taught me a lot about people, but at the same time learning too much about people, neurology and psychology (whilst being neurodiverse) could easily lead to me being rather bleak about the future (and past) direction of society in the UK.
Great and thoughtful piece as always!
I often think to myself about what I would want to be when I grow up, and then realise I’m 35 and that I still don’t know! 🫠
I wish I’d had better education around the breadth of arts / digital skills and opportunities when I was young (my conclusion was always ‘you only study art if you want to be an artist’ etc. I hadn’t even heard of graphic design…) but like you, I do worry that ‘content creation’ is creating a massive gap with fewer people wanting to do those important but admittedly less glamourous jobs that hold up our infrastructure.
I do think we need to team up for a post on the value of having a job you hate too (retail, hospitality, call centre work) because honestly, those are the jobs that are surprisingly tough and do actually make you a better worker, a better citizen and frankly, a better person IMO 😂
Thanks Nicola, I also had no idea what arts roles existed, which is probably why I went down the languages route. As far as I knew, my options were teacher or translator, and I chose the latter as I knew I could not return to the school environment. Then when I realised translation wasn't for me, it was only a coincidence I ended up working in content.
Looking back I should have done graphic design but it felt like that would abandoning writing... and there was no way to do both even though I kind of do both now??
Yes omg we should because I am 100% of the belief that these roles make you a better, thicker skinned person. I worked at McDonalds, Starbucks, Greggs and two pubs (I think that's all?) and and I would never in my life be rude to a person working in hospitality. These were the most brutal roles of my entire life and where I was paid the least.
I wanted to be a writer, and now I am a writer*. Working on getting rid of that asterisk.
You ARE a writer. I will not stand for this Ed Callow slander on my page.
Ed Callow #1 Hater
I wanted to be a lot of things as a child, a mountaineer, a pilot, a writer (did it!) a silversmith (also did it!) and a therapist (did that too!) - all mostly in later life.
I wonder if kids want to be YouTubers etc partly because it is what they see - so it feels like an option. Surely no kid says 'I want to be a lawyer' for example, unless pushed by someone. It's a shame it's all so inauthentic and unattainable. I fear that it's the kids without good parents to guide them in realistic ways who get lost in these mostly unrealistic dreams.
Love this post! 🙏🏻✨
I also wanted be a mountaineer... I wonder if it was because the word sounded nice, as I am definitely more of an indoor cat in general hahah.
This is such a good point I didn't consider about kids not necessarily seeing people in other roles. There are some local initiatives here in the North East to get kids from unprivileged backgrounds into businesses, especially STEM and tech ones, to see what it's actually like working there, and that is so cool to me because otherwise how would they ever know what is possible?!
Thanks for reading, Kate!
It varied what I thought I wanted to be when I was a child really, but like yourself Ellen I was content just drifting into things rather than being laser focused on a particular job/career.
Growing up I received far less careers advice, during education and at university though.
It took 25 years in the workplace, before any externally funded reasonable adjustments were put in place so I learned resilience.
I also learnt in that 25 years (coming up to 26 years) of being self-employed, that in the workplace an alarming amount of people are winging it, making it up as they go along and just going to be mean/nasty to anyone who tries to help them improve. Sorry if that sounds jaded and cynical.
My time as a journalist taught me a lot about people, but at the same time learning too much about people, neurology and psychology (whilst being neurodiverse) could easily lead to me being rather bleak about the future (and past) direction of society in the UK.