I'm not going to watch it but I keep seeing these commercials for the NBC show "Ordinary Joe." The idea is there's this guy and the show kind of does a What If...? thing about three different timelines. In one he's a doctor and in another a rock star or something and another he's a cop. (That way we've got cop show and doctor show covered--genius!)
It got me thinking about what other jobs I might have in a similar scenario. If I didn't go into accounting, what else might I have done? The caveat for my little mental exercise was that I couldn't fundamentally change myself in the process. I mean in second grade I wanted to be shortstop for the Detroit Tigers but obviously I was never going to have the fitness, size, or talent for that so I'm not going to use that one because I would literally have to be an entirely different person to make it work.
1. Full-Time Writer: What if one of my more mainstream books had been successfully published back in the 2000s? I'd probably never be a big-time superstar writer like Stephen King or James Patterson but maybe I could have eked out a living writing more arty, literary books like Where You Belong or maybe less arty sci-fi books like when I first started writing. I still wouldn't want to but if it were a TV show I'd probably move to New York in some crappy, overpriced apartment.
2. History Teacher: Besides English, my other favorite subject in school was History. So if I hadn't gone to school for accounting, I probably would have gone to school for teaching and wanted to teach History. But you know why I didn't? Not just because teachers make shit wages. Mostly because I knew it would get on my nerves trying to deal with dumb kids or smart alecks and going through the same shit year after year. I'd probably end up all pissed off and bitter like Mr. DiMartino in Daria. Kids wouldn't be getting on their desks for me like Dead Poet's Society or anything. Or I'd just be one of those ineffective teachers who stops giving a shit and basically lets the kids do whatever they want. Pissed off and bitter would work better for TV.
3. Bum: I wanted something awesome like nature photographer or something, but this seems like a more realistic outcome. I mean in March 2016 if I hadn't gotten a job I probably would have been living in my car. So, yeah, I could be begging and eating out of dumpsters and getting run out of coffee places when I try to steal sugar or ketchup packets or whatever. Fun. Not really a good one for TV unless some nice person kind of adopts me and lets me live with them. Then we can have a wacky sitcom!
I don't know, maybe you want to come up with more fun things than mine. What three different jobs would you have?
2 comments:
At different times in my life, I was enamored with certain careers. When I was barely a teenager, I saw a movie called, "The First Monday in October," and it was when I first became aware of the Supreme Court of the United States. I very much wanted to be a Supreme Court Justice. However, I lived in a very authoritative household. Dad railroaded me into a career that didn't work, and he didn't give me any option but one of which school to go to. It was a lot of nightmare and stress to try and fight him. I remember in high school I got the highest grade that my teacher had ever awarded in high school biology. My dad was only momentarily proud, and he dismissed my longing to go and study anatomy and physiology as "useless garbage." He then forced me to study chemistry and physics and essentially killed off my natural inclination toward biology. For years I fought him on it. I wanted to be a marine biologist and transfer to a university in Seattle, and he essentially said he'd disown me if I did that. Depressed and out of options, I quit my chemical engineering major and got a degree in English as fast as I could (I didn't need as many classes to finish that). When he found out, he was so disappointed that he didn't even come to graduation. So I packed up everything and just moved back in with parents and tried to eek out a living in a very Republican state that paid very low wages.
Anyway...I could go on and on with "woe me" rants. But long story short, I wanted to go into law and be either a lawyer or a judge. I also wanted to study marine animals (probably sharks or whales). I wanted to be an artist and paint things. None of these worked out, mostly because I was too much of a coward to stand up to my father, and I had no advocate. So I am what I am. I hope other people in their lives don't face as many headwinds.
At one time, I wanted to be a teacher. Several years ago I did some substitute teaching and I taught an after school computer club at the local middle school. I thought this would look good on a resume and I was trying to figure out how to go back to college. However, a lot of kids have behavior problems. I spent most of the time discipling students. This convinced me not to go into teaching, plus I feel that everything is so controlled these days in public schools. The part I like about teaching is the creative part when you find a way to reach that struggling student. However, I don't think they allow teachers to deviate from the curriculum. I still would like to teach at a college because those students want to be there. However you need a PHD, which I don't have.
Another thing I was interested in years ago was creating video games. Also, being a full time writer would also be great.
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