h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This has, and still handicaps my entire life because it means I have no career focus.. in fact, no career.

I'm 41 and I have just never been able to name a job title or even a specific sector, that I think i'd enjoy/feel I would be good at. Consequently I now have several unused qualifications including a degree, and plethora of former jobs in different sectors and at different levels. That's the real stinger actually; I've gone from entry level to managment level and back to entry level 3 times now. Currently back at entry level again .

In fact, I feel extreme envy towards those who know what they want to do in life from the very moment they leave school or earlier. I just don't get it. How? How does one work this out? . Certainly the 'what you're good at/enjoy' route has never given me any guidance because try as I might, I've never been able to contort any of these things into a likely career path.

Anyone else have any experience of this chronic, lifelong indecisiveness malady ?

Take some time out and travel it will give you some clear time to think and you may come across a new path to follow

"Certainly the 'what you're good at/enjoy' route has never given me any guidance because try as I might, I've never been able to contort any of these things into a likely career path."

I thought that until I realised that sheer bloody mindedness, determination and boundless enthusiasm for the thing you love can open any door - stop thinking career start thinking vocation

Hmm thanks, but i've tried thinking job, career, vocation, vacation for several decades. Kind of thinking if I haven't come up with an idea yet, I never will.

"sheer bloody mindedness, determination and boundless enthusiasm for the thing you love can open any door " You're kind missing missing my point here . There is no 'thing I love' that I could base any kind of job/career vocations around. If there were, i'd go all guns for it, but without a focus ...

The things I love or are good at are mundane everyday things that most people like/are good at; eating nice food, um... seksual things , driving country roads at night, getting drunk and talking drivel to strangers, anticipating when a phone is going to ring... so you see entirely irrelevant to how one might make money in a fulfilling way to live.

"eating nice food,"....food critic

"um... seksual things" ... well there are career options but I would not be crass enough to mention them

"driving country roads at night,"....truck driver

"getting drunk and talking drivel to strangers"....politics,

"anticipating when a phone is going to ring..."...out of work actor

Seriously try taking some time out and travelling something will come to you

I'm the same Winnoch - although I did once have a job that I was really really really good at, totally loved it and would have done it forever even at the same level but only getting better of it. And then the Berlin Wall came down and sort of made me redundant (and changed the job into something that I still loved but didn't want to do for various reasons)

Since then I've realised that my job is just a means to an end (rent, food etc) and I am enjoying other things in my life that give it more direction (which currently means a degree with the OU, who knows what will come after that...)

I think it is really only a relatively small minority of people who can do what they love, or have a focus on something that they can do, makes them happy and they have the opportunity to persue it.

(are you having a mid-life crisis? your post reminds me of conversations I've been having with a lot of my friends over the last few years and often they have come back later and identified it as part of, or pointing to or a symptom of a mid-life crisis type event)

You're not alone - if that's any comfort (?)

Never did find out, still don't know, more than a decade after retirement.

Mind you, there were some damn' good jobs among the dross.

Definately not alone.... I've both no idea of what I want to be, when I grow up, or, indeed, as yet, any clue as to whwen I might actually 'grow up' and... err, despite my constant conviction that I am still only 17, my birth certificate disputes this and tells me I was born in late 76, which means I oughta I guess have found some kinda idea by now about what I might want to be

Simularly, having explored the prospects, one might consider, based on interests and what one enjoys... I had to ultimately admit going into the sex-industry, for want of a better phrase, probably actually wouldn't be such a smart move My education, masters degree and BSc only seems useful for providing rather acletic if pathology-based, or biology-based pillow talk... which although often highly amusing isn't necessarily the best use it could be put too

Thinking back, to jobs (however few I've had), that I did enjoy, I don't think it was necessarily a question of 'what the job was', or what it 'involved', or even what sector, or what the work involved; that which I enjoyed the most, was that where I could see a real purpose to it, and that which potentially had actual benifit to outside people, and well, I guess slightly over-pomposly stating it, was potentially able to 'make a differnce' to actual people, in their lives... even if some of th work in this, itself, wasn't exactly stimulating or wildly interesting or enguaging...

I think I've found a vocation in life though..... the perks are good, but the wages suck but it doesn't always occupy my mind as much as I'd like, for as much of the time as I'd like... and having a bored mind, useually ends up getting me in trubble.... injuring myself.... or... both

Still toying with the idea of turning one of my favorite things, cooking, or baking, into some kind of vocation/job, and, I guess, luckily it might work out that it'd not even necessarily need to be a multi-million pound creating enterprise to work, but I do think I'd enjoy it, and it'd ... at least keep me occupied and focuses, and perhaps, even, maybe, to an extent, keep me out of trubble Plus.... it'd provide satisfaction I guess, as I'm getting so increasingly disgusted at the rip off prices for sub-standard food, that is both sold, and seemingly lapped up by t those who purchase it... (£5, for a filled baguette? really.... they're not even trying with the filling, let alone the bread....)

Of course... maybe just stumbling through, with a series of seemingly unconnected, or unrealted occupations, etc., is the only real way to go, for those of us, who can't have a clear idea, or just lack the diretion to get one of these 'career' things... at least it can I guess provide variety, which hopefully in itself, even if the individual jobs/careers arn't ideal, provides some level of stimulation via change and doing differnt things, at differnt times but... hmmm... I dunno, on some level being a 'kept boy/girl' is kinda appealing, even if one does wonder what skills, tallents, and indeed education etc., might be being wasted by doing so...

You just made me at work.

All of a sudden I just pictured a job interview:

"So, what strengths could you bring to the job?"

"um... seksual things "

Oi!; you've been looking at my CV haven't you?

Very few people have a nicely planned out career these days - jobs change so quickly, especially in any sort of technologial or IT sector. Google "Shift Happens" for an illustrated overview.

Most people have - like you - a career history portfolio. It shows you can adapt and change, have persistence and a willingness to try try try again.

There are a couple of people I first encountered on here who I really admire because they've taken things they enjoy and made careers out of them - Mina (dog-walking, training) and Azahar (tapas tours & social media). I do think they're the exceptions, though.

There was an episode of Friends in which Chandler, a data processor or some such, went to see a career advisor to find out what his ideal job would be. It turned out he was ideally suited to data processing. That's me, that is. But like Sho, I see my job as a means to pay the rent.

I think I peaked early, got good O levels then at 18 lost all interest in education and just wanted to get out there and earn. So I got a job as a hotel receptionist and have drifted along ever since.

I'm now an "accounts assistant", which means nothing as I do everything from answer the phones to paying the salaries. To be fair, I'm quite happy pootling along but I've been with my current employer for 18 years (that's 62% of my working life) and my salary has only just left the teens. My skillset can be fairly easily replaced but then it should, in theory, be fairly easy to find another similar job if need be.

Well, this post has resembled my career path in that it's ambled along going nowhere in particular

Deb

"Very few people have a nicely planned out career these days - jobs change so quickly" [Beatrice]

Even if you have a long stretch in a job, chances are you'll have on-the-job training to help master the technological changes. I had a relatively dull job, and I did things I enjoyed on the side. Now that I'm retired, I've reconnected with all the hobbies I've ever loved.

I go into shops and try to imagine what it might be like to work there. I walk past lane dividers that are planted with flowers and try to imagine who tends them to make them look so great. When I watch sports being played, it's harder to imagine being able to be one of the players, but there are sports I do play, and I'm curious about how I could improve my strokes when I watch Olympic swimmers. I walk through a park and wonder how the scenes would look if I photographed them.

The whole world is there. It costs nothing to observe it, and there's plenty that can be learned by observing.

Ah, the good old Vocational Guidance Counsellor sketch, in which the chartered accountant is told that he should be a chartered accountant:
Well I now have the results here of the interviews and the aptitude tests that you took last week, and from them we've built up a pretty clear picture of the sort of person that you are. And I think I can say, without fear of contradiction, that the ideal job for you is chartered accountancy. ..
Your report here says that you are an extremely dull person. You see, our experts describe you as an appallingly dull fellow, unimaginative, timid, lacking in initiative, spineless, easily dominated, no sense of humour, tedious company and irrepressibly drab and awful. And whereas in most professions these would be considerable drawbacks, in chartered accountancy they are a positive boon.'

When I was a child I always said I wanted to be a train driver – but then that was before BR got privatised – or an astronaut. Or quite possibly Superman. Knowing what I wanted hasn't helped with my professional life.

<BB<

*shakes head at the generalisation of chartered accountants*

When I was young, I wanted to be an astronaut. Having read Chris Hadfield's book (personally signed copy!)I now recognise that I'd have hated it. Having your every move planned and scrutinsed, going over tedious step-by-step instructions, no privacy...

I also wanted to be a ballerina. Sadly I wasnt good enough to do that professionally, but it's been a fun hobby I've been able to enjoy and modify over the years. I'm currently contemplating qualifying as a Scottish Dancing instructor, so I might be able to make a bit of pin money from it when I retire from the dizzying delights of accountancy

It's not what I said about chartered accountants, its what Monty Python said. Alas, there isn't a Monty Python sketch about University Administrators...

<BB<

A friend, who I've remained in contact with, from primary school (so I've known him since age 5 or therabouts).

Wanted to be; a train driver.

Was absolutely obsessed with trains as a kid....

He went off to University, and basically did a degree in being an astranaught ....

Then worked as a err, person at insurance company who's job is to make sure no one gets any money.

Then worked at sea, doing fancy radar things.

Now. He's a train driver which, luckily, gave him, the ability, at a school reunion, a few years back, when telling everyone what he know did, to say
"yes, I'm living the dream" I doubt he's put his degree to much use in train driving, or anything else he's done really Or indeed his MPhil I think when I grow Up I might be a lumberjack... - balarina is tempting, but I don't think I've got the legs... coordination, grace, rhythm... or... body for it

My wise old dad took me to a careers' fair when I was 16 or so, looked around, and said 'Of course, there's no such thing as a planned career'.

I didn't really understand him then, but I've got a better idea now. I didn't plan it at all, but the various jobs I tried were all, it turned out, leading me to the job I do now. And it's a job I love. I don't mean it's never tiring or dull or difficult. But, as I have to earn a living, I'm thankful that I do so in a way that broadly I enjoy.

It wasn't what I wanted to do 'when I grow up' - mainly because I had no idea such a job existed, or that I would be capable of doing it. I was very clear about what I wanted to do when I grew up, but I was categorically told during a careers interview that I couldn't do it. So I drifted along and ended up here.

During my drifting I identified things I *didn't* want to do: work in retail, work in the private sector, spend all day talking to and dealing with people. I struggled to identify what I *did* want to do, though, and in that sense I never did work out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Just one day I woke up and found that I had.

Mol

I am almost embarrassed to say I have spent most of my adult life doing enjoyable socailly useful work in my choosen field, it has taken a lot of determination and sacrifice, and having to put up with people constantly telling me how lucky I am - luck had nothing to do with it.

When I was 15 I thought I might like to grow up to be a French chef or an opera singer. I ended up as a librarian, telling people where the bathroom was and getting paper jams out of the printer. if I ever got a question requiring knowledge of French literature [which I majored in], the patron would invariably tell me I didn't know what I was talking about, even though I really did.

Dealing with the general public can give you gray hairs, but so can getting older.

I think you are missing the point. Why grow up?