Jobs, pay and the future

I had an interesting discussion with my youngest daughter the other day about the future, job opportunities, etc.—the kinds of things we all worry about for our kids.

My daughter was clear that she wanted a good job. ‘What constitutes a good job?’ I asked. ‘One that pays well,’ was her reply. Well, that’s a valid answer. It’s great to have a well-paid job, but is that what makes it a good job? And what about being well paid? As I tried to explain to my daughter, ‘well paid’ is  a relative concept. You may work in the public sector and be lucky enough to have  a ‘well-paid’ job. If so, your notion of ‘well paid’ will be quite different from that of someone who works in the private sector and has a ‘well-paid’ job, simply because salaries are higher in the private sector than in the public sector. ‘Yes, but as I said, my definition of a good job is one that it is well paid,’ replied my daughter, coming right back at me. She’s not a fan of shades of grey!

When you’re young and don’t have any experience of the workplace, it’s easy to think that the ride will be straightforward. Good school education. University. Good degree. A good, well-paid job should follow, shouldn’t it? But that’s not always the case, of course. It can be difficult to get your foot on the first rung of the ladder, let alone end up in a position where you are senior enough to earn a good salary. Furthermore, it’s not just a case of getting a good degree; which degree is highly significant as well. As we all know, a degree in a science or engineering subject is a much surer route to a high earning job than is a degree in the arts or humanities. My daughter would like to do something that involves writing and pointed out to me that I had said that medical writing is well paid. That’s true—it is. But what she’d failed to take on board was my additional point that in order to be a medical writer you need at least a first degree (preferably a PhD) in the life sciences. So, medical writing isn’t an accessible career for someone with a degree in English.

On second thoughts, perhaps it’s better that we’re not aware of all this stuff when we’re young. Maybe it is just best to aim for what you love, in the belief that things will come together exactly as you would wish them to. After all, there’s always the chance that they will—and, if not, maybe it’s best to save up the disappointment and negativity for later!

How people's live can change

It sometimes amazes me how people's lives can change over time; how someone's life can begin on one trajectory and end up on quite another.

For example, many years ago, when I lived up in Scotland, I had a very close friend. We were studying for our PhDs together and we saw each other most days. She was even a bridesmaid at my wedding.

My friend was (obviously) very bright and she was talented in other ways, too -- she was outgoing, sociable, and a great comedienne and mimic. I have no doubt that she would have excelled at stand up, had she tried it. She was the heart and soul of any party and she was also a bit of wild child -- an extremely heavy drinker and a bit of a flirt. She was great fun to be around. And she seemed destined for a successful career, gaining a temporary lectureship at a time when jobs in academia in the humanities were almost impossible to come by.

Yet, not long after I received my PhD and moved down south, things seemed to take a turn for the worse for my friend. She gave up her job. She was in a car crash. And the next thing I heard, she had been sectioned.

Our lives took quite different directions and we gradually drifted apart. We exchanged Christmas cards for a while, but eventually lost touch completely.

The other day, in an idle moment, I did a Web search for my old friend and was shocked to find that she had been the subject of a missing person search. She had disappeared and police had appealed for witnesses, saying that they were becoming increasingly concerned for her safety, as they considered her to be "vulnerable". To my relief, she had been found safe and well a few days later.

But all of this made me think how transient success can be. Someone can apparently be headed in one direction, and then something can just change, which makes their life veer off in another direction altogether. My friend should have been a successful academic (that's where things seemed to be going), and yet, ultimately, her life has turned out quite differently.

The optimism of the young and the cynicism of the middle-aged

When I was out and about the other day I overheard two young shop assistants discussing their futures. They were talking about the degrees that they were currently studying for and how much they were looking forward to joining the world of work. One of them was hoping to enter the publishing industry, working with art books (her degree was in history of art, I think). “I just love the look and feel of those books,” she said. She sounded so excited, so enthusiastic, so full of energy.

I wonder what happens to us in middle age? Of course, some people still love their jobs, but many (at least those who I know) do not. Work is a means to earning money, to maintaining a certain standard of living, but the day-to-day grind is, well...a grind. I spent many years working in the publishing industry (and still freelance in the field). The work is fine, but certainly not glamorous. The reality is all about the bottom line, rather than the books, trying to get as much done with as little resource as possible. It’s much the same in most industries today, I think.

I look at the up-and-coming generation with awe. My oldest daughter is a case in point. She already, at the age of twelve, knows what she wants to do career-wise. And she is enthusiastic, articulate, confident, as are all her friends. I just don’t remember my own generation possessing such maturity and poise at such a young age. As middle-aged parents we need to be careful not to dampen our children’s spirits, not to tarnish their optimism with our cynicism.