get a real job
Mar. 27th, 2007 04:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
adelaideseanIt probably goes without saying that in 1984, at the age of 16, I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. But someone did--and that someone was a computer at "Career-Wise Pty Ltd". I don't think I'd even seen a computer back then, which really puts its achievement in context.
As part of our final year at high school, my fellow students and I were subjected to a battery of tests and issued a report that I stumbled across last night, while packing up my office for the Big Move. I'd completely forgotten about it until the slim white folder slipped back into my hand, seeming a much less substantial (even ominous) document than it had 23 years ago. I certainly had no recollection of its contents.
What, I wondered, had the diligent, possibly house-sized computer at "Career-Wise Pty Ltd" made of me?
My General Theme Scores indicated that I showed the most interest in "Investigative", "Artistic" and "Conventional" themes and least in "Realistic", "Social" and "Enterprising".
Being arty and curious and anti-social I get, but what the hell are "Conventional" themes? The manual is missing, so this section doesn't reveal much.
My Basic Interest Scores were much more illuminating. I scored way above the national average for Australian boys in the areas of "Science", "Writing", "Office Practices" and extremely low on "Athletics", "Agriculture", and "Domestic Arts".
That's more like it. My highest score was in "Religious Activities", but that contradicts nothing. No one thinks more about God than an atheist--or so my best friend's mother always tells me.
The bottom line, as issued by the giant mechanical brain of "Career-Wise Pty Ltd", was that I should be a Librarian or Computer Programmer. Not so far off the mark, really. Other careers I could have considered include Astronomer, Psychologist, University Lecturer and Archaeologist (which I'd wanted to be when I was 8, before the scribbling bug got me).
Surprisingly, Writing doesn't appear anywhere in the list of possible careers open to the younger me. Maybe "Career-Wise Pty Ltd" didn't think it was a viable trade, or at least not the kind they should be pushing onto boys emerging from an affluent private school.
So how did I respond to this advice? First up, I got a job selling grand pianos and DX7 synthesizers at Rose Music Australia, sole distributors of Yamaha to our fair land. Then I went to uni and bombed out of an Economics degree. Finally, in 1990, I abandoned my dreams of retiring young and got about the business of doing what I'd wanted to all along. And here I am.
Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the boffins probing the Class of 1984 and become an Unrealistic yet Conventional Priest who dabbled in Literature sooner rather than later. That would've saved everyone involved a significant amount of irritation.
As part of our final year at high school, my fellow students and I were subjected to a battery of tests and issued a report that I stumbled across last night, while packing up my office for the Big Move. I'd completely forgotten about it until the slim white folder slipped back into my hand, seeming a much less substantial (even ominous) document than it had 23 years ago. I certainly had no recollection of its contents.
What, I wondered, had the diligent, possibly house-sized computer at "Career-Wise Pty Ltd" made of me?
My General Theme Scores indicated that I showed the most interest in "Investigative", "Artistic" and "Conventional" themes and least in "Realistic", "Social" and "Enterprising".
Being arty and curious and anti-social I get, but what the hell are "Conventional" themes? The manual is missing, so this section doesn't reveal much.
My Basic Interest Scores were much more illuminating. I scored way above the national average for Australian boys in the areas of "Science", "Writing", "Office Practices" and extremely low on "Athletics", "Agriculture", and "Domestic Arts".
That's more like it. My highest score was in "Religious Activities", but that contradicts nothing. No one thinks more about God than an atheist--or so my best friend's mother always tells me.
The bottom line, as issued by the giant mechanical brain of "Career-Wise Pty Ltd", was that I should be a Librarian or Computer Programmer. Not so far off the mark, really. Other careers I could have considered include Astronomer, Psychologist, University Lecturer and Archaeologist (which I'd wanted to be when I was 8, before the scribbling bug got me).
Surprisingly, Writing doesn't appear anywhere in the list of possible careers open to the younger me. Maybe "Career-Wise Pty Ltd" didn't think it was a viable trade, or at least not the kind they should be pushing onto boys emerging from an affluent private school.
So how did I respond to this advice? First up, I got a job selling grand pianos and DX7 synthesizers at Rose Music Australia, sole distributors of Yamaha to our fair land. Then I went to uni and bombed out of an Economics degree. Finally, in 1990, I abandoned my dreams of retiring young and got about the business of doing what I'd wanted to all along. And here I am.
Perhaps I should have paid more attention to the boffins probing the Class of 1984 and become an Unrealistic yet Conventional Priest who dabbled in Literature sooner rather than later. That would've saved everyone involved a significant amount of irritation.
