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Careers are bullshit - do a job you can tolerate

So, I am a Traffic Management Designer. 
I draw plans for roadworks. Yeah. I didn't sit down with road maps as a kid and go "fuck yeah! This is what I wanna be when I grow up!"... But here we are anyway. 

I was angry about it all for a long time, though. Had this shitty metric for career success as being University educated, or Trade Qualified and working in a field I loved. 

Two things I have learnt about this, that changed my perception:

1) There is nothing quite like over exposure to something to make you eventually tired of it or bored of it, or even hate it;

And, 2)Getting University Education is fucking expensive, and I earn more money than many Grads doing what I do. 

Nothing against Uni, but the World needs all types, the thinkers and the doers. I just happen to be both. 

So I tried for many years to get through Uni. I have a half started Agricultural Science degree, Business, and Psychology as well. This, unfortunately, was all within the time frame of my own personal 'Fuckening'; where my dearest mother decided to create mayhem in the lives of those around her, and cause I gave a fuck about her, I wasn't about to let her die alone. Regrets - (now!) Zero. Regrets -(then!) So fucking many. Man I was mad. I was seeing kids whose OP's (High School Senior Grades or HSE or whatever) weren't a patch on what I had done (mid Fuckening too, mind) go out and get bad ass jobs after finishing bad ass degrees and doing cool shit. I was up to my eyeballs in debt and looking after a mostly nuts, terminally ill parent. So I struggled on, trying to make ends meet. Desperately fighting for a chance. Trying to study externally - I sucked at. I need to attend classes. Got an apprenticeship as an Electrician underground in a Gold Mine. Life struck again and I came home when a family members cancer diagnosis meant living 8000km from home wasn't going to be possible any longer, amongst a whole host of other problems.

So I fell into Civil Construction. Traffic management specifically. Having a brain and initiative, I stood out. Big fish in a small pond. Got all the tickets and started auditing. Loved it. Shrinks would love to break it down... The rules and regs, the outside the box thinking, the camaraderie on job sites with the boys. Good times. 

Then I fell pregnant and things changed again. Ended up gaining my Design licence and started my own business. Entrepreneurship is not for everyone, mind. It's been rough. But now, I work around my daughter's kindy and after school sports. I refuse to work Mondays. They are my days. 

The point I am making is, I don't absolutely adore what I do. It facilitates the life that I absolutely do adore. The work -  I am good at it. I listen to podcasts about true crime while I work, take lunch when I need to. Get bored waiting for engineers to get stuff back to me and step on my horse for 30 minutes. 

Do a job that facilitates your life. 

Work to live, and your life will be fuller and richer for it. 

Em, x.

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