What did you want to be when you ‘grew up’? Are you in a job that resembles that at all?
Me? I wanted to be a poet. I’m not.
Either a journalist covering (war zones/conflicts) or one of the crew member in a BBW adult XXX production house.
I’m neither. [;)]
I wanted to be a rockstar but I was working 10am-6pm as an assistant video editor for the past 2 years. This was the job that allowed me to make the move to NYC.
It was a great job and I learned a lot but it was not the career I wanted. I was making $22 and hour plus overtime.
I got fired last Wednesday for showing up to work late (due to partying). This was a repeat offense.
I realize now I was unhappy and drinking to excess because I was not on the path I wanted in life.
Now I am focusing 100% on my true path of rockstardom with a summer tour in the works. I will not get another cushy full time gig again. I will make it work with oddjobs, freelance writing/editing and Obama’s generous unemployment system.
This is what I always wanted and I am excited to embark on a new path of doing what I love. Fuck it!
I have not had a drink since the night before I was fired and don’t plan on it anytime soon.
Voidhead’s got the booze blues.
When I was a kid I wanted to be the guy that operated that giant crane that swings a big ass metal ball to destroy buildings. I wasn’t given much encouragement in this goal and my dreams were never attained.
When I was a kid, stuff like Heavy Metal and Mad were the reason I picked up a pencil and started drawing. I wanted to be the next Mort Drucker or something.
Now I’m unemployed.
[laugh]
I wanted to write and draw comics, too.
Now I’m an audio engineer, which results in far fewer hand cramps.
I never wanted to grow up. So far, so good.
I always wanted to work 10am-6pm as an assistant video editor, where I could learn a lot and make 22 dollars an hour, plus over time. I’d hoped the job would allowed me to make the move to NYC. Even though, really, Obama’s generous unemployment is what I’ve always wanted.
Instead, I’m unhappy and drink to excess because I can’t get a cushy full time gig. I work oddjobs, because I can’t freelance with writing/editing.
Thanks for bringing up some painful memories velvester.[pirate] I think I’ll go smeer some shit on my face.
Late,
grmpysmrf
Now I am focusing 100% on my true path of rockstardom with a summer tour in the works. I will not get another cushy full time gig again. I will make it work with oddjobs, freelance writing/editing and Obama’s generous unemployment system.
This is what I always wanted and I am excited to embark on a new path of doing what I love. Fuck it!
It’s cool that you are following your dream…and I wish I had the guts to do the same thing. But I’m too money obsessed and ''comfortable" to do anything about it (plus I’m getting toward middle age).
However, I would approach your dream with caution. The road to rockstardom is paved with OD’d corpses and crushed hopes. For every Axl Rose and Marilyn Manson, there’s some 50,000 wannabes with stars in their eyes now either working the counter at 7/11 or doing time as a stiff in the morgue.
Just sayin’ is all. And no, this isn’t a windup.
I have not had a drink since the night before I was fired and don’t plan on it anytime soon.
What?!? What kind of a rockstar to do want to be?
Either a Japanese cowboy or a swingin’ junkie.
Nah, I wanted to be a musician but wasn’t the most motivated. Still not. Maybe one of these days I’ll fuck around and do something… I also wanted to do cartoons, dirty ones. But family guy had to come around and rub it’s dick around. The comparisons came around and i stopped caring.
When I was a kid, stuff like Heavy Metal and Mad were the reason I picked up a pencil and started drawing. I wanted to be the next Mort Drucker or something.
Now I’m unemployed.
[laugh]
I never got into Heavy Metal, but I’d usually peek at it in the liquor stores as a kid because I knew I could see boobies. Mad Magazine was huge for me, though, and I used to have a humongo collection of classic issues and paperbacks all the way back to the early 60’s (could pick 'em up cheap at used bookstores and comic shops back in the day).
My all-time favorite was Don Martin. I felt so betrayed when he went to Cracked. Sergio Aragones and Al Jaffee were awesome, too!
I have absolutely no idea where my collection ended up. I had them all in a huge black trunk and don’t know if it is at my granny’s house, my parents’ place, or a landfill somewhere (most likely).
About 10 years back I bought some cheap frames from Wal-Mart and would rotate classic covers on display in my office.
Heh, I’m glad to see Mad magazine had such a profound influence on someone else. Mort Drucker kicks ass, I always love how his drawings have such a perfect blend of realism and cartoon caricature. Don Martin is one of my favorites too.
Basically my life after high school has been bouncing back from working odd jobs and attending college. I’ve worked as an embroidery designer, bicycle courier, fast-food bitch and cleaned up all kinds of body fluids working in a hospital to name a few.
I studied film production and post-production for a while but decided it wasn’t what I wanted to do, tried for years to pass math and foreign language requirements, challenges that I wasn’t able to overcome until very recently when I got tested for learning disabilities and was able to waive certain requirements. Back in college again, only 24 credits away from a degree in communications and public rhetoric. I’ll probably stay in school for another two years after that and try to get a masters just cause B.A.'s by themselves aren’t worth shit these days…
But no I’m not the rockstar or ballplayer I wanted to be growing up. Cheers to you Voidhead for still shooting for those dreams, even though “rock stars” are virtually extinct these days.
^
HAHAHAHAAHAHAA!!! Gary, that’s awesome! If my kid tells me he wants to be a bulldozer driver I’ll help him become the best damn bulldozer driver ever.
I think it’s bullcrap that schools and parents and other people try to tell us what we’re SUPPOSED to want to be. I’m totally happy with what I do now, but getting here was totally random.
I originally wanted to be a demolition man but, kind of like Carmangary, I was encouraged away from that and eventually just didn’t really even think of it as a possibility.
Then, when I was attending some orientation sessions for the University I was transferring to I told my mom, Law looks pretty interesting. Maybe I should take pre-law. She said something to the effect of “That would be a lot of work and you don’t like working hard.”
Well, good thing I majored in Sociology, though I was crapped on for that too. “You’re majoring in Sociology? That readies people for carreers in social work. You hate the people that these programs help and you disagree with almost everything that those institutions do and represent!”
I took the classes because I thrive in environments where everyone disagrees with me and I get to argue with them and tell them why they are all wrong.
I really think I could have been a good lawyer. Oh well.
I think when I took one of those aptitude tests it told me I would make a good airline pilot or a photographer.
It’s Money That Matters
Artist: Randy Newman
Album: Land Of Dreams
Of all of the people that I used to know
Most never adjusted to the great big world
I see them lurking in book stores
Working for the Public Radio
Carrying their babies around in a sack on their back
Moving careful and slow
(Chorus)
It’s money that matters
Hear what I say
It’s money that matters
In the USA
All of these people are much brighter than I
In any fair system they would flourish and thrive
But they barely survive
They eke out a living and they barely survive
When I was a young boy, maybe thirteen
I took a hard look around me and asked what does it mean?
So I talked to my father, and he didn’t know
And I talked to my friend and he didn’t know
And I talked to my brother and he didn’t know
And I talked to everybody that I knew
(Chorus)
It’s money that matters
Now you know that it’s true
It’s money that matters
Whatever you do
Then I talked to a man lived up on the county line
I was washing his car with a friend of mine
He was a little fat guy in a red jumpsuit
I said “You look kind of funny”
He said “I know that I do”
"But I got a great big house on the hill here
And a great big blonde wife inside it
And a great big pool in my backyard, another great big pool
beside it
Sonny it’s money that matters, hear what I say
It’s money that matters in the USA
It’s money that matters
Now you know that it’s true
It’s money that matters whatever you do"
Homemaker.
It was never about the money.
When I was in high school we had to take a formalized test to see what our aptitude was. We had to also write down what we wanted to do as a job after we got out of school. I said I wanted to be a bulldozer driver. Anyway, we all took the test and they sent it off to wherever the were sent. Eventually they came back and on my test results there was a message that said I was too smart for bulldozer driving. True story.
[:)]
When I was really young I wanted to be a window-washer. I saw some people doing it on TV in Chicago and thought how cool it would be to be high up there washing the windows to those massive skyscrapers. I was later informed that they probably worked too hard for too little money and I should shoot for higher ambitions.
Heh, your story just reminded me of that… “bulldozer driver” and “skyscraper window washer” both sound like childhood fantasy jobs.
Ha! I got a Sociolgy degree too!!! And I too was the “conservative” in class not just cause I liked to argue but most of those people are nuts!!
Btw had a letter printed in mad magazine when I was in 7th or 8th grade! Its the issue that has the blue cover and has a mike tyson and don king on the front. I busted their balls about subscription rates and stamps… I made a good point too, the editors changed the subject on me in their reponse!
Late,
grmpysmrf
I wanted to be rich and just…fuck around and do whatever the mood takes me.
Hey, wait a minute!! I’m actually living my dream.
Who would have thought??
Your example actually makes me realize something really important with respect that that guidance and aptitude bullcrap.
The asshats that are telling you what you should and shouldn’t do have no idea what those careers really pay or how such a choice may in fact be a perfectly acceptable and lucrative path.
For one thing, window washing is a HUGE money maker. The guys on the buckets make one pay grade, but if you’re a seasoned veteran you’d be working your way up and training others and running your own crew and maybe someday even have your own franchise, or at least a management position. Regardless, I can almost guarantee you’d be making more than a high-school guidance counselor.
These idiotic administrators have no idea of “the real world” because they were raised in and operate in a friggin’ vaccuum. If they had any idea about UNIONS and skilled labor pay grade, they wouldn’t be so quick to crush kids’ dreams of operating a steamshovel or driving a cargo vessel or something.
Or maybe they’re just bitter because they never followed their dreams either.
Jerks.