Wednesday, December 04, 2019

101 Things #33 - Professing ignorance

When people compile bucket lists of all the things they'd like to do before they die (or reach 30, or some arbitrary age), they tend to choose those items that, once essayed, can be done fairly quickly and definitively. For example, visiting the Grand Canyon. You go to the South Rim (or North if you like things a bit quieter), lean over, try and keep your lunch down and tick it off. You've done it.

It's always a little strange trying to deconstruct things that must be done over a much longer time frame and where you can never be quite sure that you've finished. Let us review a proposal on the Lifelot website, where amongst many recommendations suggested as worthy ambitions, we find the notion to
Try a profession in a different field.
 

This one definitely goes straight into my bucket list reject compilation 101 Things I Refuse To Do Before I Die and does not even pass Go or collect £200 on the way. Perhaps the suggestion is tongue-in-cheek, casually jotted down to make up the numbers. I can't tell.

Do people really consider "trying" a new profession something worth doing in it's own right? I can see the point if you have been struggling for years with your chosen path, go home with headaches after trying to understand what the hell is going on, react in bafflement at articles in the trade journal, blench when you look at the questions in the exam papers, have been told in no uncertain terms by your bosses that they see more aptitude in your waste-paper basket than they do in you - yes, you should jack it all in and follow a different path, thank you for calling, that will be £250 plus VAT and do call in again at Ramblings Careers Advisory Service.

In all other cases we are dealing with someone set up in, and progressing, in a profession. (They must already be in one or the suggestion to try one in a different field makes no sense.) But why give up what you are already invested in? Professions are not like sweet shops - you don't pop in for some peppermint lumps one day and chocolate drops the following week. They need full time attention and a lot of diligent study. I know - I qualified for one many years ago and it was a lot of hard work and loss of much free time to get that precious bit of paper at the end. Having done all that, the incentive to shrug, pick up a phone book and stick in a pin to find a new occupation was not there.

In any case how do you go about this trial (or should that be try-on?)? Do you roll up at day 1 on the Medical School and chat to the kindly old admissions registrar in this way?

"Tell me Mr Smith, why do you wish to become a doctor?"

"Well, I've done a couple of weeks of engineering and couldn't get on with the slide rule, spent a day with a Lego set at the architects college but then I thought I'd have a bash at doing the old curing bit, you know, sticking needles in and setting the odd broken limb."

 "And what makes you think you are cut out for medicine? Does it run in your family?"

 "Not as such, but I do have a toy stethoscope, I got it from my nephew's junior doctor kit"

 "Ah, excellent, I think we can find a place for you ...."

And the minefield concealed beneath that innocuous "Try". [sarcasm mode on] Yeah, sure, you can join the Army for a few days, just to see if you like shooting people. You can whiz up to the International Space Station for lunch and then come back for a afternoon leading prayers at a nearby cathedral. Why not run the financial affairs of your country for a bit, they're always looking for help at the Treasury. And there's nothing like nipping down to the cells at the Old Bailey and seeing if you can get Krusher McNasty off a GBH in a new record time. [mode off]

No, it doesnt go like that, does it? You need the right qualifications to apply. You need to convince employers to take you on and train you. And you need big shoulders to shove aside all the other dingbats who are queueing up outside the admissions office trying to tick one off their own bucket lists. It may take months or years before you know if you will succeed. Obviously, I am not in need of a job change, having retired from one some time ago. But even if I was it would be a serious decision and not done just to get me over the line in the bucket list race. In short, even if I was in that fluid state of starting out on a career, I still would reject point-blank the notion of starting one and then "trying" another.

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