Careers seem less appealing with age

Just the other day, as I was considering my career possibilities in the newspaper business, I started thinking about how I originally became involved in journalism.

It is thanks mostly to my mom and partly to my indecisiveness for getting me interested in journalism in the first place. When I was a sophomore in high school, I never thought my mom’s suggestion to take journalism as an elective course would eventually lead me to my passion in life, my current job and desired future profession.

When I was young, I enjoyed playing house, waitress and grocery store with my sister and friends. At the time, all of these occupations sounded great to me, at least in theory and in my imaginary, play world.

It is funny how your perceptions quickly change as you get older and learn from life experiences. After working at Sonic for three years in high school as a carhop, I could never see myself employed in fast food. If there’s one thing I have learned from waitressing, it’s that people are very picky about their food and can be very mean. Getting food and drinks thrown at me while wearing roller skates is not something I want to subject myself to ever again.

Basically, being a homemaker (which is a job in itself) while working is the only thing that sounds appealing to me for my future.

In fifth grade my dreams of being a meteorologist were crushed after researching the job requirements and discovering the math involved in predicting the weather. I already knew at that point that English, not math or science, was my strength. Severe weather and tornadoes will always be a fascination of mine, however.

Needless to say, my science project, which consisted of facts and pictures of tornadoes, complete with a twister made of clay, collected dust in my parents’ basement for a few years until it was finally thrown out.

While meteorology and journalism are very different in their descriptions and qualifications, they share one thing in common: an unpredictable nature. Kansas meteorologists in particular never know when they will be tracking a blizzard or a tornado, regardless of the season or month of the year.

I chose the even more erratic job, one that requires you to report on breaking news or a sports event on a moment’s notice, and be willing to completely change a page design after several stories are cut from the budget.

My job search is starting to shape up in this same manner. With the unstable job market and slow economy right now though, I suspect that most college graduates are going to take a roller coaster-like path to their prospective careers.

Maybe I can fall back on tornado chasing if the newspaper gig doesn’t work out.