Enjoys the guilty pleasure of guilt free rest

When I told my neighbour what I was studying at college, she laughed so much tears streamed down the side of her face from her eyes. “Ooh, that has tickled me,” she said. Hey, I’m not doing circus skills! I’m not doing anything funny…for a change. Far from it, I’m learning a proper skill.

“I’m taking charge of my life to recession- proof my income”

“Why aren’t you doing comedy anymore?” She asked as if I could make money out of that in the next few months. Instead of living on a pipe dream, I’m taking charge of my life, attempting to recession-proof my income. I want to be able to provide for me and my daughter whatever happens. In these financial times, we are all taking on jobs we perhaps wouldn’t have done before. Tesco has law degree students on the tills, PHD graduates are serving me tea in cafés (resentfully). Everyone is buckling down and taking any work they can get.

It’s common now to have a ‘portfolio career’ where you have a few different jobs that compliment each other. Or even a few jobs that are vastly different! I know people who work in shops and bars so they can afford to do a creative job that doesn’t pay very much but makes them happy.

My grandad would have found it very confusing that people don’t seem to have just one career anymore; he was a draftsman all his life. Yes, this meant his job was to draw things! He worked for an electrical company. When they needed a drawing of something, he was their man. Imagine the days before Adobe and Google images! “Bob, we need a picture of a lightbulb on the fifth floor straightaway”. It couldn’t have been an easy job though, what if they needed a crowd scene or a to-scale detailed drawing of underground electrical pipework?

I’d get angry at technology advancements but I really love my iPad, iPhone, Angry Birds… The iPad is excellent for job hunting… I wonder what future technology advancements will put more people out of work?

Could we have a shop where there were no staff? Where you just swipe your debit card on a kiosk to try on shoes and if you didn’t put them back in the kiosk, your card gets charged or something? I’m hoping one day I will come up with a really good idea like this and then I’ll never have to work again! Oh, but my good idea would put loads of people out of work…

I guess bars will always need humans, unless they invent a robot barman. And hairdressers couldn’t ever be replaced by a machine. I should have done a course in hairdressing. Oh hang on, I did years ago. As well as a personal training course and a nutritionists course. Seems I’m a course-aholic. No wonder she laughed. Perhaps I could become a course advisor…