When I was little girl, I had very big dreams for my eventual professional life. You know the old mantra of a person being "a doctor, a lawyer and an Indian chief?" Though it may be politically incorrect, it pretty much summed up my youthful ambitions: I wanted to be everything.
As everyone -- from my coworkers to the girl behind me in line at Bodo's -- keeps reminding me, graduation is fast approaching. I swear, if one more casual acquaintance asks me what my plans are for next year, I am going to kick them.
Constant inquiries do, however, force me to think about this eventual yet inevitable future.
For most of my high school and collegiate years, I was very career-focused. I held the firm belief that I would graduate with my handy bachelor's degree, go off into the world and live in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan off my entry-level salary. (It was only after my New York-dwelling relatives had a fairly serious discussion with me that I realized I would have to supplement that salary with a multi-million dollar lottery ticket to afford a closet in the city.)
Not only did I severely overestimate my future earnings, I also overestimated my desire to work. Four years in an college environment, as academically challenging as our fine University may be, has hardly prepared me for work in the dreaded real world. For example, I doubt my penchants for sleeping late and considering Wednesday a major social event will be kosher once I have to wake up at 7 a.m. (or -- horror of horrors -- earlier) five times a week.
And so I have decided to get a fake job. I coined the term a few years ago after many of my older acquaintances dealt with their fears of true employment by working jobs that did not require their hard-earned and expensive college degrees for the first years after college.
My personal favorite example of a fake job was the child of my father's colleague, who left the University with a commerce degree and then went to Utah to work as a clerk at an outdoors store for two years.
Make no mistake, I am no way dismissing the fake job. It pays the bills. It allows you to travel to far-off states or countries or to become a permanent fixture in Charlottesville, whichever your heart desires. Perhaps most importantly, it provides an important transition period between college and corporate life that may help you figure out what you actually want to do with your life.
While I may appreciate the beauty of the fake job, I'm not sure my parents are so keen on the idea. After all, they had to work real jobs for a fairly significant time for my college tuition to become a reality.
My mom has recently developed the habit of listing every state where I might find employment, in an attempt to both help me find a real job and to prevent me from fleeing the country, work visa in hand. By contrast, my father has taken to reminding me of the many ambitions I have considered over the course of my 22 years: "Remember when you wanted to be a lawyer? You can still take the LSATs, you know." Thanks, Dad.
Maybe that's the key to finding my calling. Instead of getting a fake job, maybe I should carefully consider the professional ambitions of my youth. Let's see: hairdresser, Vegas blackjack dealer, firefighter, ballerina, lawyer, marine biologist and the real-life C.J. Craig.
(Two asides on that list: 1) What girl do you know who didn't consider becoming a marine biologist at some point; and 2) If you didn't get "The West Wing" reference to C.J., you and I will never be friends.)
Yep, that's the answer. Instead of getting a fake job, I'll go back to my true desires, expressed in the innocence of my childhood. Then again, I'm not sure becoming a firefighter with red ballet shoes was really what my parents had in mind when they sent me to college, either. Screw it, I'm going to graduate school -- the true calling of anyone desperate to continue avoiding the real world.
Laura's column runs alternating Thursdays and Fridays. She can be reached at lsisk@cavalierdaily.com.
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