Saturday, December 21

Hey internet, what should I do with my life? No, seriously.

It's been a bit of a mad year. I started driving, changed jobs twice, met a human, moved out of home and in with said human, and LOOK PURPLE HAIR!


PURPLE HAIR IS PURPLE AND IT IS ON MY (ALSO STAINED PURPLE) HEAD.

(Sorry for the terrible webcam selfie, but my camera was stolen and I don't know how to internet anymore.)

This year has been exhausting and uplifting and good-weird and bad-weird. I was diagnosed with chronic fatigue, which came from a combination of stress and anaemia. While taking iron supplements took the edge off (pills are the best!) I was still all uuuuugh, you know? Moving from spammy copywriting to being a downright content mill to doing social media full time - all within four months - was intense. And all that moving didn't make me happy, because I kept moving AWAY from stuff - horrible management, crazy output goals, soulless companies. The usual.

After a year of changes, I now realize something BIG needs to change. Not just the thing I do every day, but how I feel about it, you know?

I don't want to be stressed every day. I don't want to cringe or roll my eyes when I think of my job. I don't want to sit in the same chair for hours, browsing Buzzfeed and waiting for the work day to end so my life can start. I want to be doing something that matters, and moving towards something rather than treading water and paying rent, man.

And maybe it's immature, unrealistic, selfish and arrogant to want more than that  - after all, I am no special snowflake. I recognise this. I'm just another mildly talented, undisciplined twenty-something with a caffeine abuse problem.

But, despite all my grumblings, I'm an optimist. And I'm going to at least TRY to find fulfilling work. So I started researching what makes people not hate their jobs. The fabulous Brain Pickings directed me to this imperfect but helpful book. And it has an exercise in it that I can't do on my own, boo!

So this is the part where I ask for your help.

Oh wise, clever, sexy internet, please take a few minutes to read the thing below and tell me what you think.

This is basically a personal job ad - like a dating profile but less for finding suitable grope partners and more for finding a career path that doesn't make me want to cry in the office bathroom.

What I'd like you to do is read the thing, give it a bit of a think, and suggest 2 or 3 specific careers that you think match the description. (You need no qualifications to give your opinion - I just need may different voices with many different points of view.) It doesn't matter if I have the experience or education to actually do that job, just that you think it'd suit me.

Comment with your suggestions and it'll help me SOOO MUCH in deciding what the hell I want to do with myself next year.

Okay, enough foreplay, here's the thing: (that's what she said)


Slightly nuts young woman seeks fulfilling employment. 

Talents include:
  • Writing
  • Critical thinking
  • Events organisation
  • Doing tomahawk stops on skates
Job seeker is passionate about:
  • Music
  • Damn good TV
  • Feminism
  • Puns
  • Roller derby
  • Communicating with the written word
  • Sleep
Her personal qualities include:
  •  A love of learning
  • A desire to make a difference in the world (she strongly believes in the healing, restorative power of art)
  • A love of animals
  • A dislike of direct sunlight
  • A binge/purge approach to productivity
  • Problems with authority
  • An editorial eye
  • A loathing for half-assed work
  • A dislike of herding cats (aka telling people what to do)
  • Limited physical and emotional energy
  • Misanthropy
  • A playful nature
  • An internet addiction (she would prefer work that doesn’t involve staring at computers – she’s sick of that)
  • Crazy hair. 
She’d love to make enough money to be independent, buy nice food and not have to seek dental treatment in back alleys. 

What would be a great job / career path for Slightly Nuts Young Woman? Comment below!