Posted: June 14th, 2006 in General »
I was trying to explain (again) what I do for a living to my family when visiting my aunt & uncle last weekend & it occurred to me that for practically my entire adult life, I’ve earned my income via the internet. I did have the requisite shitty jobs in high school (hockey arena, bakery, retail), but after I turned 18 the only job I’ve held that didn’t involve the internet was as a professional java slinger in the same building as the tech support call centre I eventually migrated to. After a few years of helping people use the internet over the phone, I absorbed enough knowledge from the uber geeks around me to strike out on my own, designing websites for local companies & eventually doing the affiliate marketing that I still do today.
So the question is: if Al Gore hadn’t invented the internet, what the hell would I be doing with my life?
I honestly have no idea. I’ve been trying to think back to what I *thought* I wanted to do while I was still in school, but after even a month of freshman classes it was clear to me that my ideas about my intended profession were skewed. I entered college planning to become a psychiatrist. Since medicine is so competitive & hundreds of applicants with perfect GPAs are still denied entrance each year, my back up plan was to get a Phd & become a psychologist. Yes, plan B still entailed 7 years of schooling.
But in my first year I noticed something about the people choosing the psych profession - there are a LOT of self-absorbed, over-analytical, messed up people who are drawn to the field because they have their own issues to work out. You see women who have rows upon rows of self help books at home who are so busy worrying & processing WHY someone said something that they don’t ever DO anything. In direct contrast, I had my comp sci class that had (mostly men) who wanted to figure out how to create, how to solve problems, how to DO things. They didn’t stop to ponder how the computer felt about the program they were coding. They were too busy making things happen! This was for me, I decided.
That’s not entirely true - I also had aspirations to be a photographer. But even then, I had no desire to shoot weddings or work for clients whatsoever. I wanted to take photos that *I* wanted to take & when I wanted to take them. If I could find someone who would pay for those photos, awesome! If not, well I’d have to do something else to pay the bills. Working from home on my computer seemed like a perfect solution & it has been for 5 years now.
Back to the original question - what would I be doing now if the internet didn’t exist?
I still don’t have an answer.
I like to imagine that the entrepreneurial spirit runs so deep within that I would’ve found a way to start another type of business on my own & I would still be self-employed, but I have no family examples of this or role models I would’ve looked to for inspiration. The reaction I get from family members & even old friends when I explain that no, I do not work for a company & that I’m self-employed is always one of confusion. It’s as if being self-employed has honestly never even occurred to them. And I can only assume I would’ve been the same way. There was no Start Your Own Business checkbox on those career aptitude tests we took in high school & even though there are tons of grants & government loans for doing so, the option was never even mentioned in passing by any career guidance counselor that spoke to my class.
I did/do love to travel & had no problem working long hours & living modestly in order to save money for an extended holiday. It’s possible I would’ve found a job that may not have been personally fulfilling, but would’ve allowed me to live somewhere exotic. Unfortunately, I’m a really terrible waitress.
My ultimate dream non-internet job would be a travel photographer for National Geographic. This, however, is not an uncommon dream. Had I decided to chase this one, I’d likely be dropping off film & picking up Starbucks for the next 20 years AND grateful to be so lucky.
I am grateful to be so lucky. I’m grateful that I get to sleep in when I need to, start my day with long, unhurried walks with my dogs & have the option to spend time with my loved ones whenever I want. I do need to work hard & I do work long hours, but they’re MY hours. I can have a long dinner with my boyfriend or watch my nephew’s soccer game & then do a few hours of work before bed. I can fly home to take care of my mom without having to juggle shifts or vacation time. Plus I save time by not having to get dressed for work (no drycleaning for me!), commute both ways or run errands at the same time everybody else is. Banking, grocery shopping, washing the car, going to the gym - day to day tasks like these are sooooo much faster & less stressful when you can do them in the middle of the day & avoid the long line-ups with the after 5:00 crowd.
There are trade-offs too, don’t get me wrong. Working from home isn’t for everybody & things like time management, discipline, job security, lack of health care benefits & so on are major considerations before taking the self-employed plunge. But I’m happy I did. And I’m happy I did it when I was young enough not to know any better because I’m not sure I would have otherwise.
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