Plan A

I am getting ready to start a new job in a week and I've had a few friends bring to my attention the fact that I tend to switch jobs quite a bit. I was ready to protest when I realized that this will be my fifth job in six years. Am I really such a job slut? I think the reason I don't settle into a career is because, like I tell my mom, I'm just not the working kind. I want to write. For a living. Everything else is a time filler, bill payer. Why is that so hard to understand? I don't like 9 to 5. I don't like thinking I'm going to be doing the same thing for the next thirty years. I've been told I just haven't worked somewhere challenging enough but I don't find it gratifying to have a challenging job, mainly I just find it a pain in the ass. All of it. The jobs, the bosses, the coworkers and everything in between.

Most jobs require some interaction with other people and these people expect you to be happy 24/7. They expect to hear excitement in your voice first thing in the morning and are astounded when what they want sometimes you can't give to them. I'm not happy first thing in the morning. I don't wake up jumping out of bed looking forward to a new day. I need coffee. I need peace and quiet before people start demanding things from me. I need time for my brain to wake up. I don't know how I'm going to overcome this when I have children but that is something for a whole other day.

I feel I got gypped as far as my college education. I don't say this because I didn't go to a great school, have fantastic teachers or have the best time of my life, because I did. I say this because having a college degree doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. Employers want you to have a master's degree at the least, want you to have worked in the Peace Corps, found the cure for cancer and climbed Mount Everest all in the same year. They always want more and more and more. And my answer is no. No, no, no. Although I'm punctual, responsible, reliable, an excellent employee, I don't take pride in this. I don't feel better about myself because I do a good job. I feel better about myself when I make someone happy, when I fix someone's problem. I feel better when I feel like I've experienced something exciting or traveled somewhere new. Sitting at a desk for eight hours doesn't make me feel like an important contribution to society.

In the back of everyone's mind I feel they want to know what I'm planning to do if this writing thing doesn't pan out. What my plan B will be. I don't have plan B's. I have plan A. Plan A is doing what I want. Plan A is refusing to be rushed or pressured into a life that I don't want to live. I won't feel inadequate because I job hop. I have waited forever to have this kind of freedom where whatever I decide to do with my life is up to me and only me. I don't know if you really ever have the chance to be so selfish except for after school and before marriage, so I am going to take full advantage.

So all of you with a backup plan maybe you are smarter than I, more prepared. But then again maybe you're just scared that what you really want isn't what you're going to get and you will settle for a runner-up, plan B kind of life. And that might work for you. But not for me. I told you, I'm not the working kind.