Career Counselor

You know, I've always thought that if money were no object, I'd just go and work in a bookstore. Ya know... shelving books. Smelling them all day. Arranging them on shelves, like I compulsively do on my shelves at home, only I'd get paid. Bliss!

But Bookseller Chick's blog has disillusioned me for good, especially her post about least favourite customers. "I really hate getting yelled at," she mentions casually. I'm so naive - I simply can't imagine, in the far reaches of human behaviour, yelling at a bookseller. Really - there is no circumstance that requires yelling over books. You do not yell over books. Ever!

Like most writers, I've also daydreamed about a job in publishing. Ya know... reading all day. Going to meetings about books. Talking about books with a bunch of coworkers who also talk about books. Bliss! But it doesn't take long at all to get disillusioned with that one - all you have to do is read a few publishing blogs, in which agents and editors freely discuss working evenings, weekends, and holidays for very little pay - and that's after they've worked their way up the ladder from being an intern.

I can relate. I was a travel agent once, which is also one of those jobs people think "sounds fun." Sure. Low pay? Check. Long unpaid hours? Check. Yelled at? Check, check, check. I hated being yelled at, but the weeping was the worst thing about it. You'd be surprised how much weeping happens in a travel agent's office - the guy frantically trying to get a flight to Australia to see his sick mother, the woman whose flight to help move her mother to a nursing home is inexplicably cancelled, the woman whose flight change is going to make her miss her cruise. Yelling is bad, but trust me, weeping is worse.

So, bless blogs for their career-counseling wisdom. I wish blogs had been around when I was a travel agent. I wonder what it's like to be a florist?