"I Wanted To Be A Fire Engine"

As a kid I didn't really think about work. I'm not sure I even thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up much.

When I was about two, I told my family I wanted to be a fire engine. Not even a firetruck. A fire engine. I don't know what I thought the distinction was but I knew what I wanted and what my plan was and no one, regardless of their logic, could change my mind.

At some point I must have realized this was impossible and smoothly transitioned to wanting to be a librarian. I don't know if that's something I really wanted or if it was just a profession I knew existed.

So many kids want to be doctors or lawyers or teachers because those are the jobs they know about. And that totally makes sense but most of us don't do those things. Obviously some people realize those dreams seeing as we have lots of doctors, lawyers, and teachers but most of us are doing something else.

It's not something bad. Or boring. (Well... it might be bad and/or boring.) I think usually it's fine. If you like your coworkers and you aren't dreading going there every day, you're actually in good shape.

Once I entered the work force, I had dreams beyond being a fire engine or a librarian. I wanted to be a writer. A television writer. I decided to shoot for the damn stars. 

I'm not a television writer. Not to say I couldn't have been or still couldn't be (actually, I think it's fairly safe to say I can't be). I went to LA where you're supposed to go for such things and I had some jobs. Receptionist, assistant... they were okay. Hard and long and tiring but okay. Yet until I was there, I don't think I knew what work even was.

Sure, my dad was getting up and going to an office everyday when I was growing up. I even went with him a couple of times. And I saw the offices and the cubicles - I knew there were meetings and phone calls. Though I mainly remember the food court and the TV someone found for me to watch.

When I was working in an office myself, I realized a few things:

1. There's a lot of time when you're not doing anything. It's not that there's nothing to do or that you're slacking off but there are just periods of time when you and everyone else are not being productive. I don't know if the days are too long or we need more work or built in breaks but either way, every office I've worked in has these long stretches of time where nothing is really happening but everyone is pretending to be busy. 

2. Good relationships with your coworkers are insanely important. I don't think I could name most of my friends' and family members' coworkers. Sure, you know the ones they work with closely and tell stories about but other than that, they all get mixed together in your head. Yet your own coworkers are actually the people you see more often than almost everybody else in your life. Being friends with them, or hell, even just getting along with them, is actually super important if you don't want to be miserable everyday. You rejoice with them and complain with them. You know about their roommate drama or their ongoing wedding plans. You know what their career goals are and where they want to buy a house. Yet you'll never meet their parents and might not even know their significant other. It's a bizarre relationship that can span years yet it's not really ever talked about. When I was picking a major, my mom told me to pay attention to whether or not I liked the people in my classes because those were the personality types you'd probably be around forever. That's the only time it ever came up and I think my mom is a genius because it turns out she was exactly right.

3. This shit can get monotonous. I like my job. A lot actually. But when adults are telling you about getting a job and you hear about the 9-5, no one mentions that it's often the exact same thing happening within that 9-5. This is obviously incredibly dependent on what your job is, but even when I've had jobs with projects and ever changing deadlines and meetings... it was still sort of the same. School was like that too I guess, you may have learned something different but you were still waking up at the same time, going to the same place, talking to the same people, and doing essentially the same thing. Now I'm not sure I'd actually like if every day was a surprise, in fact, I'd probably hate it. But the sameness came as a bit of a shock to me. It almost felt like college was a long prep course for sitting at a desk, staring at a computer, and getting really good at it.


This isn't meant to be negative. It's just interesting that so many of us go to school to get degrees to do hundreds of jobs that aren't really talked about until you're looking at job listings on LinkedIn and Indeed.

Most of us work for a paycheck and to have somewhere to go everyday and it's not the worst or the best but it's what we do, so we can go away for long weekends and get dinner with friends and save up vacation time to check out a new country.

So if this is you and you get up and go to an office where you chat with people about the last episode of Game of Thrones and do some work on the side while you climb the ladder so you can make more money every year and are pretty content even though most mornings you want to break your alarm until you get to work and see your favorite coworker in the kitchen... then embrace it. Maybe no one told us about this but here we are, among the masses, and I for one, don't hate it. I get a check, I learn some stuff, and the rest of my time is mine. Living the 9-5 life is like some sort of well kept secret that no one understands until they join the club. Well, here we are and I think I'm here to stay.