Forks in the road

forgive my lack of casing, i'm not feeling in a capatalistic mood tonight.

working at a recruitment agency has it's advantages and disadvantages. on the one hand, i'm confident that i could prepare a rockin' c.v. (for the US-bound, that's short for Cirriculum Vitae -- a sort of much expanded resume designed more to sell oneself than conform to any standards) for myself now, as well as at least a half decent cover letter, and probably get myself an amazingly high percentage of interviews per jobs applied for (at least for the jobs i'm qualified for). on the other hand, my job involves typing c.v.'s for other people nearly all working day, every day. it may occasionally make for interesting reading, but, at least in my case, it leads to much thinking (even brooding) about one's current place on the career ladder.

being pregnant doesn't help this. pregnancy, at least for first time mums like myself, naturally involves much future-thinking and trying to figure out where the heck i go from here.

so where do i go? the way i see it, i have four main paths open to me.

there's the obvious route of being a full time, home-based mother. undoubtedly the most noble of the options, probably also the most rewarding. there's the obvious financial disadvantage (even improbability in our case) to counter-act that, and the danger of one's voice permanently rising an octave and baby-brain taking over permanently...

continuing straight ahead on my current career route, however (and thus assuming i would enter full time employment fairly quickly after childbirth) there's the mundane, oft-trod if proven path of rising through the clerical ranks. i hover at the moment somewhere between typist and secretary depending on who's asking for what and when, but at any rate, i have proven computer / keyboarding skills and decent organisational skills. only thing i lack is vast experience, and i'm getting that now. within 3-5 years i could probably be a mid-level P.A. earning a respectable, if not glamourous, amount of pay. i think i'd enjoy the work as long as i had the right boss / team, and i'm confident i'd be good at it. of course, the very nature of the work means there's no glamour what-so-ever, little reward or recognition, a definite lack of mental stimulation, and often long hours in mediocre conditions as well. it is, quite possibly, the 'easy' road ahead. straight, relatively flat, highly travelled, but beware of driver fatigue.

veering slightly off to one side, there's the possibility of becoming a consultant for the agency -- this, or for that matter, any other agency. don't get any ideas now -- a consultant, at least for a private firm such as this, is really just a salesperson. but sales people on the whole make fairly decent money and often get some wicked perks depending on the job. that said, selling 'people' into jobs is a lot different than selling product and/or business -- and it may prove difficult to ever move on from being anything other than a recruitment consultant, and thus it's possible the road's a dead end. or at least a cul-de-sac. however, the ride there would be exciting -- high pressure and cutthroat at times but leading to a definite sense of accomplishment. the job is never the same two days in a row, there's always something to strive for (such as that high-dollar client) and things going on. it's a thinking job working with people primarily one-on-one, which is my strength. and my current admin skills, while not necessary, are quite useful nonetheless.

and finally off to the left, there's the originally-intended route of getting a B.A. and doing something with it. the problem here being, well.... what exactly that 'something' is. a b.a. has been my goal for the past four years and still i find that i have no clue what i intend to do with it. my fear is, i'd settle into a nice comfy administration job, with a nice hefty student loan and a fancy piece of paper to show for it, and yet, not be using a damn thing from it. this being n.z. and not the u.s.a., experience is still touted highly whether you have a paper to back it up or not -- a degree is not, therefore, needed for any job that doesn't involved "fries with that". with a b.a. i would qualify for at least a few more jobs than presently, but the vast majority of the one's i've seen in the past year or so don't excite me.

one of the consultants today asked one of the candidates, via phone interview, "what do you want to be doing -- what gets you out of bed in the morning?" i've been thinking about it since then and i still haven't got a clue.