So, tomorrow I’m going to be twenty one. It’s kinda scary really. I’m more than halfway through college, studying a horrendously esoteric combination of subjects… I’ve no idea what I want to do when I’m done, and only a very vague idea of what I don’t want to do. On paper, I’m experienced, bright & talented… Hell, I almost didn’t get one of the jobs on there because they reckoned I was overqualified – and the guy I was replacing had left to go to NASA!
In practice tho, I feel underqualified, underexperienced, and rather less than competent at almost anything. I can proofread well… Other than that, I don’t think I can identify anything I excel at… Maybe it’s because I surround myself with such talent, and if it is, I guess that’s a good thing. I sort of miss being in Microsoft. Not all of it, granted. But there was a while, when I had the process for the stuff I was managing down pat, I knew exactly what I was doing, I was getting it done on time, and much more efficiently than had previously been possible… I loved that time, I loved the little extra things I was able to take on, the various bits and pieces I was able to manage because I had my real job down to a T. I loved having the time and freedom to play with the tools available, to figure out how they worked, to learn them so well that when the monthly update happened, I could figure out within a day or so what had been changed, and how it was gonna affect me. Of course, then I had to outsource my work, and give the job on to people who weren’t interested in learning, trying, experimenting and so on, and things started falling apart.
It’s rather worrying to be barrelling down on the last milestones on the way to adulthood, and still not have a clue where I’m going… I’ve always had a goal, up to now, but it’s usually been of the form “Finish …” – finish junior school, finish Junior Cert, finish the IB, finish Schols, finish my year at Microsoft, finish college… What happens then!? Scary, scary stuff.