When I grow up I'm going to be a.....................

[GHT]

What job aspirations did you have as a child? Anyone achieve their goal?
My choice changed almost weekly, but I did rather fancy driving a steam locomotive.
At college my lecturer told me that a management career would suit me. He was not wrong, the greasy pole has been my life.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I always wanted to be on the radio. And I lived to regret it.

 

[tonyb]

I never had any concrete aspirations for an adult career when I was a youngster (no realistic ones, anyway), and I’ve been somewhat less than specific in that regard ever since. And here I am at what we used to call “retirement age” and I’m still passing much of my time working, but I wouldn’t call it toiling. I’m still bringing in some scratch and I have no plans for quitting any of my money-making activities. It’s not that I couldn’t “retire,” but work gives me some sense of purpose. It’s not such a bad existence.

A friend came into a wad — more than a million — when certain of his relatives croaked. He tried retirement and found it didn’t suit him. And I found that totally understandable.

 

[Turnip]

Growing up near a shipyard I always wanted to be a ship builder, what didn’t work out.
Learned boiler maker/pipe fitter instead, and worked on shipyards all around northern Germany anyway…

 

[Tiki Tom]

Well, my “childish” aspiration when I was a kid was to become an oceanographer. I think the television show “the undersea world of Jacques Cousteau” may have had something to do with that. I stuck with that one for a fairly long time and, as a kid, was an armchair student of the sea. My dad finally talked me out of it, using the excellent argument that my math and science grades were not up to it, and many years in university would have to be devoted to math and science if I seriously wanted to be an oceanographer.

My fallback dream was similarly impractical, but that one actually worked out well enough. Then, the stars aligned in such a way as to allow retirement last year. Although it is well and good that we came Home from overseas (my wife’s mother is in decline and it’s important to be here), I confess that I am a little bit adrift and not sure what to do with myself …beyond posting nonsense here at the Fedora Lounge, of course! Thank you, FL!

 

[Tiki Tom]

Growing up near a shipyard I always wanted to be a ship builder, what didn’t work out.
Learned boiler maker/pipe fitter instead, and worked on shipyards all around northern Germany anyway…

Don’t laugh, but I am a Freddy Quinn fan. It’s something I picked up from my Father, who shipped out from Hamburg. Can’t play him when my wife is around, though.

 

[Turnip]

As a kid I spent some good times in Hamburg. Many clubs around with lots of great live shows, dirty olde tyme harbor dives, tattooed ladies…but that’s just that kind of nostalgia of those who didn’t have to live and spend their daily grind there I suppose…

 

[LostInTyme]

I believe, because of my early employment in fast food, I at one time wanted to become a chef. An opportunity came along for a job in construction, and I took it. Fifty years later, I retired and took some gourmet cooking classes. Now I combine the skills I learned in construction in doing home repairs and maintenance. As for cooking, I enjoy planning and preparing family holiday dinners. Along the way, I managed to repair, rebuild and restore several automobiles as a hobby. All in all, I am fairly pleased with my life, my choices and career.

 

[Sertsa]

First a pilot, but my eyes were too bad.

Then a jazz musician, which I did for a while, but I was never going to get a Blue Note contract nor earn much of a living from it. Still, it was an experience, and while not jazz, pit orchestras were incredibly fun.

But I've done okay as a writer/editor. Not the kind of writing nor editing for which I hoped, but press releases, competitive intelligence analysis, and corporate communications helped finance more enjoyable endeavors.

 

[Turnip]

Made my master in 3 1/2 years of evening/weekend courses later and worked long time as a line manager in metal industry, what often turned out to be more kind of a kindergarten teacher. So I decided to go for a staff position instead and do my daily grind as a production planner in metal industry meanwhile.

 

[tonyb]

…

But I've done okay as a writer/editor. Not the kind of writing nor editing for which I hoped, but press releases, competitive intelligence analysis, and corporate communications helped finance more enjoyable endeavors.

I’m acquainted with people who left newspaper and magazine work to become “spokespersons” for one business or government agency or another. I know another who became what we may as well call a ghostwriter.

It pays the bills, and the thrill of seeing one’s name on a byline wears thin, especially when it comes with such a measly return.

 

[Brandrea33]

I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, as kid, or now as an adult.

 

[tonyb]

I had no idea what I wanted to be when I grew up, as kid, or now as an adult.

Call it a work in progress, a masterpiece.

 

[Sertsa]

I’m acquainted with a people who left newspaper and magazine work to become “spokespersons” for one business or government agency or another. I know another who became what we may as well call a ghostwriter.

It pays the bills, and the thrill of seeing one’s name on a byline wears thin, especially when it comes with such a measly return.

I've worked with and know a lot of former journalists, as well. The consolidation of media outlets, certain directives, and a general move to a post-literate society has caused many to look to other fields. At least I can still write articles and haven't been directed to communicate in GIF and short video form just yet.

 

[tonyb]

I've worked with and know a lot of former journalists, as well. The consolidation of media outlets, certain directives, and a general move to a post-literate society has caused many to look to other fields. At least I can still write articles and haven't been directed to communicate in GIF and short video form just yet.

A primary problem with online journalism had been that the barriers to entry were so low that the better stuff got drowned out in that s*** tsunami. But I maintain the perhaps naive hope that quality will make itself known and attract an audience and generate enough revenue that the talent will want to stick around. There’s reason to believe that’s happening now.

 

[Tiki Tom]

Meh. Writing to make a living is almost dead. People write just to see their words on a website. For free, or almost free. mostly it’s an ego thing. On the one hand, it’s the democratization of ideas. On the other hand, it’s a race to the bottom.

 

[GHT]

Meh. Writing to make a living is almost dead.

Has the internet killed of the best seller? Are we unlikely to see another Ian Fleming? It came as a surprise to some younger people at work that James Bond started life in print.

 

[Sertsa]

A primary problem with online journalism had been that the barriers to entry were so low that the better stuff got drowned out in that s*** tsunami. But I maintain the perhaps naive hope that quality will make itself known and attract an audience and generate enough revenue that the talent will want to stick around. There’s reason to believe that’s happening now.

I hope you are correct, but I am not optimistic. There are still publications and publishers that release excellent writing and journalism, but far fewer of them, even in the last decade. But some still exist and are publishing excellent work.

Personally, I also write one or two articles per month for a humanitarian non-profit, so I still get bylines on occasion.

 

[tonyb]

I hope you are correct, but I am not optimistic. There are still publications and publishers that release excellent writing and journalism, but far fewer of them, even in the last decade. But some still exist and are publishing excellent work.

Personally, I also write one or two articles per month for a humanitarian non-profit, so I still get bylines on occasion.

I fear we’ve been trained for shorter and shorter attention spans. People see a page of text and are intimidated by it.

I’m no exception, alas. I often jump from a book or magazine to my iPhone to the TV. For a several thousand word magazine piece to hold my attention it has to be exceptional. Such pieces can be found in the Atlantic and sometimes in the NYer, but in that latter example not as reliably as it used to be.

I haven’t seen my name on a byline in several years, and that’s fine by me. Going back 20 years and more ago I was editor and major copy contributor to an every-other-week startup, funded by the publisher (and other major contributor), a Microsoft millionaire who sometimes seemed to be of the belief that it was her great talent rather than her good luck that got her all that scratch. She was a quite capable writer, though, as was I, but so were countless others.

I insisted we run no bylines for the first several issues, until we got enough capable freelancers in the stable so that her name or mine wouldn’t appear above every story.

 

[belfastboy]

I’m acquainted with people who left newspaper and magazine work to become “spokespersons” for one business or government agency or another. I know another who became what we may as well call a ghostwriter.

It pays the bills, and the thrill of seeing one’s name on a byline wears thin, especially when it comes with such a measly return.

The most successful writer I know is a 'ghost writer' for a newspaper content provider. A regular, well paying gig. She never gets a by line, gets instructed on the 'what' to write about but she gets to write on an assigned topic as a regularly paying gig. For the newspaper they get quality content without the expense of a fulltime union journalist/writer.