A Spotty Record
I don't know about life, but certainly work, is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans.
It's hard to get everything in a job. The kinds of casual jobs I had in my teens were relatively low pressure but low pay. It was interesting when I worked at the music shop in Chatswood, but that paid very little. It paid a little better to move tubs of groceries around the parcel pickup service at Grace Brothers. The bosses were kind of dumb and the work itself was unrelenting tedium, but it paid something. Coming out of my teens and in my early 20s, I lucked out and got to work at the ABC. The ABC was great - I had a great boss and the boss above her was great. There was a bit of pressure and responsibility, and there were lots of interesting bits of gear with which to play. And you learned a lot just being there. After that job I went back to study and when I came out the other end, we were slap bang in Paul Keating's recession-that-we-had-to-have. So I was back to being more, in-and-out-of unemployment for some time. After a series of interesting gigs I landed a steady job making educational videos. It was interesting work and my colleagues were great but my boss was grumpy and the pay was low. I was sort of okay with my boss but then he hired an EP specifically to bully me - he told me so - so that was pretty bad. But then the EP quit once I told the whole office about that situation. After which my boss sold the company and retired early. I've often thought he probably did that just to see the back of me.
After that I ended up at a production house making corporates. It didn't pay well, the work was soul destroying and my colleagues were shit. Just seriously smug, petty, shitty people. The experience kind of burned a hole in my soul. After going freelance and bumming around again going gig-to-gig, I ended up working for an events production company with that little tyrant. The work was okay considering it wasn't my area, the pay was okay, job security was not, and I kind of knew it was going to blow up one day - not because I hated the job or anything, but because the emotional immaturity of the little tyrant made it inevitable that everybody ended on bad terms with him and left. It was just a matter of time. Considering all that, I think I lasted a good little while there. The life lesson there is that I don't have issues working with assholes, but assholes are always going to be assholes. I can control how I feel about working for assholes, but I can't control asshole bosses.
All this is to day it's hard to get much work satisfaction when you don't work in your area; and it's hard to get a lot of money when you do work in your area and like doing what you do, because they know it, and low ball you. As a result I've decided I can handle boredom but not stress, especially if I'm not going to work in my area. Chances are if you do something boring, it will pay a bit better than if you do something interesting.
What you're doing then, is making rent.
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