That Could Have Been Me

In late 2001, I was laid off from my first career job - a communications position at The Comedy Network. Losing a job was terribly humiliating, but the silver lining meant that I was no longer forced to watch The Mike Bullard Show for a living. The Mike Bullard Show was the kind of program that people would say "I wouldn't watch that if you paid me" and the fact that I was employed, in part, to watch it, proved once and for all that I was a liar whose standards could be bought off for the low price of $31,750 a year (before taxes).

Unfortunately, I wasn't the only person who got the post-9/11 job-heave-ho and I recall that a lot of people were out of work in my field. Because opportunities were incredibly lacking, I spent the greater part of 2002 working as a temp in various offices (oh, the stories I could tell), doing part-time work for a call centre of an online casino (another story goldmine), and daydreaming about winning the lottery (I probably still have the Excel spreadsheet somewhere detailing how I would divvy the money up among family. Just kidding, I wouldn't share any of it).

During this time, I also explored a few different career paths and seriously looked into going to Teacher's College. I even started filling in the form. That is, until I got to the part of the application that suggested I acquire a few hundred volunteer hours working with children. And my reaction:

Volunteer with kids? UUUGGGHGHHHH. Fuck that.

And that's when I knew that I probably shouldn't apply to be a teacher.

But if I had gone along with it, I can 100% envision myself being the kind of professional Cameron Diaz plays in this trailer for Bad Teacher (except without the hot bod, the need for a boob job or what will surely include a Full House-esque lesson - delivered by children - about how great it actually is to be a good teacher. Pretty sure I'd still be horrible and dead inside.):

Warning - the language is awesomely colourful (see: lewd). If your workplace, spouse or child isn't down with the f-bomb, you might want to put on headphones!