I once had delusions of being a veterinary technician. I found a local education program and, on inspecting the application materials, was somewhat surprised to see that one of the requirements was 40 hours work or observation in a veterinary clinic. My pets’ vet kindly agreed to let me hang around. Within five minutes on my first morning I was helping to hold a family’s beloved cat as it was euthanized. A few minutes later a good Samaritan brought in a stray cat that had suffered an unfortunate traffic encounter. And so forth and so on — nothing radical in a vet’s experience, but overwhelming in mine. I discovered that I am far more squeamish that I thought, and that a veterinary career is not for me.
This week I have had a similar, if not nearly as gruesome, experience. The librarian at my elementary school asked me if I would substitute for her for most of the week while she created a giant wall mural with the handprints or names of every one of the 700+ kids at the school.
So I’ve put in about 20 hours in the job I was considering applying for, and I have to say: this job is not for me. It’s noisy and interrupt-driven, neither of which is especially good for a Pooch’s mental health. And there’s an awful lot of complaining and gossiping that seems to go on around here. Suddenly, doing search-engine quality control from my own computer, on my own schedule, doesn’t look so bad!
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