© Pierre Maré,
2004 - 2007
Offbeat 03
I always felt there was something missing from my career guidance at school. In hindsight, it must have been me. Now, after thousands of long working days of personal research in the field of having a career, I am able to reveal what I ignored while my mind was elsewhere and while I was trying to be cool and fit in.
My sincere career advice to kids is, become nerds. People pay nerds money to know stuff. Nerds invent things like Play Station. My advice to guidance counselors is, tell the kids that if you stay home, read and study, instead of partying till you fall over and your parents have to come and fetch you, you may become a nerd.
Don’t become a geek. A geek is a nerd who knows lots about one thing that everyone else ignores. Geeks collect train timetables and information about cold drink bottles from 1957 to the present.
Nerds make informed career choices. Becoming a digital animator may seem cooler than a swimwear shoot in an industrial freezer, but guys who go for pixels and refresh rates will be made redundant by a software routine. Nerds know because they are working on the routine right now.
Nerds do not usually go into politics either. It doesn’t pay as much as they can earn in the private sector and they know that, to change the world and enrich and improve peoples’ lives, all they have to do is get patents and intellectual property rights for stuff that everyone wants; DVD players, a cure for HIV AIDS and the software routines for instant replays in slow motion.
But you don’t have to be an inventor or scientist to be a nerd. Guys who crack calculus become actuaries and earn enough to have money left over after the bond payment. The weird joker who confused the teacher is probably arguing away evidence of major malfeasance at a couple of hundred an hour. And the one who got photosynthesis and transpiration first time round is probably now raking in the green stuff as a dermatologist, as well as the inflamed, scaly stuff.
You don’t have to be a genius either. Einstein failed mathematics and became a clerk, but he stuck at it and refused to let go. If you work at it long enough and hard enough, you will get somewhere.
Getting somewhere usually means a foot in the door and working for someone, an occupational hazard in any career. But if you persevere, sooner or later people will work for you. If you really do well, you will have people who work for a manager who works for you.
Don’t be discouraged if you aren’t a nerd yet. A couple of hundred hours in low light, bent over a desk, squinting at a book will give you a hunch, a paunch and the need for a pair of glasses. When the work begins to pay off, you will be able to afford corrective laser eye surgery, a personal trainer to rebuild your posture and muscle mass and a personal life. Just remember to eat, and open the window for some fresh air from time to time.
It’s never too late to begin your transformation from a butterfly into a bookworm. Opening a book is the first step. Digesting the page is the second, and before you know it the pages begin to read themselves to you. Every page adds to you. All you have to do is find the time to read, and a way to use the knowledge.
Ignore people who tell you that you are not cool or you don’t fit in. As your knowledge grows, other people will begin to think you cool; recruiters, people who decide on the number of zeroes on your salary cheque and the people who depend on you.
The joys of being a nerd are immense. The fact of the matter is that if you spend time on your mind and your skills, you will lead a comfortable if not wealthy life, but beyond that, there are other pleasures. Never in your life, unless you fall over at too many parties, will you want for respect. You will always be in demand and your responsibilities will grow, no matter how many strikes you had against you when you started out. And when everyone around you is bored, you will have something interesting to keep your mind busy.
More than that, you cannot ask.
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