That’s not a real job..

become an engineer they said!

Aft Ashes
3 min readMay 7, 2021
Photo by ThisisEngineering RAEng on Unsplash i.e. that’s not me. But the drawings look interesting.

That’ll give you a chance at a great future. Respect. Permanent employment..

Hah! Just goes to show how little they knew.

So despite the fact I topped English and wouldn’t take my head out of a book I took their advice and went off to get a “real” job.

And on a scholarship no less!

I love reading. Now that I’m out of the rat race (truck driver card rather than airline pilot) I spend more time reading than anything else. My daughter’s insomnia might have something to do with that I suppose but, probably not.

Because it’s either reading or Fishdom while I’m sitting here in bed. And I need addiction to online gaming like I need another cookie! (What’s wrong with cookies? Eat those emotions!)

And I blame Amazon Kindle unlimited. There is NO way I could read all that great GameLit / LitRPG stuff if I was paying by the book. I’m like that competitive eater who goes to the all you can eat restaurant every day and gets banned within a week.

Addiction sucks. At least mine has less health impacts than others.

Fortunately Jeff B is making way to much money from every one else to notice my abuse of his reading buffet. So I’ll keep doing my book or two (or three, four, five) a day and see how long it lasts.

On that note — drop me a line if you’ve got something you want read. I did end up getting a degree in rocket science after all — and I’m always looking for something to read!

Talking back to you about your work will help treat my Medium addiction by forcing me to not just read, but write too.

I’m an addict. What can I say — the first step on the path is to recognise that addiction.

The next is to use it! Or did I get that wrong?

But seriously..

You kids today — you just don’t know how good you’ve go it! The idea that you can just write, and with platforms like Medium, get paid “something” for those words.

And if you struggle with writing, you can always just talk at a camera and leverage youtube. You can create and get paid for that creation.

I didn’t have that sort of choice back then. Hey don’t get me wrong, engineering was cool — it opened a bunch of doors. But when those doors close… writing, creating.. those are things you can do on your phone while you’re stuck in bed these days.

Engineering? That, like most occupations (real jobs) is a seriously team based sport that requires infrastructure and overheads. That will get you stuck in someone else’s office all day. Nope! No more.

So now that I have the choice of Medium and the like, I’m here to stay and to make my new way as I rebuild my world and life.

Because here I can talk about everything from warmongering to painting nails, or even sandpits.

Talk more soon!

Aft

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Aft Ashes

Arise! Ashes, Arise! Talking about starting again — just like Frankenstein’s monster!