Job selection

By Jack Krayenhoff

Do you know this problem? I have a grandson who is very smart, an engineer with very good marks throughout his school, who now has an excellent job that has to do with artificial ice. He gets paid plenty, has a responsibility at 27 that makes me dizzy, and has an easy-going boss who likes everything he does and asks him to do nothing he does not like. Sounds to me as if he walked straight into an ideal job, and that if he hangs on a little longer he’ll be asked to be in management.

But does he share my enthusiasm? No. In a few years he may want to be something totally different. He may want to travel a bit; he does not know. Do something that does not resemble engineering at all.

Looking back to my youth in Holland, we had a different view of a career. For one thing, your choice was already made when you opted (or more accurately, WERE opted by your father) for the high school. Some of them were preparatory for university and my father decided I was suitable for such a one. Then there was a school for technical higher training, but also for most other university fields. However, you did not get any Greek or Latin there, and you could not study law or theology in university. Then there were a few schools that prepared you for less university-oriented positions. So you can see that your position in life was largely pre-determined at an early age.

That meant that at grade seven it was decided I should go to university. That suited me fine, for by then I had decided to become a doctor, and I have never regretted that. But I thought that everybody had made a similar decision regarding his own profession, or at least would find other options within his circle of possibilities.

(Furthermore, I was ready on my graduation, to get married. That meant a choice of a partner for life, for a job for life. Both choices cast in stone, which made me wonder: will the choice of partner be any different? For that would be a prescription for divorce. But that is a different subject.)

Is life not an exercise in circles which are wide and diffuse at first, and narrow down as they get greater definition when we mature, till in the end we have a clear definition what our job should be? And then do what we can with the job? Cut the distractions out. Concentrate on the employment, get the experience. If you have other things to do, put them in a bucket, and wait till you are retired. You are young at 65!

To come back to my grandson, the engineer: I think that I’ll advise him to remain on his job and go far in it. Be faithful to his employers, and also to his employees. And get married. If he has persuaded his wife to also opt for the lifestyle he has chosen, let her know it is a stable choice, where she has room for her own employment. Or, dare I whisper it? Has the opportunity to look after her kids?