Sparks Fly

"Computers are the future", I was told by the career guidance teacher, "There'll be plenty of work in that".

In my old school, the position of career guidance counsellor was a sort of repository for senescent dodderies. My counsellor was an affable relic that was kept-on out of some kindness. There was some unspoken financial matter in the chap's past that restricted him from taking to pasture as he clearly needed to do. As a result every pupil was individually slumped before the fellow, to spend an hour of their life that they would never recover, as he dispensed the worst vocational advice known to man.

His determination of one's ideal path was algorithmicly linked to the most recent exam results. So the bookish were pushed towards the professions while less accomplished academics were told that lifelong nirvana could be obtained from a trade.

I was able to save the man the bother. Having made up my mind that software engineering would be my life's work at an early age. Even back in 1988 the grey had a vague notion that "computers are the future", and I saved myself perhaps 30 minutes of wasted teenage time.

Nearly 20 years on and I'm less certain. On the face of it the less erudite school boys have enjoyed two decades of unbelievable wealth accumulation. Sitting as I do now, in a home that demands the attention variously of chippies, sparks and plasterers. They can more or less name their price and certainly command hourly rates that make me blanch. That, of course, is if you are lucky enough to get a quote from them. I've had tradesmen who didn't turn up, electricians that took one look and vanished into the ether and a single quote from a sparks with a lasso and ten-gallon hat.

It seems to me that I would be a rich man had I taken up a trade in preference to a career in computer science. I don't blame the should-have-been-superannuated man. My mind was set and he could no more have made me pursue a life as a mason than as a medic. I fear the mistake was mine, but I do fear it was a mistake.