(This post is part of the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge. You can find links to other writers' answers over at Long and Short Reviews.)
Prompt: A job I wouldn't be good at...
So this one is obviously following up from last week's challenge, which asked about a job that I'd be good at. And last week's reply... rambled a bit... but it did come up with some interesting possibilities.
As for jobs I wouldn't be good at, well... All right, how do I narrow down that list? I mean, I wouldn't be good at being an accountant or an architect, but that's mainly because I have absolutely no training in those areas. I've already mentioned that I'd need to really work to try to get back in shape for anything with a strong physical component -- which I believe I could do, but it wouldn't be easy and I wouldn't be good at any of those sorts of jobs until I got there. Any kind of management position where I had to be a hardass about things... I mean, yeah, I'd be bad at that, but also I'd hate it so why would I put myself in that position? A management position where I had a good team under me, well... that would be something else altogether. I could (probably) do that. Any job that required sycophancy is right out, too: I have a very strong tendency to say exactly what I'm thinking, and I can't control my expressions at all.
But those are all just general categories of things, and the prompt specified a job. So here we go, I'm going to pick one single job that I wouldn't be good at.
Psychopomp.
As much fun as the word is to say, I would not be good at conducting the souls of the dead to the afterlife. It's not that I would mind interacting with dead people, even dead people who might feel deeply salty about, y'know, just having died. I worked in customer service, I can deal with that. I wouldn't have an issue with crossing to the next world, glimpsing otherworldly wonders or terrors, perhaps even dealing with eldritch monstrosities. I'm not completely unfazeable, but I'm pretty good at taking things in stride while they're happening (and then possibly panicking afterwards, if needed).
No, none of that would be the problem.
It's the ADHD. I'd just... I'd get distracted, and then there'd be these souls wandering around waiting for me to remember that I'm supposed to come pick them up and get them sorted out. Next thing you know, the living are reporting sightings of ghosts and the heavenly bureaucracy is backed up because the recently deceased aren't where the paperwork says they're supposed to be and it's causing delays in the whole system...
Yeah. Never put me in charge of getting the dead to the undiscovered country.
Sooner or later, all hell would break loose.
No, I don't think I'd be a good Psychopomp either, Michael (great word!). I'm also one of those people who can't control what their face does. I have a bad habit of rolling my eyes in frustration. Or, sometimes even in sarcasm.
ReplyDeleteI do sometimes wonder what my career might be like if I were better at hiding what I'm thinking.
DeleteCreative answer! Yeah, that would be a tough job for sure.
ReplyDeleteAnd I would be very bad at it!
DeleteI wouldn't be good as an accountant or architect either.
ReplyDeleteYeah, there's just a lot of basic training that I'd be missing there...
DeleteHaha, yes! I'd definitely not be good at that either.
ReplyDeleteIt's harder than it looks!
DeleteI wonder if anyone ever would want to be a psychopomp?
ReplyDeleteI did not even know psychopomp was a thing??? (Apparentmy neither does my autocorrect who thinks it should be psychosomatic.) But now that I do know what it is, this should have been my answer because I am in exactly the same boat. Someone would start telling me about how they died and then it'd be 3 hours later and I wouldn't have noticed and there'd be a line of irritated and justifiably upset dead people and I'd be fired. Though I guess on the up side their annoyance might have taken the edge off their upset over their predicament? Also thank you for the laughs. That was fantastic.
ReplyDelete