【英语生活】职业顾问应该改行

When I was 16, a careers adviser came to my school. She made me do various tests and then told me to avoid any job that involved words. I would be better off, she said, doing something technical; however, if I fancied a bookish career, then I might be able to make it as a librarian.

This didn't appeal to me – all the less so as my dad was a librarian – and so, with a 16-year-old's contempt, I dismissed her, her pathetic tests and her even more pathetic recommendations. What a shower, I thought.

Alain de Botton has recently had a similar experience and reached a similar conclusion. When researching his new book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work , the populist philosopher took himself off to be assessed by a career counsellor, who told him that he would be okay at most middle-ranking managerial jobs, and then suggested medical diagnostics – or leisure.De Botton thought the whole thing pretty pathetic too. Indeed, he was not only dismissive of this advice and adviser – whose office apparently smelt of cabbage – but has condemned the entire industry on the strength of it. He argues that, given that we spend most of our lives working, it is extraordinary so little effort goes into making sure round pegs are in round holes.

Now that I'm no longer 16, I feel much more philosophical about it than this philosopher. It isn't the fault of counsellors that the advice is almost always miles off the mark. It is because the whole idea of career advice is hopeless. Even the best tests in the world would not help as there is no formula for matching round pegs to round holes. Finding the right job is as subjective as finding the right spouse. Whether or not our job suits us depends not on our aptitudes – most people with a reasonable education are capable of doing most white-collar jobs – but more on whether or not we fit in, which is something we can't know until we try.

Not only is career advice hopeless at telling us what is the right career but it can't even tell us what is the wrong one. My counsellor urged me to avoid words on the perfectly sensible grounds that my reading speed was painfully slow, my spelling terrible and I confused “there” and “their”. However, not being obviously good at something doesn't mean that you shouldn't make a career of it. You just need to want to succeed at it enough.

De Botton claims that, in the absence of better advice, most adults end up stuck in jobs chosen by their 16-year-old selves. This is nonsense. Most people who don't like their jobs don't stick in them for a lifetime – they try something else. The process is like dating. You go out with someone and, if it doesn't work, you dump them and move on.

In any case, I think 16-year-olds can be quite good judges of what will suit them. From time to time, I go to career evenings at my children's schools and talk to teenagers about journalism. The first time I did this, I was horrified at how gormless the pupils seemed. I asked them why they wanted to be journalists and they shrugged and said they liked the idea of it. But then I realised that, as they have no notion of what working life is like, they base their choices on looking at people they know who do that particular job and seeing if they can imagine themselves being that person. This strikes me as the best test there is. Why I eventually opted for journalism wasn't because I wanted to write but because friends of mine were journalists and I wanted to be just like them.

Modern 16-year-olds seem far wiser about their careers than most of my school friends. We were too busy rebelling to think straight. My husband, the son of a Tory MP, spent his late teens and early 20s wanting to be a Marxist revolutionary. My first stumbling career move was into banking – equally shocking in the eyes of my leftwing parents and an equally bad choice for me.

Could this be why de Botton wanted to be a philosopher? His father is a wildly wealthy Swiss financier. The only philosopher among my friends is the son of a shipping tycoon and I wonder if there is a pattern here. If your father has devoted his life to adding to his stock of wealth, surely the most rebellious thing one can do is not only to find money meaningless but also to make a career of finding meaning in meaning itself.

More songs

Last week's column remarked on how few pop songs there were about office life. This prompted a heroic search by FT readers for further examples. Thanks to their efforts, I've been able to put together a white-collar Top 10. It goes like this.
1. “Daysleeper” – REM
2. “Frankly Mr Shankly” – The Smiths
3. “The Day Before You Came” – Abba
4. “Working for the Man” – Roy Orbison
5. “Matthew and Son” – Cat Stevens
6. “Sick Day” – Fountains of Wayne
7. “I Need a Holiday” – Scouting for Girls
8. “Step Into My Office, Baby” – Belle & Sebastian
9. “Manic Monday” – the Bangles
10. “Money for Nothing” – Dire Straits.

This last song is a slight cheat as it is about a nine-to-five worker envying the job of the rock star: “That ain't workin'/ that's the way you do it/ get your money for nothin'/ get your chicks for free.”

我16岁时，一位职业顾问来我们学校。她让我做了各种测试，然后告诉我不要从事任何文字类工作。她说，我最好从事技术工作，如果喜欢知识型的职业，那么我或许可以当一位图书管理员。

这对我没有吸引力——特别是我父亲就是一位图书管理员。于是，带着16岁的轻狂，我对她、她那可怜的测试和更加可怜的建议嗤之以鼻。我心里想，真是一派胡言！

阿兰•德波顿(Alain de Botton)最近有过类似的经历，并得出了类似的结论。在为新书《工作的喜乐哀愁》(The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work)做研究时，这位平民主义哲学家请一位职业顾问给自己做评估。顾问告诉他，他适合大多数中层管理工作，其次是行医问诊——或者休闲行业。

德波顿也认为整件事相当可悲。事实上，他不仅鄙视那位顾问——此人的办公室明显散发出卷心菜的味道——和他的建议，还在此基础上对整个行业进行了抨击。他指出，鉴于我们大半生都在工作，在确保工作是否适合自己这一点上用心如此之少，实在是很不寻常。

如今我已不再是16岁，我觉得自己比这位哲学家更能洞悉这个问题。职业顾问的建议几乎总是风马牛不相及，这不能怪他们，因为职业建议本身就是完全没有希望的。即使是世界上最好的测试也没有用，因为什么工作最适合自己并没有公式可以套用。找合适的工作与找合适的配偶一样全凭主观。工作是否适合我们并不取决于我们的天赋——多数受过适当教育的人都做得来多数白领工作——而更多地取决于我们适合，这要试过才知道。

职业建议既不能告诉我们什么职业适合，甚至也不能告诉我们什么职业不适合。我的顾问劝我不要从事文字工作是十分有道理的，因为我的阅读速度其慢无比，我的拼写很差，我分不清“那里”和“他们的”。然而，不擅长某一方面并不意味着你不能干这一行。你只要有足够的决心取得成功。

德波顿认为，由于缺乏更好的建议，多数成年人最终都坚守着自己16岁时选择的职业。这是无稽之谈。如果不喜欢自己的工作，多数人不会一辈子陷在里面，而是会尝试别的行当。这个过程就像约会。你跟某个人出去，觉得不对路，你会抛下他们，继续前行。

无论如何，我认为16岁已经能够很好地判断什么东西适合自己。我有时会去我的孩子就读的学校参加职业晚会，跟青少年谈论记者工作。第一次这么做时，我惊异于这些学生看上去似乎是多么的傻头傻脑。我问他们为什么想当记者，他们耸耸肩，回答他们就是喜欢这个念头。但接着我意识到，由于他们对工作毫无概念，他们就根据自己认识的从事某种具体工作的人来选择，看看能否想象自己是那个人的情景。这在我看来就是最佳的测试。我最终选择当记者，并非因为我想写作，而是因为我周围的朋友多是记者，我希望自己跟他们一样。

对于未来的职业，当代16岁的青年似乎远比我们当年聪明得多。我们热衷于叛逆，以致不能直接思考。我丈夫是一位英国保守党议员的儿子，在十八九岁到二十出头这段日子，他一心想当马克思主义革命者。我第一次选错行是进了银行业——这让观点左翼的父母十分吃惊，对我自己来说也是个坏选择。

这会是德波顿想当哲学家的原因吗？他父亲是一位极其富有的瑞士金融家。我朋友中唯一的哲学家是一位船业大亨的儿子，我不知道这里面是否存在一种模式。如果你父亲毕生致力于增加他的财富，那么你所能做的最叛逆的事肯定不光是抱定钱财无用论，而且还要将之付诸职业实践。

白领之歌

上周的专栏谈到描写办公室生活的流行歌曲真是太少了。英国《金融时报》的读者自告奋勇搜索了更多歌曲。多亏他们，我才能编成“十大白领金曲”。榜单如下：

1. “Daysleeper” – REM
2. “Frankly Mr Shankly” – The Smiths
3. “The Day Before You Came” – Abba
4. “Working for the Man” – Roy Orbison
5. “Matthew and Son” – Cat Stevens
6. “Sick Day” – Fountains of Wayne
7. “I Need a Holiday” – Scouting for Girls
8. “Step Into My Office, Baby” – Belle & Sebastian
9. “Manic Monday” – the Bangles
10. “Money for Nothing” – Dire Straits.

最后一首有点凑数，是讲述一位朝九晚五的上班族羡慕摇滚明星。

译者/岱嵩