The Rendcomb Magazine, May 1975 - The Old Rendcombian

contributionsMEET THE CAREERS ADVISERKevin Barraclough“NEXT, please!”I open the door and shuffle awkwardly into the Careers Room. A blaze of colourful leaflets flaunt their lusty attractionsat me:“Join the Professionals”, and get your guts professionally spattered on the ceiling of an Ulster department store.“Take up accountancy: the safe bet”. Yes, a safe bet to have a wife, three screaming kids and a mortgage on the suburbansemi-detached at thirty, with only the plastic pixies on the front lawn to comfort you in your mediocrity.The Careers Adviser looks up from his papers and flashes a Maclean‟s smile at me.“Do take a seat. Shan‟t be a minute.” He hands me a printed sheet. “Could you complete this little test for me? Won‟ttake you a minute.”I stare incredulously at the fatuous questions on the paper: “Underline the one occupation from each pair that you findmost appealing”, it says.“Doctor or Architect,Blacksmith or Midwife,Actor or Steel Worker,Statistician or Fishmonger . . . . "My mind wanders; a poster of an astronaut on the moon catches my eye. I see him striding over a crisp, sterile, cleanterrain, where the shadows are sharp, distinct; the horizon jagged and well defined. In the sky above this fresh, coldworld hangs the melon-shaped earth, looking like a lump of rotting fruit, covered with stale blue mould, oozing theputrescent pus of decaying life and of man‟s filthy excrement.The keen, young, bespectacled man on the other side of the desk clears his throat politely to return me to reality.“Have you finished that test, then?” he asks, smiling. I mutter apologetically that I have not. “Ah well, never mind.How far have you got?”I hand him the paper.“Ah. You didn't actually get around to starting. I understand; best not to rush these things.” He laughs generously; Igrin inanely. “Anyway, they aren‟t wildly important. So, let‟s get down to business!” He claps his hands enthusiastically.“Have you any idea what you want to do when you leave school?” he asks.“Err . . . no”, I answer.“No ideas at all?”“No.”“Ah”, he says.There is a rather long pause. I attempt to break the silence:“I mean, that's your job, isn't it?”He looks vaguely irritated. “What is?”“Well, that's your job . . . . to give me an idea of what to do when I leave.”He forces a laugh. “Yes, of course it is. Very witty of you.” He looks pained. “Well, let‟s see what we can do.”“Now, have you any particular hobbies?” he asks.I sit there gaping stupidly. I can see him thinking to himself: “Oh God! The boy‟s a halfwit!”He smiles brightly, maybe a little too brightly.“Well, what about ambition?” he says. “What do you want to be in life?”“I want to be a God”, I say.He continues scribbling on a pad.“Yes, that's good. Any particular kind of landscape gardener?”“No, I don‟t want to be a landscape gardener.”He looks up. “What do you want to be?”I look him straight in the eye.“I want to be a God.” There is a long pause. “Ah”, he says.“Any particular reason for wanting to be a, er, a God?” he says uneasily.“No, not really, I'd just like to be a God.”“I understand”, he says, not understanding.There is another long pause.“Err, what God had you in mind?” he asks awkwardly.“Oh, just any one would do”, I say, generously.The man stares at me unhappily across the table.“But there is only one God”, he whispers.“Well, I‟ll share it with him then”, I say.23