Okay b3tans, help me out here
One of my childhood ambitions was to be a writer. I currently work at a publishing company that produces magazines for the classical music world (classical music is another major passion of mine, and writing about it would be very squiffy). Unfortunately, I work in the advertising department. This means that I get paid very well, but the work is buttock-clenchingly dull and rather stressful, and the editors assume that I'm a complete retard so won't give me any freelance work.

I have recently been invited to apply for another position as an editor. Perfect, you might think. But this is an editorial position on a sort of Yellow Pages type of publication, so it's basically just data entry. And it pays peanuts.

I can afford the pay cut. And I'd quite like to have the word "Editor" on my CV. But it's a crap job and there's no absolute guarantee of career progression. I'm paranoid that selling advertising space is the only halfway decent job I'll ever be able to get and that I should just stick with it. What do you think? Click "I Like This" if you think I should take the cruddy yet impressive-sounding editing job...
(grandmasterfluffles Come to my Armageddon party on, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 18:09, Reply)

A Friend Of A Friend
Got a double first at Oxford in maths. Then he took a job as receptionist in a crappy company on an industrial estate in the middle of nowhere. All of his friends and relations started bugging him.

"But you've a double first in maths from Oxford! You can write your own ticket, name your own salary. You can have almost any job in the world. What are you doing wasting your life as a receptionist for?"

His excuse is a classic.

"Frankly lads I've just got fuck-all ambition...."

Cheers
( Legless Mister Stabby - shanks for the memory, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 17:53, Reply)

Not me, my brother
wanted to grow up and do nothing.

He does nothing, but he hasn't grown up much
(Jugular, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 17:48, Reply)

I wanted to be a fairy princess mermaid. Either that or a pet shop.
(deadly, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 16:56, Reply)

The Fall Guy
Just remebered. I was watching this one evening with my mum and there were a load of Biker/Hell's Angel types in it "Cor" says me "That looks like a really cool life" "Oh no" says Mummmy Kite "They all have VD and Sores"

Nothing like a sweeping generalization eh mum ?
(kitescreech still here, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 16:31, Reply)

"The donors I've had contact with have been genuinely nice men."
I am now doing some serious background research into whether there is a career to be had in wanking a lot.

Here you go!

Mind you, the rate of pay isn't very good:

"8. Compensation for Reasonable Expenses

A travelling allowance of $25 per donation is payable, however this is paid in two amounts:

a) Initially, $15 per donation is paid by cheque after every tenth donation, ie. after your first ten donations, you will receive a cheque for $150.

Semen must be stored for six months before use and a second set of blood tests is required six months after your tenth donation.

b) Subsequently you will receive $10 for every donation that has been in storage for that six month period."

Still, you don't usually get paid $25 every time you wank, not even every tenth shot.
(Emily Bruce-Dickinson http://jovialfellow.blogspot.com/, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 16:09, Reply)

couch potato it is then..
I know that from an early age I wanted to be steve austin, the $6M man. I was really upset when I discovered that a) he was male and b)steve was a character in a tv show (the $6M woman was shite). I then decided to become an astronaut only to discover that you need to be good at sport,maths & physics and not just know a lot of facts about planets and stars. It also didn't help getting beaten up in junior school for knowing more about space than the chavlets around me. ('milky way is an effin chocolate bar you spaz' (thwack)).

One of my brothers wanted to be a scotsman when he grew up (difficult as he was born in s wales. Must have been the kilt).
( pottybeaver is neither a potty nor a beaver, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 15:26, Reply)

Jumpers for goalpoasts.........Not
Whenever my brother and his mates had a kick about they always used to make Terrence, my friend, and me stand as goalpoasts. I think it was because they didn't want to get their jumpers dirty but it wasn't all bad as me and Terrence didn't always have to stand their for hours on end, oh no, because when the ball went into somebody's back garden we were allowed to go and get it so we doubled up as ballboys too.

So every night when my brother went to sleep in his top bunk, dreaming of scoring the winning goal in the cup final, there was I, in the bottom bunk, dedicating my life to one day being a goalpost at Wembley.
(Fatima Whitbread's hardon drugs and the causes of drugs, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 15:07, Reply)

Paid to lie on a sofa
When Peter Ackroyd's Chatterton was published, a London bookshop set up a life size window display to look like the front cover, including paying someone to lie on the sofa thingy all day. Now there was a job I wouldn't have minded having!

(lolwhites, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 14:34, Reply)

My dad is a doctor
Every day after work I'd ask him how many lives he'd saved. Doctoring was where its at I thought.

So, I trained to be a doctor, and now I am a consultant. The moment Patsy Fucking Hewitt got her incompetent mitts on the NHS was the day I stopped wanting to be a doctor.

I am now doing some serious background research into whether there is a career to be had in wanking a lot.
( sm.pl.crt.rs I don't fucking know, do I?, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 14:31, Reply)

Ghostbusters
I wanted to be a ghostbuster as a little kid too, when it came out and on for a few years.

at 28, i found this the other week in new yooiik





nearly there
(1_not_so_careful_owner, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 14:03, Reply)

space
As a geeky child I was completely obsessed with space and the solar system
All I wanted to do when I grew up was to train with NASA and become an astronaught.
As I also wore glasses at the time, my older brother decided to shatter my dream by saying that astronaughts had to have perfect eyesight to fly into space.
I was totally gutted and cried for about 3 weeks
It didn’t enter my mind as a child of 7 that not only would my poor eyesight let me down, but the fact that my tiny IQ and complete lack of quantum science knowledge might hamper the selection process slightly :(
Oh well, nursing is fun at times.
(kellogg going slowly insane, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 12:48, Reply)

I suppose this one's still valid
One edition of Eurotrash featured a Japanese photographer who exclusively took pictures of nude women. The photoshoot in the programme involved a hot day, the patio of a big mansion somewhere, and said women being sprayed with water from a hose for artistic effect.

I still want to be the guy with the hose.
(rogerzilla, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 12:17, Reply)

i wanted to do nothing.
thankfully i managed to do just fine until i posted this message and hence actually did something. drat.
(monporn, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 11:40, Reply)

I wanted to be a binman.
At te age of about six, I managed to make friends with the bin men that cleared our street once a week. Every Thursday morning, I'd run out into the street (still clad in only PJ's) and talk to the bin men while they emptied the streets crap into the truck. They'd then let me press the compactor button at least twice before I ran to the top of our cul de sac street to wave them away ino the distance. My brother had a fancy dress 'what I want to be when I grow up' theme birthday party. There is a photo of me wearing 'stubbie' shorts, a string vest and a knotted hankie 'hat', heaving a binbag full of paper.

I wonder what happened to my ambition?
( The Togaboy The world will end on, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 3:22, Reply)

I wanted to be a ninja.
and a fireman. and in the raf. imagine all three of them at once. go on.

But i gave up on them all because surveyings where its at!.. but im only 16 so im not even there.
( Cae1, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 0:38, Reply)

Who you gonna call??
I always wanted to be a ghostbuster! Something about having a big nuclear powered weapon on my back :)

Came close to my dream.....however looking a bit like the stay puft marshmallow man wasnt exactly how i hoped to achieve it :D
(Digital Pimp, Sun 1 Apr 2007, 0:07, Reply)

aquatic engineer...
I loved watersports as a kid.



Seriously though I did want to be an architect. I had a step uncle that designed an aquarium and I loved designing things.

cut to 27 jobs later and numerous years later, programmer analyst.
Result!

(I like what I do but I don't get to do who I like.)
(armednuclearterrorist, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 23:56, Reply)

Dan of the Crippled Nipples just reminded me
I used to want to be an archaeologist because after watching an episode of 'Time Team' my Mum told me they got paid for being dirty.

And I fucking believed her.
(littlenipple hate's bad grammar, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 23:11, Reply)

After school special
There used to be these commercials on, where a little girl would say something like, "I want to be a ballerina when I grow up!" Then it would show a hobo-type person, dressed up in poor clothes with messed up hair, and a voice-over would then remark, "No one ever says, 'I want to be a junkie when I grow up.'" Remember those commercials? Well I do. Anyway, I remember seeing one such commercial at the age of five, eating cheerios or some shit in my living room. It seemed to me that if no one wanted to be a junkie, well, there wouldn't be much competition in that particular job market. So I instantly exclaimed, "I do! I want to be a junkie when I grow up!" I'd never seen my mom panic like that before or since.
(BrainSurgerysFun, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 22:34, Reply)

I wanted to be...
An Astronaut. Yes, I was a geek. I went to the Job Centre with my uncle once when he was looking for work, and after looking at the "Now Hiring" board, I asked the receptionist if there was anybody who needed an Astronaut. She laughed. My self esteem fell.

I work in Tesco. Close enough, eh?
(LiquidRogue Powerful tiny fists..., Sat 31 Mar 2007, 21:06, Reply)

Like so many, a fighter pilot
Then I realised they have to wear helmets and oxygen masks. How uncool is that?

So I opted for doing something comfortable and boring, with a reasonable chance of baling out at 50 with a full pension entitlement. 12 years and counting.
(rogerzilla, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 20:16, Reply)

The innocence of youth
Being a rite little swat I decided firstly that I wanted to be a research chemist (at 11), then a doctor (at age 14), then a forensic pathologist (at 16).

I blew through school without a care, got Bs and Cs, went into a Chemistry degree with an eye to train as a doctor under army pay and serve as an R.M.O., hence the user name.

Unfortunately I have well and truly fucked up my re-sit of year two due to lack of being arsed-ness, leaving me unqualified, unemployable and thoroughly happy that I'm not spending 76 hours a week opening dead people up to see what's inside.

And as a two for one bonus, my brother tried to be a pilot at age 18, got to the final stage in training and got told he wasn't good enough to be pilot, but offered him a navigator place in fast jets.
He declined the offer.
11 years later and he's trying to get the marines to take him - proving the idiom of Muscles Are Required, Intelligence Not Expected.

Bro, don't kill me. Any marines out there, please don't help him. :)
( Pointy Head poked another hole in my anorak on, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 18:32, Reply)

'Grow up like him and I'll staple you to death'
Few weeks ago, while watching that shitty BBC 1 programme, When will I be famous, my cousin said that, 'when he's older he wanted to be Graham Norton'.
Good god no...
(TheHotFuzz Liking it long time at..., Sat 31 Mar 2007, 18:14, Reply)

RAF
I wanted to join the RAF when I left college (at 18) - so off I went to the recruiting office and sat some tests and stuff and made it through to the interview.

At the interview I was asked some questions that I didn't give the right answer to:

The one that I think I stumbled on was whether I'd answer the call to go to war - I think I said something along the lines of "only if it's a lawful order".

Anyway, didn't get through, but the recruiting bod clearly saw potential in me and asked me what I'm going to do now - Uni, says I - He says "come back when you have more life experience then".

I got life experience at Uni.

Decided the forces really, really wasn't the place for me - I mean, people tell you to do stuff and you've got to do it...
(james_tiger_woods is going to start his killing spree on the, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 16:03, Reply)

Um...
I proudly claimed to my bemused parents that I wanted to be a fire engine.


My brother told us he wanted to be a Princess.
(posage As I turned the corner I felt muscular and compact, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 15:54, Reply)

When I was 7
I wanted to be a forensic phsycologist. Then I found out you need to train for 14 years...
( Madam Marlboro wonders if you've found her yet, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 15:50, Reply)

Junior deity
When at infants school I got involved in a spot of amateur dramatics when I was in the school play of Noah's Ark. The role I played was one I was destined to play all my life, that of God. Not that I'm a power crazed control freak of course, I was typecast.

Didn't stop me forgetting my lines though.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 15:41, Reply)

Not the sharpest knife in the drawer
I knew a slightly odd boy at school who wanted to be Freddy Krueger.

I reckon that wanting to grow up to be a heavily burnt, teenager murdering, Dennis the Menace jumper wearing psychopath with a glove o' knives and quirky hat qualified him to be categorised as slightly odd.
( abefroman skating on the thin life of modern life on, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 15:36, Reply)

Virologist
From the tender age of 8 - some people think this is weird!
(mmm....beer, Sat 31 Mar 2007, 14:54, Reply)