Gareth Thomas, Colin Jackson & Suzanne Packer for BBC Radio Wales
Bishop of Llandaff High School, 1992. Snap’s Rhythm Is A Dancer was blaring from a tinny Walkman speaker as a care-free crew of teenagers ran around on the football pitch, chasing, wrestling and laughing under the summer sun.
My fifth form stablemates, all hopped up on doughnuts, hormones and a shared cigarette that no one inhaled. Until it came. Somehow, this time, more brutal than the thousands of other times we’d heard the same roaring reprimand… “That’s enough! Back to your classes! The bell has gone.”
Mr Robbins’ bellowing bark was enough to end our fun once and for all, reminding us that our GCSEs – and real life – were only footsteps away. And that was that. The rebels inside us were born. Down with school. Down with authority. Down with work…
Skip forward 30 years and not much has changed, most likely for the entire group. Because, if a recent Gallup poll is to be believed, only 15% of British workers are happy with their current career. Is it possible that our strict schooling conditioned us for a life of putting up and shutting up? The poll, detailed on returntonow.net, states that 62% of workers are “not engaged” in their jobs and a further 23% are “actively disengaged”, meaning they pretty much hate their jobs. That’s a staggering 85% of UK employees who spend eight of their 16 waking hours doing something they absolutely do not want to do.
So, out of the 10 fun-loving kids frolicking on the field that day, only one and a half of us are now happy in our careers. (Well, I’m half-happy so that leaves just one who’s fully happy. I’m guessing it’s James, builder of empires: he always seemed smug.) But why could this be? Granted, we can’t all make James’ income but surely covering the bills and an annual trip to the med is all we need to keep our plucky British chins pointing north?
Well, strange as it may seem in our money-orientated times, salary is not the top motivating factor driving UK workers closer to the door. According to hrmagazine.co.uk: “Lack of job satisfaction is cited as the number one reason for wanting to change roles, with almost half (48%) believing they would be more satisfied elsewhere. Pay is the second most common factor in wanting to move (44%), while feeling valued at work by leadership teams is also rated as important (30%).”
Believing the grass is greener, it seems, might be the real key to Britain’s unhappy workforce. But whilst these studies account for happiness levels within a given sector, what about those who want to leave their chosen sector altogether, opting for a career path previously alien to them?
Now, more than ever, perhaps due to the motivational (or irrational) influence of social media, workers are being tempted to rip off the headset or throw down the shovel and take off into the great unknown.
Flexjobs.com lists their four most popular job moves as being (into) information technology, nursing, property and teaching. This would suggest that roughly half of us are more interested in helping others than we are in helping ourselves (go us!), about a quarter of us are taking advantage of the property market to fill our days watching home makeover shows and the final quarter are making the move into IT. (Ironically, most IT workers I know are trying to make the move out.) But although these four career paths have tried and tested routes to success, there’s a whole array of other careers out there that don’t come with a course guide or a tutor. Just ask any barman who’s also an actor, any recruitment consultant who’s also a comedian, any business intelligence consultant who’s also a columnist for Buzz…
Indeed, whilst this study does address the wants and needs of the wider working population, perhaps it fails to gives us a window into the mind of the true dreamer, those looking to move into the world of art and performance and (thank you Instagram) celebrity. With the continuous growth of celeb-producing TV shows and social media platforms seeming to be on an endless trajectory to the stars, the next generation of British workers seem even less willing than my fifth form friends to bow down to the social norms of settling into a career simply to pay the mortgage. So what is driving this behaviour?
In an interview with the University of Michigan, Orville Gilbert Brim (author of Look At Me! The Fame Motive From Childhood To Death) was recently asked by to explain why nearly four million Americans currently define their career status as ‘trying to become famous’. “The fame motive,” suggests Brim, “has come out of the basic human need for acceptance and approval and when this need is not fulfilled because of rejection by parents or peer groups … a basic insecurity develops and emerges as the fame motive.”
Even those closer to 50 than 15 are getting in on the act, with more and more people in standard salaried careers defining themselves on social media as 40-plus ‘influencers’, ‘models’, ‘fitness gurus’ or ‘life coaches’ with little to no income generated from these pastimes. It wouldn’t be fair, however, to label all those dreamers looking to move from admin to arts, or finance to fitness, as celebrity wannabes. Many are simply following their dreams, based on genuine talent and drive, regardless of whether this flight lands them on the celebrity runway.
Fitness advice, after all, can physically improve the human condition. Art, music and sport can provide a massive boost to mental health and happiness. And these are dreamers that we need to cherish, to support and to push forward towards their goals. Not only the children, who made the decision early in life to dedicate their years to a non-standard career, with or without a parent’s hand guiding them in the right direction – but also the grownups who realised their calling too late, or who fell into a career simply because they couldn’t afford the privilege of chasing their dreams any sooner.
If all of our film stars follow the same steady route from drama school to casting call, it will be to the detriment of our arts industry. If our singers haven’t battled with balancing the day job and the dream, perhaps they don’t build the strength to produce their next hit. Perhaps we miss out on their gift.
Surely the writer who’s lived a full life is more equipped to recount a story that genuinely hits us in the heart? Surely the musician who’s felt the agony of extreme poverty, pressure and pain through a struggling career is most likely to produce a work of true passion? Even the sportsman who gives up their job to ‘go pro’, will surely be the hungriest on the field, in the ring, or on the court? And when it comes down to it, whatever outlet the average worker looks forward to on the weekend, it’s likely going to be performed by those dreamers, those outliers, those brave, free-thinking radicals who woke up one morning and decided that school had got it all wrong.
Were we conditioned to put and shut up? Maybe. But thank God that we were. Because only when we set down rules… do we get the rule-breakers.