Fickle as pickle

I get bored easily. Is that a crime?

But seriously, I just get bored doing the same thing for too long.

I never imagined my life as one of those people who got a job out of university and retired with the same company. In fact, somehow, I saw myself with about 15-20 different careers. Many things interested me and I figured I would be able to have a lifetime of blissful career rotation.

When you are recognizably multi-talented, it is hard to confine yourself in a box for always. Imelda is PR expert extraordinaire, but is also cake baker and decorator extraordinaire, seamstress, gardener, and art and craft fandangler.

Rootical is a bursar, but sings and acts, and plays the keyboard beautifully and even tours with a famous Jamaican musical theatre group.

Harlem Mama, is a journalist, but paints and draws and writes like a novelist.

My only issue is that I no longer really like school. I spent 2 years too many on a Masters that did not (and still doesn't) interest me. he only two things I have any scholastic interest in are film and photography. And the truth is that I just need to do the tutorials for Final Cut Pro and Photoshop. I can apply the basics of television production to filmmaking, and film photography to digital. I know them both.

Am I unambitious for never wanting another 9-5 for the rest of my life?

I seriously dont want to not work (yes, double negative) but I also dont want work that is so damn routine and predicatable that it might as well be automated. My body does not function 9-5. I like flexibility. I like the idea of a series of freelance appointments and a photography practice that has me working 4 long days per week most weeks ...where I can schedule according to my convenience and the occasional powered-by-adrenaline 8-day work week.

Maybe I am just getting into that stage of life where I am preparing to have children so I have to find a flexible way of earning an income, but I just cannot do the "employed" bit anymore.

I like variety too. I guess that is why the role of an internal PR practioner bores me beyond expression. I can work with the same team for long periods but damn, can the assignments be different and exciting and challenging? PR Agency jobs far outweigh the nauseating humdrum of internal PR.

That is what I love about television production. Especially location shoots. Every shoot is different. You meet new people and discover new places and add to the great wealth of totally useless knowledge.

Imagine how I felt when walking through the hallowed halls of Harlem's Studio Museum, NY and few weeks ago andsuddenly recognizing the work of Albert Artwell, a little more than slightly crazy Jamaican artist from the hills of remote Catadupa, St. James. I interviewed him at his house years ago for a TV programme I produced and presented. His wife gave me a weed plant as a gift. I potted it. No pun intended.

That's what I mean when I say I hate 9-5s. Which effing desk job provides an experience like that?