THOSE JOBS DON’T WORK FOR ME

Husband-and-wife comedians and commentators Jeremy Elwood and Michele A’Court share their views.

If you’ve got one of those coffee mugs that say: “Choose a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life,”

I bet there are moments when you’d like to chuck it at the watercooler.

I bumped into Amy Adams on a plane last week. I hope this doesn’t jinx her leadership chances, but I like Amy – she seems like a good human and I admire a couple of things she did back when National was in charge. Amy looked serene, but I reckon this is a tricky business, competing with your colleagues without destroying relationships with people you’re going to have to keep working with. It’s hard to say you’re great without suggesting someone else would be terrible.

I wouldn’t be a politician for quids. It’s on a list with other jobs I’d hate – like selling children’s shoes (I have no idea how you jam high tops onto an unco-operative 4-year-old’s feet) or moderating online comments (seeing humanity at its worst). Same goes, I often think, of being a GP (you don’t meet a lot of people who are well) or a dentist – that’s a lot of white knuckles either side of lunch.

I’ve had jobs I didn’t much care for. The superette, the building site, the garden nursery… For six months after ending my contract as a TV presenter, I worked as an office temp and “tea lady” (like, actual job title) and it wasn’t nearly as fulfilling as you might imagine.

Not long ago, on one of the last nights my parents and brother and I spent together, I asked everyone what career they’d choose if they had their time again. Dad, sent into the rag trade when he left school, surprised us all with “architect” – no one had asked him this question before, and he’d never mentioned it.

My mother spent most of her working life as an office manager, but has harboured dreams of being a lexicologist, hence the reference books beside her armchair and a gift for applying correct English usage on the fly. I’m pretty certain my photographer brother picked “philosopher” that night, but he has since amended it to “park ranger”, which is spectacular.

I chose “forensic psychologist”. And then it dawned on me that if I’d spent the last 35 years profiling criminals, I might have blurted out one night over a bottle of wine that my secret dream was to be a comedian and writer. And that after a lifetime of living with wild beasts, my brother may have hankered after taking beautiful photos of dancers.

Someone out there harbours sweet dreams of leading a political party to unite and serve. I hope they get the job.

Everyone has bad days at work. They’re part of the work experience, giving you something to complain about with your colleagues and allowing you to learn how to avoid having them more regularly.

But there are some jobs out there that I can’t imagine have too many good days. They must do, because people do them, but in my mind the prospect of waking up day after day and facing certain prospects ahead of you makes me want to crawl under the covers and pretend I’m still asleep.

As a comedian, I often have people tell me my job “must be so hard”. I will never forget meeting a young soldier in East Timor who said precisely that, just moments after describing what his role in an ambush would be.

Comedy isn’t hard. You’ll have bad gigs, tough audiences, and nights where you struggle to summon up the energy to leave the house – never mind walk onstage – but overall we just talk for a living, in front of people who mostly want us to be there and to succeed. Being a paramedic, or a police officer, or a firefighter – those are hard. However, those aren’t the jobs I mean when I talk about the ones I would never consider doing. Although all three of those must have horrific sides to them, I can see where the rewards lie as well.

Politics is more of a grey area. Having a profession where roughly 50 per cent of anyone you meet wants you fired can’t be all that much fun – then again, if you’re passionate about it there must be enough days where you feel like you’re making a difference to make the stress around polling numbers worthwhile.

No, the jobs I dread the thought of are the ones in which day in, and day out, you’re doing the same thing at the expense of someone else. Corporate headhunter. Divorce lawyer. Parking warden. Gun manufacturer. That kind of thing.

I’m not saying the people who fill these roles are bad people, and I have to assume that many of them are happy, but there’s no way I could do it.

I like a job where something new, different and fun might possibly happen. Most of the time it won’t, but there needs to be the possibility.

I can’t imagine working a job where every day you come home and say: “You will never believe what happened to me today.” And everyone says: “I bet we can.”

I would encourage anyone to choose a profession based on bringing home a good story ahead of a fat pay cheque. But if anyone wants to offer you both, be happy with that, too.