When I was growing up, I wanted to be a dentist. I don’t particularly know why, but I think it was because I wanted to be rich and the richest person I knew was my dentist. It didn’t help that I was considered the smart child in my family so my parents had expectations that I would go to Uni when I finished school and move into a professional job.
I took my dental intentions right through to junior high school and not long into year ten I had to decide where I would spend a week doing ‘work experience’ to glimpse inside the facets of the working world, to which one day I would belong. Predictably, I chose to spend a week with my dentist.
After a week of standing next to my dentist and peering into the mouths of many people all day, I, surprisingly, no longer wanted to be a dentist. And why? I really didn’t like the grossness of some mouths (like cars, most people only see a dentist when there’s a problem) , but I thought I could get used to it. I didn’t like the mandatory small talk either, but again I believed it would somehow become easier with time. The thing that absolutely killed my dental dream was that most of the mouths I peered into for a week belonged to people who didn’t want to be there. Most of these people loathed going to the dentist, and I really didn’t want to be someone who people hated coming to see.
The Unscrupulous Parking Inspector
A few weeks ago I had to drop some things off at work so I drove in about seven am in the car. I gave Kitty a lift in as well, and so I pulled off a busy city street into a loading zone to quickly drop K off (sans kiss). Little did I know that the half of the loading zone I stopped in was a commercial loading zone; only the other half was reserved for passengers. An unscrupulous parking inspector was hiding nearby and took the opportunity to pounce. There’s no measure small enough to express the time from when I pulled in til when he began creating an electronic parking infringement. I quickly pulled out of the spot but it didn’t stop him having a go at K and ruining her morning.
I see parking inspectors up there with taxation auditors and dentists in the professions that people hate dealing with. I’m not sure you’d have a lot of people talk to you at a party if you said you were one. But it’s no wonder that people hate parking inspectors, considering their behaviour. Parking in a disabled spot without a permit is definitely never ok (it’s NEVER OK), but accidentally pulling into the wrong end of a loading zone on a busy city street for less than 30 seconds to drop off a loved one surely doesn’t warrant a parking infringement. This guy isn’t making the world a better place by fining me and ruining Kitty’s day.
Walking into work a week later I saw him in the exact same spot doing the exact same thing. I couldn’t help but walk past and have a word with him, whilst I was on foot. I can’t repeat those words here but I can say they’re not dissimilar to what Bernard Fanning once called Ben Lee.
Software
I ended up studying and working in Software. Working in a corporate office setting has meant I have been able to establish some close work friendships; sans small talk.
I try my hardest to make sure that people I work with don’t hate me, and want to see me. Otherwise I would have just studied dentistry.
