I Spent More Time Looking for the Right Porn Than the Right Job.

Things I should have known at the beginning of my work-life.

Photo by Usman Yousaf on Unsplash designed by the author

7.00 AM: Getting up and taking a dump. 8.30 AM: Dashing out to catch the crowded bus like Tobey Maguire’s version of Peter Parker. 9.30 AM: Jumping out of the slow-moving sweat-fest. 6.00 PM: Repeating the process from 9.30 AM to 7.00 AM in reverse — That’s how I had been living my life after one and a half years of my graduation.

No, it wasn’t my first job. Not by a long shot. I was 21 at the time, and I had been on some gig or another since I was 15. Delivering newspapers, working as a cashier in a drugstore, internship at a call center, I had done it all.

I wasn’t even doing it for pocket money. Instead, I was doing it for the experience.

What experience? I can’t tell. I was told working from a younger age is a good idea. Why? How would it help me? I have no idea. Maybe it is more of a moral or character discipline than a professional one.

For by the time I graduated, I did not know what I wanted for myself.

So when my cousin offered me a job at his startup, I had no reason to decline. And it all went downhill from there.

The Long Dark Tunnel and the Light in the End

The next four years, from 2016 to 2020, went something like this. I have had two unsuccessful jobs and two unsuccessful business ventures. Perfectly balanced!

Here’s what I learned:

• I took whatever job came in my way. Not only it did me a disservice in the long run, but it killed the interests I had for jobs.
• I tried to kick-start not one but two businesses — one after another. The first one was my passion project. That one tanked pretty badly.
• The second one, on the other hand, went pretty well until the COVID shot it dead. My lack of entrepreneurial skills played its part as well.

I won’t lie. Looking back, I can’t help but crack up on my own stupidity. However, for the lower-middle-class 25-year-old, it was anything but funny.