Beauty School Dropout

“Your future’s so unclear now, what’s left of your career now?”

I didn’t go to beauty school, but I’m beginning to wish I had. At least after four years of beauty training I might have some demonstrable (and billable) skills. I could paint your nails, curl your hair, I could probably wax and tan you simultaneously (I’m good with my hands). I could do old fashioned things like sets, waves and rinses; I would know the difference between cuticles and follicles, and that knowledge would keep me warm at night (looking good never goes out of style). As it is I went to university, got two degrees and am more or less unemployed. What’s a little more frightening is that I am more or less unemployable.

I can talk to you about the implicit sexuality in James Joyce’s Ulysses but I don’t know what an ISA or a hedge fund is. I know that computers work like knitting (two stitches, inordinate patterns) but if you ask me to format a spreadsheet I will probably faint. Why, dear reader, am I so jobless? Because I swallowed the line they fed us in school; hook, line and sinker. Just like Carey Mulligan, I got myself invested in “an education” That is, education for educations sake, and the belief that there is something noble and worthy and good in learning itself. Reader I was wrong.

There is nothing noble about the job centre, and the less said about trawling in pound shops for other people’s birthday presents, the better. I want some skills! Skills I can make evident with my hands! I want to be able to fix your spark plug, re-set your knee and paint you a mural. Which is why, I’d like to announce my formal withdrawal from ‘education’, and my induction into apprenticeship. Not the ‘Lord Sugar’ type but the plumber’s mate one. I’m here to learn, and then I’m here to be paid for what I’ve learnt. In cold, hard cash.
Taking a leaf out of P.G. Wodehouse's classic novel for the financially challenged Leave it to Psmith here is an advertisement for my services. Pass it on.

Ed will help you.
Ed is ready for anything.
DO YOU WANT
Someone To Manage Your Affairs?
Someone To Handle Your Business?
Someone To Take The Dog For A Run?
Someone To Assasinate Your Aunt?
Ed will do it!
CRIME NOT OBJECTED TO
Whatever Job You Have To Offer
(Provided it has nothing to do with fish)
Leave it to Ed!