Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Welcome back to Point Me To A Profession. So this episode I was going to do
something a little different, might have a fun new sound effect for it.
And I had a couple of things that I've written down to talk to you guys about.
So I was thinking a bit of an informal episode where instead of it's an interview.
(00:21):
Talking or talking with some people I know and get some ideas out there.
So jobs that I've come across from people I've randomly met in post-production
I did come up with a little jingle here we go future jobs like I said informal
episode and let's get back to it,
(00:42):
so it seems particularly I would
say since I've had an interest in doing this that
I seem to come across people that have very interesting
jobs I don't know if I'm just like more aware of
it probably you know once you start thinking about something you start
seeing it everywhere and case in
point I was on the way back on the train yesterday and
(01:04):
across the aisle from me was a man on his computer looking at
a powerpoint presentations with it was just only pictures no
words and the pictures each took up the whole screen and
it was enlarged pictures of
people's mouths to the point where it was those tools
they use in dental work where it stretches your
(01:25):
lips and gums out you really
get to the nitty-gritty and see all inside of their teeth and
mouths and I wasn't going to ask right then and there about his job although
I was curious now I do like to ask a lot of people about the type of work that
they do but you know you never know where you're going to come across people
doing their thing and and it wasn't that I find looking at teeth strange.
(01:51):
It's just, I wasn't expecting it when
I panned across to see the inside of Josiah's mouth or whoever it was.
You know, people who work with teeth are going to be looking at teeth a lot of the day.
It's just the facts of the situation, even on their commute home.
So I posted on Instagram a screenshot of a magazine clipping I saw from Virgin Atlantic's jobs.
(02:15):
Future jobs. I'm just going to be clipping that in, I think,
wherever I like. Back to it.
Sharon Noyau, could be pronouncing that wrong, so my apologies,
is Virgin Atlantic's visionary in-flight entertainment manager for movies.
And of course, this really struck me, because what a niche job,
(02:36):
you know, selecting films.
I had this friend in primary school. I remember this friend telling me one day,
you know, I really want to watch films all day.
I want to become a movie critic when I grow up.
This role reminded me of her. She deserves a shout out. So Sharon says,
my job is choosing the movies that get shown on board Virgin Atlantic flights.
(03:00):
So I spend a lot of my time watching films, which is definitely as cool as it
sounds. So long as you don't count all the admin involved.
So who would have thought watching films comes with a lot of admin, but as she says it does.
And then in the lowdown, she wrote,
our customers expect big movies to be showing and a balance of genres.
(03:21):
The interesting part for me is curating the hidden gems, indie flicks, oddball shorts.
That's what sets Vera apart from other airlines' offerings.
I take a lot of pride promoting lesser-known directors and their work.
I'm allowed to be playful and courageous with my picks.
Seeing feedback from customers that they really loved a movie is a real thrill.
(03:44):
I love when a new film stops me in my tracks and I think this is brilliant.
I must share this with our customers. That's such a privilege.
Now, this got me thinking about her day to day life. I'm just wondering if every
time a film comes out, they say, Sharon, go watch that film.
And she's like, hey, friends, I've got some films we need to watch.
Let's go to the cinema for our weekly meet.
(04:07):
Or does watching films become a chore? She can't really relax when she's watching
a film necessarily, because surely she'd be thinking about work all the time.
Surely she'd whip out her notebook that's just handy dandy with her on the couch
and write down notes for each film.
Or do you think, because she's a manager, she's pretty senior,
(04:27):
so maybe she has other people who report to her who are watching the films and giving suggestions.
I don't know. Thoughts. I find it quite interesting. I imagine she gets lots
of emails each day being like, hey, you should show my film.
I just made it yesterday.
Or be invited to lots of showings, maybe Cannes Film Festival or university
(04:50):
students who want to promote their things.
I imagine she gets a lot of emails about those.
I want to know what the time is between her hour split of admin to movie watching.
Because surely she can't spend if she's
managing the department surely she can't spend too much of her day
watching the films but maybe she does or maybe whenever
(05:13):
she watches the film she logs the hours so she's
reeling it in and watching some marathon seasons
I mean I'm speculating a lot here I don't
know about Sharon's life but it is an interesting thing
to think about what do you you think about
this are there facets of
the job I haven't considered pros or cons and I do wonder if film watching becomes
(05:38):
a chore or not it's like how when people work at restaurants and they say they
get sick of the food because they've eaten so much of it I think it might be like that.
Let's talk a bit about the last few couple of episodes that have come out.
So first one was the ski instructor.
(05:59):
It was really fun talking to Sebastian because I gave a little bit of my own
experience as someone who was new to the profession and he gave his experience
of someone who had done it for six years.
So there was a nice kind of back
and forth there and you can just tell how enthusiastic he is about it.
And a friend texted me after she listened to the episode and was like,
Like if I want a ski instructor, I want Sebastian because he's so engaged with people.
(06:24):
And I've had him teach clinics to me and some others. And he is very engaging.
If you ever need a ski instructor, you'll learn a wealth of knowledge.
And there is so much to learn, as we were talking about, because there's books
out there which will go into the degree of an angle that you need to be in rotation
for sort of your knee bend or leaning forwards.
(06:47):
Words they go into a lot of specifics you
know in physics and all of it gets involved when
you're thinking about being the most efficient skier or
even in terms of speed and ski racing I
met a guy on a chairlift who used to
be a ski racer he said eventually he
(07:07):
he didn't want to do it anymore because the minutiae of
detail that you needed to go in to improve your skiing
on each run was was changing
the angle of your ski by ever so
slightly that it would affect the rest of
your run and make you faster and when
you're focusing on shaving off points of
(07:28):
a second of your time I think it could get quite overwhelming for some people
not saying that he was overwhelmed but that level of honing in on every body
part could become very intense so what he ended up doing and where I met him
is he was practicing at the Terrain Park.
And for those who don't know, the Terrain Park is...
(07:50):
Kind of like the more adrenaline junkies where you go and you do jumps,
you do flips, rotations, you go on rails, on boxes.
And it's basically freestyle skiing. It's its own sort of side of skiing.
People will spend their entire season in the park and do a few runs on the rest of the mountain.
(08:15):
People will be focused on parkour they'll be focused on downhill
or alpine skiing kind of thing they'll do one or the other or snowboarding
you know he was on his way he was lapping the
park and now he does freestyle skiing and
enters competitions there and does it all year round because there
are some ski resorts in the northern hemisphere who
have a mountain open during the
(08:37):
summer season so interesting to see how
that shift is when you're going from one sport
support profession to another so I hope
you enjoyed that episode as much as me it actually was a
longer episode because we did get talking
for a while and I was thinking about the best way to give out the rest of
that to share the rest of that content with you that is
(08:58):
in the pipeline as well and then the other episode we had was about being a
solicitor and that is something I didn't know anything about you know when you're
just only experience of knowing what a job is like is things that you've seen on films.
Oh call back to Sharon where she probably has a really great idea about everyone's
(09:22):
job because she's probably seen the film about it one way or another.
I mean I knew it would be a lot of reading and creating contracts but I was
unsure how much there would be as opposed to other tasks of the job and how
much client facing hours there would be.
And I think from other solicitors I've spoken to, they talk about really trying
(09:43):
to find holes in contracts as well.
But law degrees also cast me back to a friend of mine who studied law in university.
And on the first day there, the lecturer said, all right, let's do a show of hands.
Who's taking a law degree because they want to earn a lot of money?
(10:06):
Everyone put up their hand.
Next question. Who's taking a law degree because they're really passionate and
interested about law? Two people put up their hands.
So it just goes to show and I'm not saying that the
solicitor I interviewed is like that he's very into his
work but it goes to show the difference
of what you're doing a job for some people do
(10:27):
job for the paycheck some people do job
for the passion but there are different motives for
different lines of professions and there's nothing wrong with whatever you choose
to do for whatever reason and then the other Instagram post I did recently from
what I saw in a newspaper is the former england boss that's taking a turn to a different direction.
(10:52):
So he said i'm just going to take some time refresh recharge and then go from there,
ben fleming who wrote this article also wrote asked if he had been approached
by any clubs he responded i think people know at the moment i need to get some
energy back i'm not going to rush into anything. I want to make sure I make the right decision.
(11:12):
Also, there's opportunities outside of football I'm quite interested in.
Now, I imagine if you're in the limelight and the spotlight and you've been
the boss of the England Football Club for many, many years, I'm sure there are
many opportunities sort of lined up for you.
It's kind of that exposure thing, isn't it? And one door opens other doors.
I mean, sports in general, I think, have a tremendous amount of pressure especially
(11:36):
when the whole nation's watching and all that comes with it I think there probably
gets to a point I mean some people thrive under pressure but there probably
gets to a point when you're just like you know I just want a low-key job,
so that's the thing this podcast is the here and now of what do you want right
now and what have you considered and what suits your life right now it doesn't
(11:59):
mean that it's your profession forever.
So for some reason, I seem to have a lot of friends who've done various forms
of recruiting jobs in the past years, and I thought it might be fun to incorporate
that into a kind of game-style segment of an episode.
They don't really know this yet, but now you're finding out.
(12:21):
I might posit the idea to them and have a little trial run and see how it goes.
But i think that you could get kind of creative on
on some gaming tasks that they might have to do i
have a few ideas about those so if
you're listening get ready and the
last job i wanted to talk about so i
(12:42):
met a woman who is a horticulturalist she
grows flowers in fields to
sell to florists to sell to as.
Bouquets to weddings future jobs if
you're looking for something outdoorsy this is could be
one to consider if you have a green thumb the hours
do vary as well from summer to winter as
(13:04):
you might expect because it is a seasonal job so you
have to take into consideration that you're going to be working long
hard hours on the
fields working 14 hour days in the
summer and then it dials back in
the winter to four hour days now you have to produce
a lot of flora a lot of flowers and
(13:26):
plants in that time and I think she
said that she produces 1000 stems per week
I'd have to double check come winter
time she has some flowers that she's
dried and she'll send sell them
in the winter as winter bouquets or winter
stems of the dried flowers to kind of keep it going throughout that time but
(13:49):
you have to make the bulk of your money in the summer but that could be well
suited to some people who really want to grind and be awake and work the hours
with the sun and then when the sun goes down have a little bit of that winter
stay inside kind of vibes.
Which some people like to kick up their feet and snuggle into a couch with a hot drink and,
(14:10):
you know, maybe watch some films that you can tell Sharon about. So who knows?
I mean, I don't know what she does in the winter. I'm sure she does a lot of
promotional work and a lot of planning for the weddings in the next year.
I'm sure there's not just the outside work she needs to do, but also an interesting one to consider.
Going a little bit outside the realm of her job I smelt one of her roses and
(14:33):
she compared that to the roses that you find in the supermarket and the roses
you find in the supermarket generally don't have a strong scent to them the
last time I smelt a rose smell that strong was probably in perfume or soap.
I was, you know, you're a bit taken away by it because it's not common that you smell that.
And that's what you get from local farmers and local growers is because she
(14:57):
mentioned that the compound that is linked to the smell of the rose is also
linked to a faster decaying process.
So they strip out that compound when they're making these mass produced roses
to last longer. longer as the consumer tends to value longer lasting flowers for their purchase.
(15:17):
If you're looking for a smell in your flowers then you might want to go to a
florist rather than the supermarket or look for ones that are British grown or wherever you live.
So in the next couple of episodes I am interviewing someone who works summer
season or has worked summer season for the last two years at a remote destination
(15:37):
where they do e-biking tours and hiking tours.
If you're someone who does seasonal jobs and you've got maybe your winter season
down or you're looking for something to do over the summer, if you're in between
your school year or your academic year, then this might be something of interest to you.
Also, I interviewed someone who had a range of different roles in her job,
(16:00):
which included project management and community engagements. achievements.
Project manager is kind of, I think, becoming a bit more popularized these days
and you can do in a lot of different areas.
So if that's something you've been toying with, that will definitely be a great
episode for you to listen to.
Now, did I overuse the cool job.
(16:21):
Interjection or did I not? And are there other ones that you want to hear?
I will do my best to create them with my very entry-level jingle-making abilities.
Catch you in the next episode.