Friday, August 23, 2002, 11:36 p.m.

Interestingly personal questions in the Friday Five this week. Well, sorta.

It hasn't escaped me that if one chose to, one could blog one's way through the week just doing these little daily assignments that are out there. Like Sunday Op-Ed, Monday Mission, Theme Thursday, Friday Five. The other days of the week are probably covered on some banal web site somewhere out there, ready and waiting, just for the taking. Ya know?

Anyway, here's my own banality for the day:

1. What is your current occupation? Is this what you chose to be doing at this point in your life? Why or why not? Legal secretary. I fell into it, became really good at it, and, for lack of desire to change in the early years, and lack of something (the word escapes me right now) in the later years, stuck with it. Or, maybe, it stuck with me. Knowing what I know now, I would not have chosen this occupation. It's a thankless job and the pay is for crap. If you think lawyers in general are jerks, you ain't seen nothing ‘til you've worked for one.

2. If time/talent/money were no object, what would your dream occupation be? Trying to be reasonable here... At my age now, there is no dream occupation. I would love nothing more than to quit going to an office every day. However, at this point, that's out of the question. Ideally, I would love nothing more than to earn a living working from home. I thought I might be on to something with the part-time remote gig I had at CNN. Unfortunately, CNN shut down my department and they didn't have anything else for me or my co-remotes. There's more to it than that, but that's the nice version.

3. What did/do your parents do for a living? Has this had any influence on your career choices? No influence. My dad was an automobile mechanic most of his life. My mom started out as an operator for the phone company. She was a stay-at-home mom until I was in the fifth grade. Then she went to work as a switchboard operator at a small company. They both worked hard and honest.

4. Have you ever had to choose between having a career and having a family? Unfortunately, no. I wish I would have had the choice to make. It's more like I was forced to do both. I highly recommend against it.

5. In your opinion, what is the easiest job in the world? What is the hardest? Why? Well, that's in the eye of the beholder. If one has a complete understanding of what one does and is very good at it, then it's probably easy, and vice-versa. Of course, there are also those jobs that are morally difficult. But, I suppose those who occupy those jobs probably don't have a problem with the morals.