It was my regular pedicure session at the parlour. The usual girl was on leave, and so I was assigned another person. My heart sank as she was the one my friends had cautioned me. “She hurts you during the pedicure or manicure.” I was apprehensive, but I did not want this young worker to feel rejected, and, bravely, I settled into the chair.
As the beautician worked on my pedicure, she did small talk about the weather, lunch… And ouch! She hurt me while cutting the nail. A lukewarm apology, and she continued as if nothing had happened.
I had to find out why she hurts clients, and so I began talking to her. Her sister is a beautician, and so her parents seeing how successful their elder daughter was, were determined that she should follow her sister’s footsteps.
Not one to beat around the bush, I asked her, “So you don’t like this job?” No, I hate it. she said. What did you want to be? “I want to be a teacher, I wanted to do a teacher’s training course. But my parents refused. A teacher’s job does not pay as much as the salary and the tips here.” You are young, and you can still do the course, I persisted. “I will and am saving up for the course.”
So, each day was anguish for her and her clients too. Like this young girl, there are many youngsters who give in to pressure from parents. I recall interviewing candidates for content writers, and some of them were trying to get out of well-paid careers they had studied for, especially in engineering, psychology, and medicine. They were looking for jobs where they would happily wake up each morning and go to.
Life is so peaceful when as Confucius is supposedly have said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.” As parents, why don’t we allow our children to choose their careers? Not every child wants to be what we want them to be.
As Quincy Jones said: “The people who make it to the top – whether they’re musicians, or great chefs, or corporate honchos – are addicted to their calling … [they] are the ones who’d be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren’t being paid.”