I had a wonderful opportunity to catch up with an old neighbour recently. Until I was 16 our family lived in a house in the Perth suburb of Scarborough. The Browns were on one side of us and the Johnsons were on the other. Glenys Johnson heard me on the radio during my regular weekday morning programme recently. She wondered if I was the boy she knew years ago so she rang up and asked if I’d ever lived in Colin Road. From there we chatted about families and old neighbours.
At one point, Glenys said that she knew that one of us Olsens was interested in radio back then. She thought it might have been Erik, one of my brothers. “Erik?” I could never imagine Erik wanting to work in radio.
That got me thinking. How is it that the five Olsen kids, brought up in the same home, could all go on to lead such different lives? Sure, there are lots of similarities between the siblings, but there are also some big differences.
The thought of being a high school maths teacher leaves me cold (sorry Matt) but my brother Chris has been doing just that for more years than I can remember and he’s great at it. Why would a guy in his mid-forties still want to be involved in youth work? I could never do that but Erik does a fantastic job helping young people through his job at YFC.
My eldest brother who trained as a fitter and turner is now working in a management job for a bedding manufacturer and my sister was a nurse. All such different job choices and not one that I’d choose for myself, despite all growing up with the same parents in the same home.
How is it that we are all wired so differently? I saw an ad in today’s paper talking about a girl who did a particular course and now she has her dream job ….. as an accounts payable clerk. How can anyone dream about being an accounts payable clerk?
I am constantly amazed at seeing people derive such great job satisfaction from a range of jobs that would send me crazy. We are all so incredibly different.
I love what I’m doing and I’m more than happy that God wired me the way he did to enjoy working in radio. I’m also glad that he wired others to be technical geeks, cleaners, carpenters, builders, doctors, pilots, fence installers, gardeners and so on.
How about you? How differently are you wired to those around you? Are you currently working in the job that you’re wired to do? What are some of the jobs that you see others enjoying but know you could never get excited about?
Posted by Rodney Olsen
Technorati Tags: Employment – Siblings – Radio – Personality
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Great post! I’ve thought about this before because my siblings and I are all so different. I will think about the rest of you questions and answer later 🙂
Same here. My sister and I do very different jobs. It is interesting how people raised the same can go such opposite directions. And even more opposite than our parents. My sister and I work in jobs that help people (her-sports rehab, me-speech therapy) but both our parents work in business jobs.
Why would anyone choose such a high-stress job as sports journalism? Beats me, I guess I’m an idiot 🙂 My brother is a programmer who wants to be an actor (yep, they’re very similar), and my sister took blood out of people and now is doing a counselling degree.
My brother and I are very similar. In fact there are a lot of artsy people in my family. The main difference is that my brother loves photography and I prefer painting. We share an eye for the interesting and get along like a house on fire. I do miss him (he’s moved to PNG – see my post from the other day).
how cool to get a call from a listener who used to be a neighbour all those years ago
I met up with my grade one teacher last year – at the time I was a magazine editor – and she recalled fondly how I used to always be writing stories. Apparently I had a little book I used to write these in, and then bring them to school and share with her. So guess I’m wired to be a writer from way back when.
my other career paths in health-care and creative arts have also been very rewarding, so I’m lucky enough to have flexi-wiring!?!
Hey Jellybean, I am a speech therapist too. As for my brothers, one is a chef and one is a small motor mechanic. And believe me when I say we are VERY different people. I did seriously consider teaching but as my Dad is one he strongly suggested I think about a different career path. How I came up with speech therapy I do not know 😉
No math teachers are actually wired correctly.
(By the way, I have one of my students down there right now. Her family lived near you until last year. In fact when I mentioned your name, the mom said that she listen to you all of the time.)