I once went to a careers expo for students in their last 2 years of high school. I wasn't a student at the time, I was there to staff one of the booths, talking about careers in health care. Personally, I viewed it as a good excuse to get out of the office, fade into the background and have a short nap with my eyes open. Obviously, I am the type of person you want to go to for careers advice, I had made a vocation out of being professionally jaded.

As I stood there, stealing the minties and chocolates from adjacent stands when they weren't looking, I was amazed with how much thought and effort these 15 year old students had invested into their future studies and professional lives. Seriously, I wanted to slap them in the face and then shake them until they realised just how foolish they were being.

Eventually a small pack of teenagers - what is the collective noun for a teenager? The interweb tells me it is a cohort;  but I'm going to go with smuck, as in a 'smuck of jellyfish'. So this smuck strolls over to our booth, despite our best efforts to camouflage it with uninteresting brochures and sticky notes, and enquire about the best pathways to pursue a career in health and medicine. My colleague, whom had more backgrounds than a free online screen saver app (virus included) went into a spiel about the noble pursuit that is caring for others, suggesting many alternate pathways into nursing.

I however recommended something a little more pragmatic.

"Perhaps", I commenced, "you could ask mummy and daddy for an advance on your annual allowance of $28000 (I hate private school kids) and go thirds in a tattoo removal laser". 

Most of my newly acquired smuck departed, and my partners at the booth (the delusional duo) turned on me in an instant -  I however saw a glimmer of interest in one non-fringe hidden eye of a particular little emo. I knew he was emo because he had drawn an upside down love heart on the inside of his wrist in blue pen. This kid was so anti-establishment, he didn't even attempt to use a colour accurate red pen - I admired his moxy.

Reaching for a handful of bright purple and fluorescent yellow sticky notes, I stole a pen from the local independent credit union career booth and commenced preparing a business plan for tattoo removal with my new disciple. We figured since it wasn't really his money, and he didn't have to  do anything to earn it, this was a zero risk enterprise. Home had a 6 car garage, and they only had two BMWs and his sisters Lexus, so more than enough room to set up a small clinic. If we could source a relatively cheap new graduate nurse, given the new anti-consorting laws targeting bikie gangs,  there was every chance an untapped market existed. By the time the remainder of the smucks had finished their first two years of university, changing majors on 6 different occasions, my little emo would have been able to expand with two new clinics and a turnover of $750,000 per annum.

The point of all this, I am 41 and still don't know what I want to be. So why the hell do we expect 15 year old kids to make some of the most important decisions they will ever make, with next to no life experience.

Dear Smucks, do the bare minimum to get to University or wherever you want to go next. The rest will figure itself out beyond that.