Sunday Scaries: How my single Mum affected my career choices

My parents divorced when I was a teenager but I’d been mostly raised by my Mum even before they were divorced, so Mum can take any of the credit given out for any positives about me. I’ll take the blame for all the negatives.

Dad was a pretty absent Dad, as a shift worker that was often outside of his control but I guess the best example I could give was during my peak basketball playing days.

I was playing representative level basketball and would go on to win MVP of that team (humble brag). One day getting ready to leave for a game and Mum asked Dad if he was coming.

“There’s only so many times I can watch a basketball go up and down a court” he said and returned to reading the horse racing guide.

Mum took me to every game, every training session, sometimes even did the scoring on the bench.

But when the divorce happened we hit tough times financially. We’d always been pretty poor - I was born in housing commission, never went on holidays etc - but this was when I felt the poorest for sure.

Mum’s 1988 Nissan Sigma blew up and she didn’t have enough money to replace it and was already struggling to keep on top of the bills, so she took a second job doing night fill at Coles.

So when she finished her shift around 10pm she would call me at home and I would walk to meet her halfway with my dog and a crowbar, as half the journey was through unlit, unsafe streets. I didn’t really think much of this at the time but looking back, it was probably the type of responsibility that forced my change of direction from rat kid to starting to be an adult.

As I was coming to the end of school I had no idea what I wanted to do. Mum even took me to a Career Counsellor who gave me a test to help me figure out what type of career path I should choose. The results were, interesting.

#2 Career option was Hair Dresser

#1 Curtain Maker

Like I’m old now but I wasn’t born in 1932, who the f*** was getting into a career making curtains in the early 2000s?

But it was seeing Mum struggle through those last few years of my high school was the biggest influence on my future career choices.

I didn’t decide to get into recruitment that day (definitely the recipe for the stereotypical LinkedIn story “IT WAS THIS MOMENT I DECIDED THAT RECRUITMENT WAS THE ONLY WAY OUT FOR ME”) I did decide that I wanted to do something that would allow me to make more than minimum wage.

I tried a few jobs out while I was doing some study, thought about Marketing, started an application for Award School (for Copywriters and Art Directors in Ad Agencies) but I didn’t think I could compete with the University graduates or the true creatives - you know the ones that listened to jazz and wore black turtle necks - so I self rejected.

Then I saw an ad for a Junior Recruiter in the Marketing industry and it was base ($45k, RIIIIIICH) PLUS commission.

I was working in retail at Vodafone at the time, a job I’d taken because friends who worked there got their hourly rate but also a commission for every contract they sold.

So while I know recruiters aren’t a popular species and are often viewed as money hungry, the truth was part of my decision to start in recruitment was definitely the money.

I didn’t expect to make millions and I wasn’t trying to get money for Rolex’s and Gucci, but I did want an opportunity to break out of the lower class. Getting into the middle class of society for me was basically my goal.

Years later I would hit the middle class with 2 kids, a dog and a big mortgage might not be your idea of aiming for the stars but for me, it’s my biggest achievement in life.

I wouldn’t have made it to this point without Mum and how hard she worked and struggled to get me through those last few years of school. Dad would have let me drop out (he left school at 13), never spoke to me about my career and gambled any money we had to spare.

Thanks Mum, I owe ya - a lot.