Career Opportunities

Salvaged Plate

Preserved Heirloom

There are some treasures in this pile.

Over the course of the past few days, I have had the opportunity to try on for size two new professions.  

The first possibility, a professional organizer. I seem to have the native ability to sort through vast quantities of stuff, pluck out the most salvageable and cast off the remainder. I do not find myself immobilized by indecision or doubt as I divide belongings into Sell, Thrift Shop, Dump or Save.  I can do this trick equally well in my own house, my parents’ home, or my friend’s house.  From the pile designated “SAVE,” I then see it tidied and organized.  I drool over the pages of products from The Container Store with the same acumen as I do when I study lingerie catalogues.  I embrace order.  If ever I were to make a silk purse from a sow’s ear, it would be by using my somewhat obsessive-compulsive tendencies to help others.  

The second possibility for a career path, should I seek one, might be to work as a researcher in an auction house.  As I helped my friend weed through some of the many pieces of crystal and china she has accumulated from her grandmother’s and parent’s estates, I found I had a knack of using the computer to place the country and year of manufacture. It was but a small jump to estimating its value. I would lose myself in mini-history lessons while clutching a plate or a bowl.  The Antiques Roadshow has nothing over me when I set my mind to it.

In a lifetime that has included forays into biochemical research, cosmetic sales, real estate, financial consulting, banking, training, text-book writing and magazine writing, among others, a spell as an organizer or a research associate would not be much of a departure.