A 'few' years ago when I was a full time Salesman and a volunteer youth leader I was often presented with the question,
"What do you do?"
Being (maybe) somewhat of an extrovert and quite vocal, I guess there was a certain amount of pre-judging of me that had already occurred. It was, however, still slightly frustrating that when I said, "I'm a Salesman!" people generally rolled their eyes and said "I should have guessed!" This happened so many times that for fun, variation and so not to be pigeon-holed, I adopted an imaginary profession!
The Story: I'd met a girl at a party in Bristol who was a 'Cellular Molecular Pathologist' and thought this was quite cool. With the facts that I gleaned from our conversation, as well as bits 'n bobs about Histology that I'd picked up from med' students I became quite adept at describing my adopted role. So here's the confession, to various people (especially that I met on holidays) I was a Cellular Molecular Pathologist!
The reason I mention all this is that I am ocassionally tempted to resurect my fictional career as I'm tired of people asking, "er ... what exactly does a youthworker do?" after revealing my profession.
So in order that I am not tempted to Lie, anyone got a good answer? I'm hoping for a pithy paragraph that encapsulates the ability to build relationship/trust with young people, mentions theology, management, sociology, psychology, understanding of adolescent development. Doesn't over look skills in mentoring, discipleship, intervention, negotiation, mediation and group work. Takes in health and safety, communication, organisation, fund raising etc. That kind of thing, over to you :-)
Mind you, some people don't think we need to know anything!
I spent ages attemting to describe my job to an electrician the other day (- he asked!)and when I finally thought I had summed it up and told him some good stories of things I'd done he paused, stuck his screw driver behind his ear and said "don't you just want to give them all a good slapping" and then got on with his wiring...
Ah well.
How about, “I get to hang out and do all the things I did as a teenager but with the added bonus of life experience behind me, plus a whole heap of admin”
I guess its because volunteer youth workers fit most of that stuff in AND hold a 9-5 job too. Kinda makes you wonder....
I have a couple a reasonable solutions. They may be a stretch, but they are all still true.
I work in:
Public relations
Marketing
Psychology
Trend Watching
Word of Mouth Campaigns
Social Work
Transportation
Speech Therapy
Communications
Writing
Research
Street Team Implementation
Promotions
Human Resources
Theo-pathology
Sociological Discourse
History
All of these are the perfect way to have people scratching their heads. I usually explain later that I'm a closet sociopath and invite them over for dinner.
I think it depends a lot on who's asking.
Sometimes I love to play up the GREATNESS of a job where you get paid to quad-bike, chat on msn, do craft, eat pizza and watch DVDs.
At other times I feel a pressure to make it sound serious so I list all the various activities we run.
I am not happy with either of those really.
Sometimes I have had a week which is brilliantly representative of the whole thing and sometimes I describe one of those.
Today I was in a meeting planning a holiday club, then at St Andrew's bookshop and since lunch I've been listenign to STACKS of tracks trying to choose 30 mins of music for Saturday's chillout worship whilst also browsing celtic prayer sites.
It all just sounds too much like FUN to be taken seriously as a job!