Columnist Susan Snyder: Suffering a case of career envy

Saturday, Feb. 10, 2001 | noon

Susan Snyder's column appears Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or 259-4082.

How many grown-ups does it take to put a roomful of fourth graders to sleep?

One, depending on what that grown-up does for a living.

Is there anything more demoralizing than Career Day? Accidentally wearing jammies to work or giving the boss' wife the Bronx cheer in traffic cannot compare to the humiliation of watching a description of your carefully chosen profession slowly suck the enthusiasm from 25 little faces.

The point of Career Day is to show children what they can do with their lives if they work hard and stay in school. It shows them options. It's a good idea, and I never say no when Helen Jydstrup Elementary School calls.

But next year I want to be scheduled on a day when the other professions represented only involve watching paint dry, eating spinach and sweeping the porch.

Last year I followed the guy who drives a firetruck. Shoot, we all would like to drive a firetruck. It's red with flashing lights and sirens and hoses and everything.

I type newspaper stories for a living, class. Whoop-de-doo.

That same year kids heard from a guy who created and tested computer games for a living. He sent each student home with a computer game disc and a T-shirt.

Welcome to the Real World. Some jobs are Disneyland. Some are a trip to the orthodontist. Open wide.

Among this year's offerings for Jydstrup's third, fourth and fifth graders was an archaeologist, a baseball player, a singer and a woman who raises horses.

Archaeologists have that whole Indiana Jones thing going for them, and nearly every kid sees him- or herself stepping up to home plate or a microphone at some point.

And how do you compete with someone who raises horses? When I was in fifth grade I would have traded my whole family for a horse.

Gee, what's more interesting? Hanging out in a stable or sitting in a City Council meeting? Granted, both jobs come with a considerable amount of horse poo. But the average 10-year-old is likely to find a mare way more useful than the mayor. (Be nice. He's doing a decent job.)

This year's third graders watched an ice carver make a vase with a chain saw, then they came to my room.

"She carved radishes like roses," one little boy said. "And she carved a cantaloupe into a flower."

Yeah, but how fast can she split an infinitive? Never mind.

Career Day is designed to show children all the things they can do if they try.

It is not designed to make perfectly well-meaning, productive adults -- who have finally made peace with the fact that they are not ever going to drive the firetruck -- wonder why they have to get up tomorrow morning and go back to that crummy job.

It is not designed to make us wonder why we didn't become the rock climber or the Bandits basketball player or cheerleader.

We should focus on the the wonderful options they have. Just ignore those free tickets the Bandits gave out.

How many adults does it take to put a roomful of fourth graders to sleep?

Depends.

Here, kid. Have a pencil.