Blogs: Richard admires the view

Richard currently works in a Birmingham law firm, after completing a contemporary history degree. He’s thinking about a paralegal career, but also has media ambitions.

One of the advantages of working in a city centre office block is the view; I have a pretty spectacular view from the window. In fact, it is one of the very few highlights of my working day. Around a month or so ago, on my lunch break, I happened to stare out over the sprawling city below and I experienced a kind of epiphany.

Within close proximity to my office is a brand new, multimillion pound hotel development. It has slowly been pulled into the air by a team of labourers, architects and enormous cranes. It is not my favourite building, it is very contemporary and somewhat lacking in imagination, but it’s a welcome addition to the skyline in these times of austerity.

A short walk from the hotel is an elevated Victorian railway line. It snakes into the distance, its arches gaping back up at me from my lofty perch. This railway line was constructed decades ago, centuries ago in fact. Yet there it stands, just as sturdy now as it was then.

The hotel development doesn’t have the elegance or staying power of the arches yet it will stand for decades itself, perhaps even 100 years (this seems unlikely though with Birmingham’s penchant for demolishing things). In 10, 20, 30 years anyone associated with the new development can look up and think to themselves, ‘I made that happen - without me that building would never have been’. Now to me, that sounds pretty amazing.

As I watched the workforce mill around the top of the building like the Doozers from Fraggle Rock, I began to think of how I am wasting my time working in offices and the like. I’m not contributing anything constructive to society. For a large period of my life I was trained to look down on ‘working class’ occupations. My dad works in a factory and I was told from a young age, ‘Get your education, get a degree. You don’t want to end up like me in a factory’. I can see what he was trying to say but at least he can look back at the end of his day and say, ‘I made that, without me that would never have been’.

Now, I am unsure if I would be able to just walk onto a construction site and ask for a job, I don’t think I am brave enough, so I am going to contribute to society in another, tangible way. I am going to become a teacher (provided I can fight my way through the jungle that is funding). I might not be able to contribute to the skyline of my city, or its industrial output, but I can help build its future in another way. I am going to teach.