"Where do you see yourself in five years?"

Today I had an interview with Abtech, an enterprise hardware company. They have an option position in their tech-lab for an IT related job, and we were discussing if I would be right for it. The above question kept coming up, over and over again. For the life of me, I could not come up with a decent answer, which was a serious problem throughout the course of the interview. I couldn't seem to come up with an answer that they liked. After I left and was able to clear my mind more, I started to realize why.

I have, for most intents and purposes, gone through two career changes so far. Straight out of High School I was shooting for software programming. I was sure that was the career that was right for me, and I pursued it actively. In 2000 I landed a great job as a javascript developer, and I was sure I was on the express route to a great career. Then the dot.com crash happened, and I found myself sitting on a trade that nobody wanted. "JavaScript Programmer? What's that?" It would be another five years before anyone considered JavaScript anything other then a subset of web-design. I grabbed the only job I could, working retail for Borders, and I floated for two years before deciding to get back into Cinema.
I found myself again as a film projectionist. I was doing so well at Pacific, that I was sure I wanted to be a career projectionist. But when I went looking around, I couldn't find anything that pays a living wage. The only film PJ jobs worth anything were engineering jobs, a field fully staffed with guys who have been doing it for decades. By 2010, there will be fewer then 1000 PJ Engineers in the United States. My second career ended before it had even begun.

My experiences have taught me that career minded goals are like farts in the wind. You can't truly predict where you'll go, no one can.

• Eight years ago I was doing entry level IT servicing for a small company.
  
• Seven years ago I was working at a movie theater.
  
• Six years ago I was writing software in a development field so advanced that nobody even had a name for it. It took the rest of computing 5 years to catch up with what we were doing.
  
• Five years ago I was working retail at a book store.
  
• Now, afer three years, I'm leaving the cinema trade again.

What will I be doing in five years? Fuck if I know! I might not even be in California in five years! The only thing I can guarantee in five years is that I will be 32 years old, married, and probably have a kid.

Everything else is just a job.