The other day I turned 58 years old and it made me think a little about life, the choices one has made and how it came to be that one ended up where they are?
Illustration: Åsa Alm for Allers
"I grew up in a working-class home in the countryside, in a family where basically no one had educated themselves at the university level, and the message you got from parents and relatives was that the most important thing was to get a job! I on the other hand had a head for reading and wanted more, but never really got any encouragement for anything other than just getting a job, whatever it was.".
When it was time to apply for high school education, we didn't have much to choose from, it was extremely unusual to be allowed to go anywhere other than in your hometown, but I was creative and liked to do hair, so primarily I applied for the Hairdresser program, and secondarily I applied for the Humanities line, with a focus on Latin. The admission points for the Hairdresser program turned out to be 5.0, meaning you would need to have 5s in all subjects to get in, and I didn't have that even though my grades were more than good, so I ended up in the Humanities line and studied two beginner languages AND Latin at the same time, a challenge, but it turned out to suit me.
Well, what was one supposed to do with all these language skills when one finished high school then? I went to Brighton as an au pair for a few months but when I came home from there I sat in my room and didn't know what to do with my life. Sitting there and thinking couldn't be done for long, so I was quickly drawn into the Employment Agency's system and ended up in various internships as a cleaner and teaching assistant. Job-seeking courses were to be taken to learn how to write CVs and practice calling and applying for jobs, and eventually, I managed to get a bite and a series of temporary jobs as a tulip picker, hotel cleaner, and factory worker passed by.
But when I had made 60 beds x 600 days = 36,000 beds and my brain started to feel sluggish like mashed potatoes, I decided that enough was enough! In my spare time, I had slipped into the cultural life through a theater association in Landskrona and felt that culture was what I wanted to work with! Said and done, I submitted an application to Umeå University to attend the Cultural Worker program, a 4-year program where you got to study ideas, literature, art, and drama-theater-film history, learn about cultural policy, cultural administration, and write analytical texts and essays.
Now I had ended up right in life! Umeå in the early 1990s was boiling with cultural experiences! There were concerts, exhibitions, theater, opera, film and I devoured everything wholeheartedly! A bit adventurous it turned out that I was and I went away as an exchange student to Wales for a year and also did my internship there the last term of the education.
Now I had turned 30, the education was completed, I had met a man and started a family, and then I would start looking for a job as a cultural administrator, based in Ljungbyhed… I can say that there were not many jobs that appeared, and when my youngest son was diagnosed with diabetes at 3.5 years old, my search radius was limited to a 10-minute drive from where he was, to be able to rush out if something happened to his blood sugar.
But when I had made 60 beds x 600 days = 36,000 beds and my brain started to feel sluggish like mashed potatoes, I decided that enough was enough!
So there I stood with a fine education but no jobs to apply for, even though I was good at languages! I started as an English teacher at study associations and then slipped into being an SFI teacher at folk high school, and suddenly I was a teacher! I was also quite good as a teacher and enjoyed it, but I was not qualified so that story ended after six years.
After almost 300 days of unemployment without a single interview, I decided to become self-employed and started Calluna Art & Illustration and worked from home as an illustrator, graphic designer, and artist, and I still have that company, although it is somewhat dormant at the moment. It was possible to keep it going for 8 years, thanks to my husband having a steady income we managed financially, but when my biggest client Allers had to cut costs and stopped ordering illustrations in 2016, I slipped back into teaching again, now as a Swedish as a second language teacher to refugees coming from Syria, Afghanistan, and Eritrea that year.
Had I landed right now then? Yes, it really felt that way and I even got qualified as a vocational teacher to be able to get a permanent position and finally I succeeded! In 2019, I got my first permanent employment since 1988 as an SVA teacher, after almost 40 years in the workforce. What happens then? An offer to substitute as a Cultural Developer in Klippan municipality lands in my lap! How was I supposed to do now then? This was my dream job from the start! Better dead than hesitate, as an acquaintance usually says, so I quit and took the substitute position! It was truly the dream. I got to plan exhibitions in the art hall, arrange concerts, lectures, and other cultural events, all the things I had wanted to do since my education in Umeå. But wonderful things are short-lived and after 8 months the substitute position was over and I was unemployed again. But I could become a teacher again, so that was fine, I thought... Over 50 job applications and not a single interview and one began to wonder how the teacher crisis was really doing? Something had shifted, before it was enough to be qualified to get a position, but now you had to work where you had your qualification, so there were no bites.
Then came a little post on Facebook that Leader Skåne Mitt Nordväst was looking for case handlers, just a stone's throw from my home! So I applied for the job, and here I am now handling applications for Leader and apparently found yet another job that I can enjoy! Have I found home for good now then? Now there aren't many years left of this working life, nine years to go, unless retirement is postponed even more before it's my turn! Yes, those who live will see, but I hope this is the last career change I go through in life! One can state one thing, it has been a varied and exciting career journey!”
Åsa Alm – Mom, humanist, artist, cultural worker, teacher, case handler, carpenter, painter, gardener, cook, household economist, cleaner, dishwasher, chimney sweep… etc!
Psst here you can take a look at some works by Åsa https://www.konst.se/asaalm