Funeral Director, Wig Maker or Lighthouse Keeper: Try Again

I was one of the offended. Mine said tree surgeon. I have never forgiven a tree.

Last week our daughter, who is in Year 10, did the modern version on a school laptop. It took eleven minutes and no van. It suggested she become a florist. She was delighted. I was not. I had not driven her to Saturday maths for six years to produce a florist.

That night I logged in as her. I am not proud of this. I did have a precedent. Phill, blogging for the careers platform Kloodle in 2020, admitted to running an older program, Kudos, hundreds of times with different answers, tailoring them to whatever job he fancied that week. His pilot week went: “Work well at heights? Yup, absolutely!” I had the same method and a stronger motive. Do you enjoy working outdoors? Never. Do you mind getting dirty? Very much. Are you comfortable with responsibility? As of tonight, she is.

By 1am I had run it eleven times and barrister had not come up once. Twice it offered actuary, which I then had to look up. Once, when I said she liked animals, it offered pig farming, which I took personally. At 1.40, out of spite, I said she disliked everything, and it suggested lighthouse keeper.

The annoying thing is that these machines are sometimes right. One Reddit user remembers Jiig-Cal suggesting cartographer, fashion designer or florist, now works as a professional seamstress and wardrobe assistant, and reckons it was not far off. Mr Closs said his own daughter became a teacher, one of the options Jiig-Cal had given her. I have yet to find one that suggested barrister to a girl who wanted to arrange flowers.

At breakfast our daughter opened the laptop and found fourteen completed questionnaires. She scrolled through them in silence, eating toast. Then she read out the last one, the one I had answered at 2am, most honestly, as myself.

Tree surgeon.