The stranger up ahead

Think back to when you were ten years old. What did you want to be when you grew up?

There’s a good chance you winced just now. For many of us, remembering what we thought adulthood would be like, and what our role in it might be, is either embarrassing or just plain bizarre. Children, of course, have a fairly vague understanding of the world of work, which is why every kindergarten contains far more future firefighters, dinosaur scientists, and astronauts than the actual workforce ever has. It might make you chuckle, or cringe, to think you ever thought you’d be doing one of these jobs.

Or, it might make you slightly