THE PROFESSIONAL WHO QUIT THE RAT RACE

Sue Websterreports

SURELY nobody in the real world gives up a well-paid and prestigious job (0) __in__ favour of a menial one (1) ……, by necessity, they are forced to. Ambition has always (2) …… considered a desirable quality; salary and professional status are the advantages (3) …… be courted. And yet, in these alarming days of executive stress, burnout and compulsory redundancy, the idea of throwing in a towel holds a strange appeal. We interviewed someone who has quit the rat race.

Gillian, 37, was a solicitor in a city law firm (4) …… earlier this year. She worked long hours and weekends and (5) …… come to the conclusion that her highly paid, high status job was just a ‘living death’. She found the isolation of the job difficult and wished she could have more contact with people, rather (6) …… dealing with her clients only by phone or fax. When she left, her clients were surprised. When she told (7) …… she was going to work behind the counter of a supermarket, they were, she laughs, ‘flabbergasted’.

She now works a 39-hour week, at a very modest hourly rate of pay. Gillian doesn’t regret resigning (8) …… the law firm or having less money. ‘If only I’d done it sooner,’ she says. ‘I absolutely love the new job! (9) …… is a part of me that I’m not using; your brain feels (10) …… I call ‘stretched’ when you are drafting legal documents. But I don’t miss that at all. I’m (11) ……busy to feel bored.’ Any lack of intellectual stimulation has yet to prove frustrating, and, in the evenings, she now reads (12) …… those books that she wishes she had had time to read before. Not (13) …… Gillian has closed the door entirely (14) …… resuming her law career. A period (15) …… of the fast lane does not render professionals unemployable and some do manage to make a comeback.

8.2. Read the article again and find words or phrases which mean the same as the following:

1. reputable, esteemed or respected

2. unskilled or ordinary

3. the state of being no longer needed at work

4. a continual routine of hectic competitive activity

5. admitting defeat

6. to leave or abandon

7. a member of the legal profession who draws up wills, advises clients, etc.

8. giving in her notice at work

9. producing a preliminary written version of

10. discouraging by hindering

11. starting again

12. a place where the pace of life is frantic.

9. Fill in the gaps with prepositions:

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