It occurred to me that I should have included this in my list of "jobs I nearly had" at the weekend, but..... well, I was getting a little OCD about the 'Top 10' concept, I suppose. And the ones I did include were all definite job offers or final-interview stage affairs or, at the least, firm career plans - whereas this was always a bit more nebulous and remote. Moreover, it is a job I've actually had, at another point in my life, in the UK; thus, it didn't really seem to be eligible for that list.
So, anyway, back in the late '90s or early '00s - just before I threw in my lot with China - I was on a holiday in the States, visiting a friend down in New Orleans in the run-up to carnival season. This friend, JH, is a Brit of fairly advanced years, but still with a roguish twinkle in his eyes and a youthful zest for the good life - something of an aging hippy. He had spent much of his adult life in America, a good deal of it under the radar, working as an illegal immigrant (for many years he was managing a hospitality concession on the PGA Tour, and made enough money from that to 'retire' early - although he continues to be pretty active around the fringes of the NO music scene, helping to promote the annual JazzFest, for example); after a decade or so of this outlaw existence, he had been able to take advantage of an amnesty to regularize his status, and he now has permanent residence. While hanging out with him, I met quite a few other expats with similarly irregular backgrounds. And a number of his American friends (mostly barkeeps!) were vociferously encouraging me to hang around and see what sort of job I could find. N'Awlins relies so heavily on tourism and conferences that there are tons of casual jobs to be had there, and I was repeatedly assured that it is never much of a problem to get work of some kind without a visa or a social security number. I was more or less offered a job as a barman, to get me started. Tour guide was also mentioned as a likely possibility. (When I boggled slightly at the suggestion that a foreigner who knew almost nothing about the city could be a tour guide, I was assured that I could soon learn the necessary facts - it was the charm of my British accent that would seal the deal for me!)
So, there you are. For a few days, I was very seriously pondering the idea of trying to disappear into the New Orleans underworld as a long-term illegal immigrant. I have briefly been a barman (and a tour guide) back in my Oxford student days, but...... New Orleans! That would have been something else!
My natural caution won out in the end. I wasn't quite convinced this would be as straightforward as my new American friends were telling me. And I didn't like the idea that (unless another amnesty came along), I might be trapped in the country forever, unable to return to the UK to visit my family. I liked even less the thought that if I were caught and deported, I'd never be able to return to America (I do rather like the place, and so many of my friends are there now). Above all, I think I felt that I was by then just a little too old for that kind of marginal life. If I had been offered such an opportunity straight after University, in my early 20s, I think I might have jumped at it; but a decade or so further on, after two miscarried careers, I felt I needed something a bit more stable and above-board (not sure how China fits into that template!!).
Now I come to think of it, I suffered a rather similar temptation 5 or 6 years earlier during my round-the-world backpacking trip. It was my first visit to San Francisco, and I was blissed out, absolutely falling in love with the place. I happened to be wandering through Haight-Ashbury when I saw - side by side in the same window display (oh, Fate, you naughty girl!) - adverts for a very affordable room in a shared house (I went to see the room, and it was gorgeous) and a no-questions-asked job (a 'barista' in a local coffee-house). At that time, I was even more tempted to stay and give it a try. But I was on my way to a friend's wedding on the East Coast, and my sense of social duty won out.
In both cases, though, I've quite often wondered what might have been....
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