When I was 16, a careers adviser came to my school. She made me do various tests and then told me to avoid any job that involved words. I would be better off, she said, doing something technical; however, if I fancied a bookish career, then I might be able to make it as a librarian.

This didn't appeal to me – all the less so as my dad was a librarian – and so, with a 16-year-old's contempt, I dismissed her, her pathetic tests and her even more pathetic recommendations. What a shower, I thought.

Alain de Botton has recently had a similar experience and reached a similar conclusion. When researching his new book, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work , the populist philosopher took himself off to be assessed by a career counsellor, who told him that he would be okay at most middle-ranking managerial jobs, and then suggested medical diagnostics – or leisure.