What job ?

[Deleted User 728]

I find myself wondering what I'm doing with my life quite a lot of the time these days, mainly because I only work part-time and have plenty of time to consider such things ..

I've gone from working full-time for a student union four years ago to being a freelance writer for a couple of years to now working part-time for UPS loading their trucks for delivery, finishing my four hour shift before most of you leave for work in the mornings.

I am actively looking for a full-time job again - the writing work is so hard to come by in this economic climate - but I don't want to work weekends and having spent most of my life in retail management it's quite hard to find anything in a 9-5 environment. Plus, being 50 doesn't help.

Still, I'm optimistic and patient and happy enough plodding along as I am for now.

BEST JOB I EVER HAD : Record shops. Amazing. Our Price, Virgin, Fopp, Tower and an independent. Best days of my life.
WORST JOB I EVER HAD : Orange. Manager for precisely one year. Horrible, dealing with complaints all day long ..


How about you ??
What do you do, what did you do, what do you want to do ??
Hopes, ambitions, disappointment and misery - spill the beans !

[NottinghamWhite]

I started life as a commis waiter & becoming a General Manager, finished my hotel career working for the administrative receiver getting bankrupt hotels back into profit, I actually loved that it was so challenging & fulfilling. I then went down the civil servant route for 20 years working for the MOJ, really was a hell of a career change but one I relished until I decided 6 years ago the PC brigade were running things. I sat down with my wife & found I could afford to stop work. Even though I climbed the heights of the CS it was becoming obvious I was classed as a dinosaur, particularly to younger members of my team. As a child I always dreamed of becoming a archaeologist, sadly I never persued this particular line of work. Used to have a teacher at school that took me & a couple of mates on digs during the summer holidays, halcyon days indeed.

[kk white]

What do you do: Design Assurance Engineer with a large multinational medical company - 16 years and counting.

What did you do: Barman for 4 brilliant years before current role

What do you want to do: Quite happy where I am, but microbiology is my (work) passion.

Hopes, ambitions, disappointment and misery - spill the beans: When professional football was in Ireland for a short while, I was due to sign a contract with Waterford United on the Monday following my last amateur game.... Broke my leg in 3 places that day, never fully recovered. That would have been my dream, but not to be. Pro money in Ireland would not have been huge, but it would perhaps have been 3 times the average industrial wage, so could have been a nice few years, but more importantly it exposed players to the UK scouting network...

[johnh]

What do you do? Retired.
What did you do? See below.
What do you want to do? Stay alive.

My work experience was peppered with a number of lucky breaks and a lot of hard work. When I was demobbed from National Service I started work with a Caterpillar Tractor Dealership in Leeds. I remember telling my Dad that 'it would do until I found something better'. I stayed there for almost 30 years! I started as Inventory Controller before moving to the Accounts Department as assistant to the Accountant. The Accountant left and I was appointed Accounts Manager (unqualified). Over the next several years I also became responsible for the accounting systems for all northern depots. Then I was appointed Data Processing Manager to install the first computers. After 7 years in this job, I was promoted to General Manager of the Commercial Division which covered responsibility for all the accounting, computer services and commercial services. I had a staff of 105. In 1970 the company was taken over by Unilever but by 1980 Unilever strategy was to return to 'core business' which was foods, cosmetics etc., and was obviously not Tractors! I managed to get an exceptional redundancy package and joined one of the leading firms of Accountants in the City. They had just merged with another accountancy firm and had a very large car fleet (4,500 vehicles). They wanted someone to organise the fleet merger and negotiate deals to reduce costs. After several years, outsourcing became the 'in thing' and it was decided to outsource my department. Together with one of the partners in the partnership (my boss!), we formed a company and bid for the contract. We were successful so I completed the last four years of my working life as a director of my own business.

[Deleted User 1022]

What do you do? Online Teacher in the Philippines, Teaching Chinese students English.
What did you do? see below.
What do you want to do? See further below.

I started working at eleven years of age as a paper boy, coal and wooden block delivery boy throughout my early teens to help with my family finances because my mom died young and dad had to be a stay at home dad. I left school at fourteen to take on a job as a delivery boy for a company who wanted someone who liked cycling which I loved at the time. Stayed with them for about two years and started a plumbing apprentice. Didn't finish my time with that because I caught up with the glitz of the negative side of youth and spent a few years chasing the high life. Reached twenty one was close to jail or death and I made the best decisions of my life. To stop the garbage I was doing and started life back doing schooling again. It took me the best part of ten years to find my feet and when I graduated from university I was 31 years old. I started working as a youth worker and helped many children and adults with addiction. I further studied Psychology and community based studies to enhance my skills which eventually came in useful around my own community where I had in previous years caused a lot of troubles and hurt to people. Got work in different places around the City who needed help with a helpline that was set up for addicts seeking help. In 2015 I moved to the Philippines to be with my wife and kids who were here. I found it difficult at the start because as a foreigner I wasn't allowed work without the proper visas etc. but eventually I started working in my current job which is Teaching. I like what I do because I can still help change someone's life by guiding them to more opportunities and more opening of doors that can come with the English language.

Ultimately my passion isn't for teaching its for helping those who have seen the wrong side of life come through it. In the Philippines its quiet challenging to get help because the laws here are more stricter than at home. Self help here literally means self help as the government don't really care about its own people like back home. I want to someday set up some place for addicts here where they can start their 12 step programs like I did and find that there is a life after drugs, alcohol, gambling and other forms of addiction.

There you go guys, an honest piece of my life tough as it was I always have hope and I always believe that everyone can make the changes to their life when it sometimes seems desperate. I am fortunate that I had an excellent father and other people who took the time and gave me the chance. I always think the same nowadays.

[Sniffer]

I suppose you should call me a Railwayman as that's the job I do know and it's a job I've done for 23 years of my working life, but I've had peripatetic interludes. I started as a barman: full-time, split-shifts, 4 days a week. It was a good way to feed a growing habit and the food was free too. My dad kept talking about "real jobs" and a family friend got me an interview with the railway. I got a job in the TEB (Telephone Enquiry Bureau) to learn the trade: wrestling with A4 folders of timetables, the National Fares Manuals, the "add-on" book for the smaller stations, helping people plan journeys from Trowbridge to Alfreton and Mansfield Parkway, from Keynsham to Baldock, from ... Helping people unravel travel. Thence to the Booking Office, the Travel Centre, Red Star, Pay Office, Yatton, Bath, Weston-super-Mare, the Time Office. The Time Office. Far more drab than the name suggests I was one of 5 assistants (working shifts) to the Assistant Station Managers (also working shifts) who actually ran the station. Our job was to stay in the office and deal with whatever was thrown at us whilst the Superheroes flew around saving the Universe. Or at least the 17:49 to Cardiff. We also had to do the rosters (a peculiarly Railway thing apparently, everywhere else calls them rotas), deal with pay queries, from the station staff and sign the station staff on and off duty - hence Time Office. We also had the dubious honour of sounding the 3-minute warning siren should the station come under Nuclear Attack . End of Time Office.

I then realised I was a Nomad so started doing the nomadic thing of moving around with my world on my back. I ended up in Australia picking Zucchinis, labouring, selling glow sticks, selling hotel packages and working for The Sydney Opera House Supper Club at the Intercontinental. All very tedious. I would say that the itinerant lifestyle wearied me and forced me back home but in truth my visa ran out.

Eventually I made my way back to the Railway, selling tickets and being hated by the people buying them. After 6 years I jumped ship from the Commercial side to the Operations side and became a signalman which is what I've been ever since.

Hardest Job I ever did was for one night only: breaking up a big top after it's week long run on Twickenham Green. Blistering hot, heavy work on a day/evening where the temperature didn't drop below 35C.

What did I want to do? I used to be the singer in a rock 'n' roll band...

[ChilwellWhite]

Head Teacher at a primary school. To be brutally honest I couldn't wait to leave. My caretaker was having to open up at 06:00 and was chasing them out the door at 20:00. The pros were the holidays and now my pension, if I had my time over again would I go back ? Would I heck...

[Davycc]

Currently Safety and Compliance manager for a aircraft charter and handling company. Our main operation is supplying the Air Ambulance services which transfers critically ill patients from Northern Ireland and the Isle of Man to England to receive specialist treatment not available here or IOM. Love the team I work with but am now yearning to do my own thing and in fact am just back today from talks with the provinces transport company re an idea for a business (watch this space)

Best job - 17 years old delivering telegrams (remember them) on a little Post Office PUCH moped especially on Saturday morning when it was the Wedding runs. Never allowed to leave the reception without having a dring thrust into your hand, how times and attitudes have changed, for the better I may add. A few Saturdays I remember having to let my tyre down and call out the recovery van as I knew I wasnt able to ride it back. 17 and no worries.

[mapperleywhite]

Quite topical as I’m waiting on two jobs to fall into place at this moment. As some of you may recall I’ve had a tough time finding opportunities since being on this forum; I think I’ve had three during that time.

I used to work at Fiat HQ in London during university holidays; that led to me getting a job in the parts department of Bristol Street Motors on Water Lane Leeds when I had to repeat a year of my degree.

Eventually I found my way into the oil industry starting out at a company near Derby, and, after 12 yeas there, this in turn lead to work for other lubricants organizations in Monaco, Houston and Frankfurt. I’ve always rated the time in Germany as the best – great group of people, immense variety of job content. One of the saddest days of my life when we had to pack up and move back to England after the office was closed.

Can’t really say categorically that one particular role was ‘the worst job’, but I can pick out events and people that were extremely challenging. I had a real slave driver of a boss at Petro-Canada, who thought we should all be like him, sleep 3 hours a night and work, work, work, weekends included. An illustrative series of events would be coming back from Krakow on Friday evening and getting ready to go to Bucharest on Sunday; on Saturday I was expected to catch up with e-mail (no mobile data access back then). Eventually went to the doctor with blood pressure over 200.

A big driver for moving overseas was having my appetite whetted by the travel I did when I was in Derby. And I must say I’ve been highly fortunate that my jobs enabled me to travel on companies’ expense and see places like South Africa, Hawaii and India.

It’s odd that if I look at most of my peers from school they’ve either worked in the public sector or have their own companies. I, however, always wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps and work in industry.

Misery and disappointments? Try being made redundant four times. (though one victory in there was successfully winning an employment tribunal for unfair dismissal!)

So keep your fingers crossed for me that one of the two happens; I’m 64 soon and plan to work until at least 70.

[NottinghamWhite]

What a diverse group we are Good luck Howard with the jobs, I'm actually going to pick up my OAP next month, this will actually double my monthly income.