How Did You Get to Where You Are?

[gaz]

I work as a Web Developer for a Global Estate Agency.

I got this job after i left uni but first did some work in Admin of the IT department.

 

[Flying_Monkey]

About the only advice my father gave me was not to join the armed services. He'd been in the army, 39-46, his elder brother was killed in the RAF, so perhaps understandable.

Actually, my dad (career soldier) said much the same, although he was far too late to fight in WW2 (only born in '42!). The reason he tried to make sure I would get to university was that I wouldn't make the same choices as him. Ironically, I was all ready to do exactly the opposite of his advice and be a fighter pilot (RAF scholarship lined up and all), until I had a moment of satori and became a pacifist...

 

[surfdude]

did crap at school so now work outdoors all year getting cold and wet at an activity centre for kids with special needs as a maintenance man . get job but not the best paid but very rewarding .

 

[ComedyPilot]

did crap at school so now work outdoors all year getting cold and wet at an activity centre for kids with special needs as a maintenance man . get job but not the best paid but very rewarding .

Got it in 2 words.

 

[ComedyPilot]

Actually, my dad (career soldier) said much the same, although he was far too late to fight in WW2 (only born in '42!). The reason he tried to make sure I would get to university was that I wouldn't make the same choices as him. Ironically, I was all ready to do exactly the opposite of his advice and be a fighter pilot (RAF scholarship lined up and all), until I had a moment of satori and became a pacifist...

Airline pilot not good enough for ya........?


[wink]

 

[gbb]

I often wonder how the hell i got to where i am now, because lord knows, i never had a plan

Currently a maintenance engineer...nearly always been in an engineering environment, but never formally trained, no qualifications whatsoever.
Left school, worked mostly on building sites for a couple of years, then my dad got me a job as a storeman in an engineering department in food production. Progressed through to effectively a buyer/engineering administrator with a monthly spend IRO £40,000 with maybe 15 engineers to keep supplied. I spent 23 years there. I loved that job.

The whole site was closing and i just happened to be in an electrical wholesalers and met a guy who during an offchance conversation said we're looking for someone to train up in maintenance. Went along, obviously the interview went well and got the job.
Bearing in mind, its a full on tools job which i hadnt done before, it took me maybe two years to soak up all the infinate problems and solutions that you face on different machines. After a while of course it becomes second nature.

10 years ago i couldn't concieve i'd be working on pneumatics, 3 phase electrics, mechanics, sometimes helping the Spanish with Spanish machines (like selling coals to Newcastle), working in Cyprus, Uruguay, Spain and Egypt.

I never tried to get anywhere particually, but i always worked bloody hard to get the best out of what i'd got ( i remember saying to my wife, 2 weeks into the job..'i don't think i can learn it all...every breakdown has at least three potential causes '. But i never give up...

Sounds like a CV eh. I love the job...hate the company.

But having no qualifications has distinct drawbacks. I had the same last time and at some stage i'll be in the same position again...looking for a job with no qualifications. IF experience counts, i'll be ok. But if i'm up against someone with experience and qualifications....

Ive been lucky, but i've also worked bloomin hard. Always show initiative, never be afraid to take something on, even if its way out of your comfort zone and somehow, thats been recognised. Its the only reason i can think i am where i am now.

 

[addictfreak]

Currently in the Fire and Rescue Service, I have been there 26 years. Previously a member of HM Forces.

I had intended to join the police force on leaving the Army, sometimes I still wish I had.

Must be a uniform thing

 

[Intelligenthamster]

I'm with Dayvo, a job is something one has to do to stop the bank / landlord demanding the house back and I am more interested in being happy than in making pots of money or managing people. I'm just a boring old admin drone, as long as I am not working for w**kers it's fine by me.

I never aimed at having a career- I loved science, especially chemistry, and had I been given a different brain I would have looked at going on with it at Uni. But you need your maths for that and I was always terrible at maths and was sure I always would be - I now know I'm dyscalculic, but 22 years ago there wasn't the support you can get now. I was also at what would nowadays be called a "sink" school, which hardly helped. They only concentrated on sporty pupils as they won volleyball trophies but never produced much in the way of academic successes!

 

[ComedyPilot]

Currently in the Fire and Rescue Service, I have been there 26 years. Previously a member of HM Forces.

I had intended to join the police force on leaving the Army, sometimes I still wish I had.

Must be a uniform thing

Did you ride a conference bike from Morpeth to Darlington?

 

[Gerry Attrick]

When I left school several thousand years ago, I went into farming. I loved every second of it but I realised it was never going to pay a mortgage and have enough left over for a beer. So I trained in mechanical engineering and engineered engineering things until life took a bit of an odd turn which precluded travel to various distant lands. So I took a temporary job in the Civil Service which lasted over thirty years during which time I progressed a couple of grades above my ability. I am now very happily fitting in retirement with my busy cycling schedule.

 

[krushavik]

I was just wondering if Fran 143 will put her post on here and the million dollar question will be answered what the hell does she do.

 

[ASC1951]

Retired - yipee!

Previously a partner in a medium sized firm of solicitors in Yorkshire. Trajectory was:-
- Classics at Grammar School
- Law degree
- Training contract in local government (my father died while I was at university, so I had to be paid while I trained, which in those days didn't happen in private practice)
- left after ten years to set up my own firm
- amalgamated with a larger firm for the final seven years.

I've never done anything except be a lawyer. My father must have been a strong influence, because my brother and sister did the same, although all of us in different environments. It has been interesting work, but if I had my time again I would rather have run something like a little manufacturing business.

I have always looked at work as a necessary evil to pay for the things you actually want to do, and I have spent all my spare time caving, mountaineering, cycling etc. You can of course just do the things you want to do, but to my mind you need work to get the best out of leisure and vice-versa.

Come to think of it, I still run a fitness training company. If I don't have something to make me think, my head turns to porridge.

 

[TVC]

Got a Degree in Engineering and worked up to be a Project Manager in a Metrology company. Got made redundant after 9/11 when half our world market stopped spending. At that point I did a bit of a financial review and realised I didn't need to be clinging on to the corporate ladder so took a job winding and assembling transformers, completely hassle free....

Trouble was, because I had a fair bit of experience, a good work ethic and I was the only guy in the company with a degree (that includes the Engineers), they keep promoting me, and now I'm managing half the production for the company. So that's the hassle free working life gone again, next career change I'm going to choose something I have no natural aptitude for, like gigolo, so they'll leave me alone.

 

[HelenD123]

Currently jobless. How did I get here? It's all the fault of cycling. I quit my job to go off touring .

After 14 years in more and more senior admin roles, starting with a job I took just to pay the rent after graduating, I decided I didn't want to look back in another 14 years and wonder what might have been. With no responsibilities, some money in the bank and lots of inspiration from Crazyguyonabike I decided I had to give cycle touring a go. I spent a fantastic 6 months touring Canada and the US last year. I still can't believe I did it. Now I'm back and wondering what to do. I've got interviews lined up for some temporary admin jobs but I can't see me settling back into a permanent job just yet. There's too much of the world still to see! Ideally I don't want to end up in job where I'm sat at a desk 5 days a week but it's hard finding something different to do.

 

[cookiemonster]

Post of the year for me.

IMO people like Dayvo are the ones who need to be looked up to, not some career clone doing the 9-5 for 50 years then popping their clogs in their sleep - never having tasted adventure.

You have a 1/2 mill suburban mansion - so what?

When was the last time you sat at dawn watching the sun come up over a mountain lake?

Or skinny-dipped as a totally spontaneous act?

Everyone who lives dies, but not everyone who dies has lived.

+1

Watch the sun come up regularly, not over a mountain but over the horizon on the sea (which from Aberdeen, is in the direction of Norway, Dayvo country)

Skinny dipped last time in Thailand a few months ago, much to the shock and surprise of my other half (I was skinny dipping with 3 young Spanish ladies )

Never wanted a mortgage (can't understand the obsession with owning a home)

Still lots of adventure to be had