What's the best job you've ever had?

[annedonnelly]

Teaching older people living in sheltered housing how to use computers that had been donated to them. In the days before smartphones/tablets but when it was becoming important to be online to communicate with friends/family and benefit from cheaper products. Including helping a 99 year-old watch a video of her two grandsons running about in their garden in France.

 

[geocycle]

I really enjoyed working as a chef in a college at York Uni for a holiday job. I learned a lot of skills that I still use. I also learned a lot from the 6 months in a Parisian Grande Ecole, basically an Oxbridge college, which was 90% young women… mainly life skills like how to toss salt, eat artichokes and pour wine.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Retirement 😏

Watch you do not get sacked

 

[HLaB]

If my current boss is reading this, Ive got to say the current one ;-)

 

[fritz katzenjammer]

I spent 16 years working for a small injection molding company which specialized in high precision, high performance products. It was really interesting leading edge stuff that I really enjoyed, but as the company grew the owners became too stressed out and took it out on their senior management. Drove me out in the end.

I spent the last three years building bikes for Trek, a great retirement gig I just recently left as new bikes are getting dropping in quality and are a right pig to build because of it.

now l’m a fully retired house husband… cleaning house beat the hell out of automotive bearings, aircraft bits and LED lighting systems.

 

[Donger]

Once spent a day smashing rocks with a sledgehammer at my brother's house, where he was doing some landscaping and laying hardcore. At the end of the day I realised I'd much rather do the same again the next day than go back to my civil service job. Loved working outdoors.

 

[Electric_Andy]

Once spent a day smashing rocks with a sledgehammer at my brother's house, where he was doing some landscaping and laying hardcore. At the end of the day I realised I'd much rather do the same again the next day than go back to my civil service job. Loved working outdoors.

yeah I feel the same when labouring/landscaping. unfortunately I have to accept that I'd not get half the pay I do in my boring office job, nor the perks

 

[gbb]

I spent a lot of time (years) wondering...how did I manage to enjoy just about every job I ever had ?
Came to the conclusion its not the job, its you, and how you throw yourself into it.
I've worked from 16 in a Little Chef, to coal.surveying in the mid 1970s, to site labouring, engineering storeman to engineering buyer then at around 40, went on the tools in the fruit industry.
Best two ?
17 yo, driving Land-rovers across country, surveying coal fields. Laying cables, detonating explosives...acting like loons, enjoying the countryside and driving 3.5 litre land-rover...at 17, what's not to like ?

40 yo, got a job on the tools, no qualifications, aptitude and application was what they wanted. Paid very well compared to previous jobs and after 3 years I was working in Cyprus twice a year, Spain, Egypt, Uruguay, installing packing lines, training local people to operate and maintain the machinery, eventually ran the maintenence operation single handedly, top to bottom, maintenance, most electrics, servicing, breakdowns, maintenence records etc etc, the whole shebang (sp)

Oh yes, and retirement, im enjoying that more than I expected. Looking after two children limits free time but when theyre at school.... my time is mine, its fabulous.

 

[Jameshow]

Holiday job, getting the harvest in on a big arable farm. I was 19 years old, sun-tanned and very fit.

Next best was the following year's holiday job, labouring for a local builder. We did the foundations, block and brickwork for a four bed house out in the country.

The message I didn't absorb till later was that I loved practical work more than my studies. That's when I went to work in the drilling industry.

Me too should have stayed with my construction firm student job and got a trade!!🤔👍😢

 

[Accy cyclist]

Seeing as it was by far my longest lasting job, it has to be my self employed window cleaning round. I had my round for over fourteen years, beating my second longest job by far, as that was five years as a care assistant in an old folks home. It was the only self employed job I had in my forty plus jobs I has over the decades. I should've done it years before, but my parents always put me off, saying that working for an employer is far better as you get holiday pay, sick pay, workers rights etc, whereas when you're self employed you don't get any of those. OK, I didn't get holiday and sick pay, but being able to fiddle my tax returns, unlike an employee can, I saved that money for a rainy day, as in saved it for when I couldn't work due to bad weather, illness and taking family holidays. Window cleaning kept me fit, up and down those ladders, stretching, walking, fresh air etc and I had a good rapport with many of my customers. I even found my beloved dog Jake/Albert when cleaning windows as his previous owner asked me to look after him for five minutes while she went in a shop, when I shouted from the top of my ladder 'He's cute, what sort of dog is he'? That five minutes became permanent when she told me she couldn't look after him anymore, so I bought him off her. Yes, self employed window cleaning was definitely the best job I ever had!

 

[richardfm]

I retired 5 years ago, but now work 20 hours a week driving a minibus for a school. It's the best job I've ever had, no budgets, people or projects to manage and very little interaction with senior management.
Admittedly it doesn't pay anywhere near as much as I used to earn when I had a career, but now the mortgage is paid off it's great.