How did you end up doing the job you do?
Posted by: Rickson75 on 15 November 2006
I’m always curious about how people end up making their career choices. For example, with me I went to university to do a degree in history because I had no clue what I wanted to do and there weren’t really any jobs available at the time. When I graduated the only job I could find was working as a care assistant at a council run nursing home. It was only supposed to be a temporary job until I found something better but there was a girl in the office who I fancied who was training to be a probation officer so I got on the same course. I* then found that I quite liked the course but she had a boyfriend and the social work NVQ course was easier because they had fewer people on it so I transferred to that and I’ve been a social worker ever since. Weird how life goes isn’t it? I’m thinking about moving over to train as a drug counsellor now because I would like a change and I don’t like some of the people in the office very much
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by northpole
May be an appropriate time for you to test yourself - a book recommended to me is Bridges to Success - Finding Jobs and Changing Careers - Wiley Press - ISBN 0 471 86577-X. A friend just sent me it after completing an mba at London Business School. That's my task for this week - also why I'm loitering on the Forum!!
Peter
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by scottyhammer
my old man was a steeplejack and i went on sites during the school hols, i got bored just pulling up gear to him all day so i eventually pulled the last of the gear up one day and progressed to climb up a tall stack to lend a hand. i got a bollocking for it but he let me stay and work with them up top.
i ended up a steeplejack for over 25yrs untill a natural progression took me into lightning protection which is what ill stay doing till i retire in some 12-15 yrs. hopefully.
regards, scotty
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by scottyhammer
p.s. my old man said id go up in the world and he was right!
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by Jono 13
As a small boy liked taking things apart to see how they worked, which led me into engineering.
Jono
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by jcs_smith
I started my working life in the police. After 2 years I was invalided out because of arthritis. I was very disillusioned at the time so I wasn’t too upset – I didn’t like the way we had to manipulate crime figures, the way jail sentences just didn’t seem to match the seriousness of the crime and also I found going to court very stressful. I moved on to work in IT for a few years – I’d done a degree in Computing before joining the police so it wasn’t too hard to get in. I gave that up after about 10 years when it just became too difficult to find work – the wholesale export of jobs to India destroyed the IT market. I then moved into security – door work, close protection, security consultancy. Another thing I just stumbled into, but it seemed the easiest thing to do at the time. I’m getting a bit too old for it now so I’m thinking of setting up my own security company so that I can move into management and let others do the heavy lifting.
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by JohanR
When I came out of the 13'th year of school I couldn't get a decent job. So I did a year at uni studying to be a "computer programmer" (in 1981 not everybody knew everything about computers).
Got a job as a operator directly after uni, after a couple of years I was asked by a computer consultant firm if I wanted to start working for them. I'm still there.
Can't say that I've done much of a conciuous "career"...
JohanR
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by arf005
As my old man said during his speech at our wedding last year - "his mother was sick of him not knowing what to do so said - Alasdair, here's an application fill it in.......and miraculously, he got the job!!!"
Thanks folks!!
Been with the company for over 13 years now, am happy doing what I do, and still don't know what I would have done after leaving school if I wasn't doing this......although I always wanted to be a pilot (military) but am blind as a bat without me specs so that was fucked.... Plus, with the company I kept, qualifications I only just managed to get, and the jobs all those old mates are doing now I consider myself to be very lucky indeed......
Cheers,
Ali
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by joe90
I was orphaned but survived the brutality of the orphanage and was taken under the wing of a benevolent genius scientist and now I steal Russian military technology for a living anbd kill anyone who gets in my way whilst looking insanely blonde at it, in between clocking Final Fantasy X1...
Dumb luck really.
Posted on: 15 November 2006 by i am simon 2
I decided I wanted to be "in property" so I applied for a few jobs at Estate Agents, I got offerd a couple and accepted the one who were going to give me new BMW as a company car - not bad straight out of university. But that day my uncle phoned to tell me there was an add in the EG (property magazine) at a Surveying Practice that had done some work for the family business some years previously. So I applied to that and got the job.
The estate agent was a bit irate that I had turned them down at the last minute, but I am glad I did as working in the surveying firm I started a course to become a charterd surveyor, and now I am qualified, which I wouldn't have done at the spivy estate agents.
Simon
Posted on: 16 November 2006 by Jono 13
quote:
Originally posted by i am simon 2:
The estate agent was a bit irate that I had turned them down at the last minute, but I am glad I did as working in the surveying firm I started a course to become a charterd surveyor, and now I am qualified, which I wouldn't have done at the spivy estate agents.
Simon
Estate agent = house pimp
and usually not very good it.
Jono
