Careers

Joined the NHS as a biochemist straight after university. Did that for 15 years and then fell into IT which I've been doing for the last 23 years. Now Director of IT in our local Health Board looking to retire in about 15 months unless someone makes me an offer sooner!

Interesting set of jobs that we seem to have...

Left school at 16 with no clue as to what I wanted to do. Spent time in Art College, Surveyors, Building Sites, working in a Children's Home, and then Oxfam as a fundraiser until I went to college in my mid twenties to further my education.

I've spent a career of 30+ years working with young people as a youth worker. Still happiest when I am getting young people's opinions, working on what they are interested in, and getting their take on life. Across the years I have been dragged into senior management roles and the politics that comes from working in large organisations. Somewhere along the line I achieved a Masters Degree by part-time study!

Now have the luxury of having an MG as a "toy" i.e. not the daily drive (Astra 1.7 Diesel) and getting my hands dirty doing some of the things I used to do pre - career and kids. The first engine I took apart and put back together was on a Reliant (side valve) when I was 16! Followed shortly by a BMW engine in an Isetta bubble car. :woohoo:

CJJ,

Nice to see a T85 - if there was ever a heavy radar that was it. I won't comment on the picture top left and how come that BV206 is so clean?

Richard

Work is the curse of the drinking classes so after 32 years in the RAF, I don't (work). In an attempt to keep my brain going I teach dinghy sailing as a RYA Senior Instructor (senior = old) to age group 7 to 70 and shorebased classes in the winter as a RYA shorebased instructor - all totally unpaid. Yes, I have an affinity with organizations with 3 letter acronyms starting with R.

Richard

T85. Those were the days, when you could live in a radar and have an eeirie glow about you.

My BV was never clean.

Left school in 1976, gained a mediocre degree in Sociology, fell into medical drug sales, via travel agency (don't ask). Did the "corporate" thing for the next thousand years, working mostly for Yank companies, became depressed, anxious and bullied by successive sales managers and finally fell to bits in July 2011. Been unemployed since then. I haven't a clue what I am going to do for the next 12 years or more till official retirement. I am attending therapy for the present, and that really is my current job - to try to get my head back together. The upside is that I don't have to do that bs corporate thing anymore. The downside is that I also can't really afford to buy a TF till I am working again. But that is how life goes. There are folk far worse off than me.

Blow-in wrote: Yes, I have an affinity with organizations with 3 letter acronyms starting with R.

Are you in the RAC?

Dave Baird wrote: fell into medical drug sales, via travel agency (don't ask).

So you used to smuggle drugs?

I found when I reached the manager level that the only way was to go back down again. I didn't enjoy it at all. You are expected to make work your life. I enjoy my current job, but it is still only a means of earning enough money to enjoy myself and make ends meet.

I was OK at the manager thing, but if I had to attend another meeting on reinventing the wheel or introducing another name/process learned by a new, fresh out of college "leader" of men at some conference or other I would have had to just curl up and die.

I hate name changes to assert authority or just make your job seem more important. I have always been an electrician and thankful that nobody has ever tried to change it. In this day and age though I should at least be a "Power delivery technology equipment manager" or a "Charged Ion flow technical consultant". Other trades have gone from IT to ICT, Personell to "Human Resource Management" etc etc. It is this part of industry that I hate, changing names to give the impression of progress.

Sometimes having a nice standard of life is much better than a fancy job title.

cjj wrote:

Blow-in wrote: Yes, I have an affinity with organizations with 3 letter acronyms starting with R.

Are you in the RAC?

Indeed I am!

Out of school after a brief stint in retail I joined the Canadian Army. I was in the Infantry where I specialised in making holes in paper at long distances (peacetime). Left the Army after spending a year in Winnipeg Manitoba (winter weather avg -20 to -40 :frosty: ) with no prospect of being posted antwhere warmer.
Started work in a small MG garage then made the mistake of taking a course to become an Aircraft Sheet Metal Mechanic. (Should have stayed at the MG shop!) I worked for a major airline repairing Boeing 727, 737, 747, and Douglas DC-10 then moved to a firm building sub-assemblies for executive jets. I hated production work so, during a layoff I went to work for an MG restoration business and never returned. I restored a number of post-war MGs; TC, TD, TF, MGA and did lots and lots of work on MGBs. I can still have the engine out of an MGB in well under an hour. I left the MG shop after the company had a change of ownership and went through a couple of sales jobs; Woodworking tool sales, hardware sales and ended up owning my own locksmith company which I ran for 13 years.
When I turned 50 I realised that I needed to get a pension happening so I wound up the business and went to work for the local school board as the staff locksmith fixing things that the kids, teachers and burglars break. I currently maintain the locks on 50-odd schools on a meagre budget managed by penny-pinching burecrats and hope to retire in 4-5 years when the mortgage is finally put to bed. :yesnod:


ca. 1981

Dont ask what i do but iam an Enforcement Officer for the CPU.

cp53 wrote: Dont ask what i do but iam an Enforcement Officer for the CPU.

So, what do you do, then?