Careers

My career of choice was to be dog handler, preferably training Guides Dogs/Hearing Dogs/Assistant Dogs, however when I said this at my school (old style, all girls place) they told me to go away and think of something sensible... :coat:

So, I became a pharmacist. Worked for Boots from 16yrs old having in store, Area and Regional positions, but concentrating on the professional side of things rather than retail/management.

I left Boots in 2001 to join the NCSC, now known as CQC (Care Quality Comission) where I am one of a small team of specialist pharmacist inspectors. We inspect anything and everything to do with medicines, health and welfare in healthcare (hospitals, dentists, slimming clinics, hospices etc) and adult social care (nursing homes, residential homes, domicillary care, supported living etc).

We only work on referal from the regular inspectors, so we only ever see the rubbish services where people don't get their medicines properly or are being given medicines to control their behaviour or knock them out etc. That means I end up spending most of my non-inspecting time writing legal notices and dealing with enforcement in order to either make services improve or shut them down.

I love my job, it's very rewarding, but can be upsetting at times- especially where abuse of vulnerable people is involved.

I enjoy these kind of services birks. But when the CQC come into our work everyone panics as does ofsted when they rock up at schools. Audits and assessments are always needed to improve things or standards slip.

If you fancy being a dog handler kind then come round to ours there is a nice BEAST woofer (tibetan mastiff) that needs some telling off / training

Stop abusing them, then Maggy.:rofl:

Oh david ..... I saw a car that looked VERY like yours today

I'm in IT. Worked for various big names like IBM and CSC but then decided to go freelance last year and wish I'd done it years ago.

bensewell wrote: I enjoy these kind of services birks. But when the CQC come into our work everyone panics as does ofsted when they rock up at schools. Audits and assessments are always needed to improve things or standards slip.

If you fancy being a dog handler kind then come round to ours there is a nice BEAST woofer (tibetan mastiff) that needs some telling off / training

I know we make people nervous, but believe me, we want services to be good...that means people are being treated properly :yesnod:
Where they aren't we take whatever steps are necessary (contrary to media reports!)
I work in ASC on the whole (care homes etc) and most services do what they need to do and improve...and many times tell us later that it was the 'wake-up' call they needed

David Aiketgate wrote: Stop abusing them, then Maggy.:rofl:

never been accused of that David...but I was once accused, in court, of 'planting' a frozen chicken in the medicines trolley in order to make them look bad...the judging panel could hardly keep their faces straight!

I started as a spark, then ended up driving lorrys. Got out of that ten years ago and now have a small EAS and CCTV installation company.
You have probably all walked past some of my work.

I am "semi-retired" now but spent all my working life in the electricity supply industry. Started as a apprentice electrician the become a operator. A lot of my years was working with the HV switchyards but also keeping the boilers/turbines running smoothly. Working shiftwork slowly wore me down and I was real pleased several years ago to leave the nightshift. I am always busy and you people that still work don't know how lucky you are to go to work and have a break. Dave

Im a Business Analyst - business improvement and optimisation basically.
Been with EDF Energy 11 years.

After school I took a year off to earn a bit of money and build my Midget, then back to uni to do a degree in mechanical engineering. Spent 3 months doing an internship at MGR 04-05, had a verbal offer for a job once I'd finished my degree (2005 was my final year) which clearly went well. Whilst exploring options for work now that my dream job was unlikely to happen, my final year project supervisor suggested postgrad so I became a professional student until 2010.

Since then I've been a postdoctoral researcher, first at Auckland and since April at TUM in Munich. I work in carbon composites manufacturing, characterising and modelling processes to produce ~50,000+ components/year. Working with the likes of BMW, GE and Eurocopter.

I left school at 16 to start a Mechanical Engineering Apprenticeship with Bridgeport Machines (most mechanical engineers should know them or have used one at some point) where I ended up in the Drawing Office as a CAD monkey.

I got made redundant from there and as Engineering went into decline ended up wasting my early 20’s working for some God-awful companies as a Design Engineer and CAD/CAM Programmer. I was very close to jacking it in and going to retrain as something else when I was approached to have an interview with a big company called Babcock.

I worked there for 5 years during which I spent most of my time surveying and designing baggage system layouts for Heathrow airport (T1 & T4). I also took the opportunity to learn Inventor 3D CAD whist I was there which led me to my current job; designing Resistor banks for the National Grid.

There is no way of jazzing it up to sound interesting but I really enjoy it. They give me plenty of new development work which keeps my brain active, they generally leave me to get on with it, my team is friendly and professional, I can cycle there every day, and above all they value and pay me well.

I have written a business plan to go self-employed should I want to, but see no need to at the moment whilst my work life is comfortable.

onefastmoke wrote: I know we all have the MGF/TF in common but was wondering what sort of background people have here, what does everyone do for a living?

For me I've been an underground mechanical fitter in a coal mine for the last 13 years, working on all kinds of hydraulic machinery, conveyor belts and some diesels. I started out at Ellington colliery in northumberland then transferred to Dawmill near coventry in 2005

so thats me lol

well, further to this topic. I actually got caught on camera at work the other day when someone was leaving so thought I'd share my ugly mug pictures at work with you lot lol


the machines in the background are some of the things I work on


me on the right


lol excuse the beard in these pictures as it was my nightshift week and I'm allowed to be scruffy and tired