With that length of service, I'll bet you knew at least two people I was acquainted with....both long service Met.
Got a degree in sport and exercise science. After rejecting the offer from rolls Royce of an apprenticeship. While at uni got married and became a youth worker for a church in Nottingham. got made redundant from there due to no funds being left in the pot. Moved to Rotherham after being offered a job at rbs and NatWest before getting promotions to team leader in the specialised business management division. Then left there after 2 years and joined the SYP control room before working on a project for a new incident management system and training all of the control room staff how to use it. Then left the control room to become a response PC for SYP where I still am. Yes the job can be hard and you see and hear some horrific things, but in my opinion it’s the best job in the world.
Yep, likewise.... been an interesting thread. Me ? Like others, never had a plan. Left school a week before my 16th birthday with a few O levels. Went into HM Customs and Excise and spent 6 great years there. Had some great laughs. Left there to join the Police and get married ! This was at the time of the miners strike, Brighton bombing etc. Usual PC stuff, patrol car, beat bobby etc. Another 6 years passed and joined British Caledonian Airways based at Gatwick in their small Security dept. Absolutely loved it. 2 years later, BA took over, and a short time later, I moved up to Heathrow. Spent the next 30 years in the Security / Safety dept of BA. Have been involved in numerous special flights, (government, sporting, military, 2012 Olympic torch flights etc) with the last 6 years travelling the globe assessing the safety / security operation of each place the airline flew to. Been a blast. Then 2020 and Covid..... 6 months of furlough before finally taking redundancy and early retirement. Whilst the manner and timing of going was not of my choosing, I well appreciate that it came at the end of my career and that others are suffering far more than me. The travel / airline industry been hit really hard. So, for someone with no plan, I’ve had a great run. Seen lots and met some great people along the way. What next ?!!
I used to spend a lot of time at Gleneagles, one of our projects was all the branding for the Johnnie Walker golf championship. We were there before all the G8 and I remember there were a couple of police with a sniffer dog and cameras checking all the drains and manholes before sealing them up with special rubber seals. Apparently they were at the hotel for a month checking! If you ever go some of them are still there.
Left school at 15, did my O levels a year early. Joined the RAF. Left the RAF joined the MOD as a civil servant. Retired to France at the age of 45 and not worked since. Loving life.
Left school with nothing more than the love of anything mechanical. (Dad’s a mechanic) Spent 4 years at a Ford dealers doing an apprenticeship. Then on to a local race team working on historic sports and GT cars along with one make saloon cars (Fiestas). Worked on some fucking cool stuff. McLaren M8f (google it). Then on to Prodrive’s Btcc team 2 years of Honda then 2 years of Ford Mondeo’s 1997-2000. Before upgrading to Jordan F1 team as test team number 2 technician then on to number 1 technician. Stayed there for almost 17 years. Then on to Mercedes Hpp as an F1 engine builder. And still there, nice steady factory job with no more travel and trackside action. Happy days!
Left school at 16, joined the Army as a boy soldier in the Royal Engineers. Lucky to travel the world ending up as a WO1. Finished the Army after 25 years service on a Friday, joined a Maintenance company on the following Monday. Not been out of work since 16 and now employed as a General Manager on an Acute A&E Hospital and Mental Health Unit in the Midlands. Looking to retire at 58 within the next 6 months to our house in France.
Left school at 16 with nothing, did an apprenticeship in fabrication and became a skilled plater. Six years in the industry then made redundant, found a job building riot vans, prison vans and horse boxes. This lasted 4 years until the company went bankrupt! Whilst waiting for a fabrication job at the local quarry I decided to do a couple of weeks at a local courier company just building up containers with parcels that then go on a aircraft, 20 years later and I'm still there after flying around the world as a load master and am now based back in the uk as a Hub operations manager.. Roadkill
Hope that you have a very huge pension if you are intending to move to France after the new year! The French will be imposing rules like the UK, large income etc.
That’s amazing. You’re not the only person in this thread who’s worked in F1. Is that because there’s loads of work in that field or is it because people with high level engineering skills recognise the quality of a Ducati compared to rival Jap stuff? Obviously Ducs have their problems but I remember when I got a 2007 R6 after 3 years owning a 748, a 916 then a 996S and thinking how cheap and utilitarian it felt in comparison.
My CV is quite mundane, left school with some very average A Levels then went on to Liverpool Poly (as it was called then) and did Electronics, this got me in my first job at small business in Southport. They designed small one off switch gear, found it quite boring but met some very interesting people, in particular someone who was into motorbikes, this meeting sparked my interest in bikes! It was through the same bloke I got to hear about working in the Computer Industry, his best mate worked for DEC. Anyway I left the company in Southport and did a course in Computing, this eventually led to a job at Hewlett Packard in 1986. These were very exciting times in the IT world, there was nothing HP could do wrong, world leaders in so many sectors with a fantastic workforce. Have had many happy years there, 34, sadly the IT world is not quite the same anymore, but you can say that for other industries too. Aim to hang up my keyboard in the next 18 - 24 months, got so many other hobbies, I wont be short of things to do. Bikes, cycling, kitesurfing and maybe race my Mini again.
my first job was a tyre fitter dirty horrible job lasted 6 weeks then i got a job as an apprentice tool maker in a scientific research center SIRA were we made component's for the Hubble telescope,the money was too low at £15 per week,so i started making jewelry and tried selling at markets ,did ok for a few years but too hard lots of late nights and early mornings ,so i sold up the business and went traveling for 5 years ,were i found my passion furniture making and have been doing it since 1984and still run a rather nice workshop .
Started offshore studies in 1998 and did a masters in offshore engineering at Cranfield, Beds, in 2004 after bumming around for a couple of years on the Isle of Wight. Been working in the offshore industry ever since, laying and repairing power and fibre optic cables at sea and coastlines. Everyday is definitely a school day and wouldn't swap it to be honest. Downsides, being away from the kids and the motorbikes, but thats the rough with the smooth.
Far too many good people overlooked because they don’t have a degree, the Global company I work for has realised this and is opening up applications to people with relevant industry experience. I have 32 years experience in sales worked hard and proved myself in every job, career ends at the end of the month as we’re emigrating, I have a degree in common sense which seems to be sadly lacking nowadays
Left school at 18 with distinctly average A levels that I had no interest in taking further, a lot of parental pressure to go to university (which I could only just get into) but all my mates were working and earning money. In 1970, I bought a 650 Triton race bike from Steve Machin in Cleethorpes and converted it to road, but then went to a Wednesday track day at Brands Hatch and knew I had to race, so I converted it back again. 6 years racing all the while working 08.00 to 16.00 at an aircraft seat factory as a storeman then junior buyer and the working 18.00 until 01.00 as a minicab driver to pay for the racing. Working so hard was bad for racing as given the hours I was putting in I felt I had to win. 46 crashes and 23 broken bones and a realisation I could not afford to buy, let alone run a TZ700, (change in British championship to 250 (I was too big to be competitive in Nationals on a 250) and 750 only and introduction of slick tyres meant retirement in 1976). I joined London Transport in 1977 as a junior buyer and progressed from cleaning contracts, through food and catering equipment to cable to lifts and escalators, rolling stock equipment for fitting under District Line Trains. Along the way I studied in evening classes for a degree in Business studies as I got tired of being passed up for promotion and overtaken by ex graduate trainees. The first major contract I let was the Underground Ticketing System, gating of all sub surface stations followed by 6 multi million £ contracts for refurbishment of the Underground's railway rolling stock. I was then responsible for the replacement rolling stock for the Central and subsequently Northern Lines (the first PFI deal in the UK to obtain Treasury approval - not something I am proud of as it let the flood gates in for what is esentially a flawed way for public bodies to acquire new assets, later govt deals (hospitals etc) were much softer in terms of value for money for the public purse). Post BR privatisation I was headhunted to a rolling stock leasing company, doubling my salary overnight, I was badly underpaid at LULtd. I was seconded to Virgin to buy the Pendalino West Coast tilting and Voyager Cross country fleets of trains. I then persuaded my employer to speculatively purchase rolling stock from Siemens for the replacement of old slam door Southern region rolling stock. This contract had options that enabled us to be the principle supplier for over 4000 rolling stock cars. Headhunted again and consolidating all my previous bonuses into my starting salary (and pension) I joined the Strategic Rail Authority to re write the franchising agreement and was responsible for re-letting 7 franchises and setting a programme for all subsequent franchises. The SRA got abolished and taken over by the DfT and I was offered a job to carry on at half my then current salary. I didn't stay. Then Commercial and later Development Director for the company that ran the Oyster card system. In 2009 I got fired by them 6 weeks after being diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, haven't worked since
