Hmm.. In order- paper round, helping Dad in a shop taking washing machines and hoovers apart, McDonald’s, student nurse for a year in Dundee/Perth. Back to Glasgow, care assistant, stock dept for Asda, another go at Nursing in Edinburgh this time, bar job, care assistant, broken leg put paid to it, job in a call centre, promoted to TL but contract cancelled not long after. Back to Glasgow, charity work, doorman, call taker for The Pru, claims handler then fraud dept. Managed 7 years with them, three changes of owners, under a lot of pressure towards the end, stressed etc..
Friend suggested the ambulance service, applied and got in. Found I quite enjoyed it, trying to get my arse in gear and get the para training done.
Have had ups and downs along the way, good times and bad. Happily married now with kids and a mortgage although hardly any time to ride my bike these days.. Oh well.

I’m now an engineering geologist and I love drilling holes.

I messed about at school, went to 6th form and messed about even more. I was clever but just couldn’t be arsed with it as it was easy.

Got accepted into uni and did averagely.

Somehow got a job on my doorstep straight out of uni in 2007, working as a monitoring technician for a site investigation company. Turned out I was better at work than school, did everything I was asked and had my own brain to do things without being asked. I trained up there and matured as well, moved out of home properly too.

Someone I worked with moved to Australia, a year later he offered me a job with him, thought why not ill give it a go. 18 months later, still here.

Longer term I’d like to get into construction or deeper drilling works, but I don’t really want to do more study…

Did my GCSEs and got the grades for a sponsorship from the RAF to be a pilot. Broke my back at 17 which messed that up so went into IT because it was good money easy.

10 years later I now work between the US and UK as a support/installation engineer for a web filtering company.

Love my job as its so varied and I meet/talk to different people everyday. It also keeps me mentally challenged as I work on so many different platforms I constantly have to learn on the fly.

Work on a Orthopeadic ward in the NHS. Left School after my A levels, became a Travel Agent didn’t like that, a bar manager and Trained up as a Scaffolder. Then got a job in a Nursing home part time and did my Nurse training at Uni.

I enjoy it, stressful but every day is different. Would of loved to of gone to Med school, but i cant afford to pay the tuition fees.

Left school at 15 with nowt
got a job in a furniture shop in the warehouse .£5 per week £4.47 after stoppages but a pint of mild was .11p

then apprentice carpet fitter till 17 on £15
next plant driving at a quarry till 19 £ 50 is per week
Forklift truck driver in a factory 20 £25 per week
back to the quarry and £50 per week until 21 years old

went selfemployed on my 21 birthday in 1976 as a carpet fitter
been in that trade ever since and it is crap now with no one spending on their houses so would take a job if offered one.

I’m a part time warehouse bum.

Left school with crap grades.
Worked in the packing dept at a sandwich factory.
Got a job as a driver at 18.
Moved up to the purchasing dept.
Made redundant.
Worked at a Morrison’s RDC in the stock control dept.
Went back to the driving out of necessity.
Got left holding the baby when my ex did a runner.
Went part time in the warehouse to fit in with school.

Not really decided what I want to do with life but at the moment I am just happy riding bikes and being a dad.

Project manager

Probably the best description but my role involves the sales, design and delivery process so it’s a bit broad for a simple definition. I work for a contract audio visual company and in short we ‘pimp’ homes with lifestyle technology solutions;

Cinema
Multi-room music and video
Automated lighting, window treatment etc…
Data networks
Entry systems and CCTV
Custom control systems (control everything via iPad etc…)
You get the idea….

I left uni early as I couldn’t see where it was going and went to work in a decent Hi-Fi store to ‘buy some time’ whilst I worked out what I was going to do… Never thought I’d find something I enjoyed so much and that suited my creative tendencies. Worked there for around ten years with a [brief] interlude to do a Ski season in the Three Valleys, then caught a break when introduced to my boss who was building a custom install company. In at the beginning and we’re going great guns.

I design systems for some of the most beautiful homes in London and the surrounding counties, we also have projects in Europe (St Moritz, Geneva, Nice etc..) with, in some case, simply eye watering sums of money involved – really interesting clients. What’s nice is we engage in projects across the price spectrum so it’s not just the uber rich, but needless to say what we sell is not exactly cheap. Tech changes so fast it’s a constant race to keep up and make sure we embrace the best solutions for our clients… I love my job… 😀

Business analyst /consultant etc

Was about to put pen to paper for REME when the careers lady said “how about trying this 3 week computer course?”

Well, that landed me 3 years on design – the most famous outcome of which was to have designed the “country choice foods” logo that adsorbed thier vehicle fleet from the early 90’s for about 10 years and – get this – i designed, withiut actually knowing what it was, the training Sim for the laser cross hair system that you all saw pn the news at the first Gulf war. Seeing that on TV made me sit up.

Various redundancies then saw me as an software trainer for local and central government software. 20 years later and various aquisitions, management of teams / national and international projects and i seem to be somewhat of an industry expert in one if the top 3 companies.

At a bit if a ceiling currently, as I’m crap at politics I can’t be trusted / don’t have the experience at a directorial role, yet seem to be a capable lieutenant that everyone wants working for them. Nothing wrong with that I guess….

Failed most of my OLevels, redid them, did. Civil engineering course in the local college and then one in Leeds Polly but failed it, did it again. Got a job as a land surveyor on a motorway project for a couple of years, then moved into landfill installing boreholes and pipe work to extract methane.

Moved about a bit from one company to another, still in landfill and usually specialising in methane extraction (usually every 2 years), usually going up a rung or two each time ending up in a waste management company doing the corporate thing. The corporate thing just got tiresome after 8years so left that job to set myself up as a land surveyor 12 months ago as that was one job I really loved and with everyone recycling these days, landfill is pretty much on a massive downward trend.

Loving being my own boss. Financially it was a bit hard at times but now it looks like I have to get some help in due to workloads.

Drpooed out (before I was kicked out) of degree in Environmental Science. Trained as a nurse. Went to work for Halfords as a Biklehut Specialist and ended up in store management. Jumped ship to B&Q for a 50% pay rise. Hated the environment and the fact I never saw my wife.
Now site manager for an company mainly offering airsoft events but also cp training facilities. Have a nice fun side project working for a friend (on here) now and again which gets me to some unusual places.

Mental health nurse working in deliberate self harm. Been lucky to only have to be part time for the last decade doing 2/3 long shifts a week. Got involved in developing/ renting property with my brother and another friend and this will most likely be what i retire on. We also own a bar/ club type thing, and I’m a partner in a small micro brewery. I was looking at having a bit of a change and was going to head to NZ for a private health provider, but the brewery is doing great and we are looking at getting our first pub and this is proving great fun. I guess I’m a bit of a chancer really, who happens to be able to fall back on being a pretty decent nurse and who doesn’t mind putting the hours in to make stuff work.

Im a clockmaker. been there for 2 years now.

spent 7 years in the Army REME as a welder/shipwright. I enjoy my job but i would love to do some thing else. I have applied for a few jobs in a completely different sector. I would love to be a police man or ambulance driver.

i think im lucky to have a job TBH and im going to be stuck at my company for a while yet.

Design Analyst.

left school at 15 with 4 GCSE’s. dossed for 5 years, DJing very badly, on the dole, taking drugs daily.

got a job in a glue factory, filling bottles, promoted to machine setter. there for a year. got a job as a printers assistant in a place that printed rolls of labels for Tescos etc.

Left that job with nothing else to go to. got a job washing dishes in a cafe, then became a cook, supplemented that wage with a bit of casual drug dealing to friends.

Got another job as a cook, and became head chef at a restaurant, but was also doing a lot of cocaine. that became too much, so gave up cooking and got a job in record shop, age about 26.

Couple of years later decided I needed to do something, went back to college to do a HIgher Education Foundation Course, got the required grades to go to uni, so enrolled on a Computer studies degree. worked part time in the shop, and later Pizza Express, making pizzas.

Graduated with a 2:1, worked for a friend as a web dev. for 6 months, that did’t work out, so joined my current company as a programmer. was never a great programmer, so applied for a job on the same project as a design analyst.

Been at my current employers 5 years last friday. It’s been a funny old ride, but I wouldn’t change any of it!

Structural Designer in energy industry.

Left school at 16 to be an electrician. Found out my colourblindness was worse than I had previously thought so couldn’t get into the college course.
Went back to school to do higher and intermediate 2 courses.
Applied for HND Mechanical Engineering but the class was full.
Settled for HND Accounting but realised in the early briefing class I hated it. Quit that.
Phoned the college and explained it wasn’t was I truly wanted to do, they put me on a waiting list for Mechanical Engineering.
Agreed with boss at the time (labourer at electrical contractors) to work full time for 1 year until next college intake. Got a phone call later that day with opportunity to join HND Mech Eng class. Turn up smartly dressed, rest of folk were minks so got in no bother.
It was the first time the graded HND was run so became first and only person with an A in both HNC and HND Mech Eng.
Applied for Trainee Structural Designer role at a few companies, got a few offers including from my top choice company.
Started night class BEng Mechanical and Offshore Engineering course after 1 year as trainee, whilst doing a SVQ Level 3.
Graduated 2 years later, passed my SVQ Lvl 3 and completed my structural design training 1 year early.
Have taken a year and half (so far) out of further education.
Start a part time MSc in Oil and Gas Structural Engineering this September.
Looking to move into Structural Engineer role and get chartered within next 5 years.

Going to be in local paper (Press & Journal) on Monday if anyone local would like a laugh at my prematurely balding head!

Got pretty good GCSEs at school due to being fairly bright, but as a result didn’t try hard enough at A levels and wasn’t clever enough to get the appropriate grades for a place at Surrey University studying sound recording without trying,

Went to another uni up north and studied Music Tech instead, met soon to be MrsNinja and rediscovered a love for all things two wheeled and knobbly tyred up in the Lake District. Graduated with a first, and moved back down to London to make my way in the media industry.

Got a job as a runner at a large TV edit house, then a slightly better job in the library department of a now defunct film lab, then a job doing ops for a very small facility. Have just gone freelance as an editor/restoration artist/vfx artist/photographer in the hope of building up my career further and also doing smaller, more enjoyable media creation jobs for smaller clients than the big players that hang around in Soho. Pretty worried about the near future tbh, but I’m hoping that with enough effort it’ll turn out ok.

Father was involved in development of BBC Micro, which got me into SW at age 10. Had games and applications published in magazines from about 13 onwards, did some summer jobs as contract programmer from 15. Then totally lost interest in SW and only got back into it in the last few years. Spent the inbetween 20 odd years working in Telecoms after BEng in Electronics. First 10 years were very varied, worked on MoD stuff, Powerline comms with Norweb, Satellite stuff for Intelsat, Mobile phone projects. Hold about 9 patents for various designs. Last 10 years have been spent designing bits of mobile phone networks all over the world, from China to Africa, Middle East to central London.

Reatil Designer

Degree in Furniture design and manufacture.

Worked for a shopfitter as a designer.

Then, in the project managment side for a little while.

Now working for an Architect doing multi million pound refits.

BA (Hons) Geography + MA Geography + PhD + year as research/teaching dogsbody assistant = senior lecturer

Decided during A-levels to take geology degree at university. Failed all A-levels. This was no suprise as I insisted on going to a local 6th form college which had a bad dossy attitude but my choices were beyond me academically: maths and physics, and I was never good at writing essays so failed geography, and scraped an N in AS geology.

Anyway rather than re-take I decided to take the clearing offer of studying HND in Geological Technology at Luton. Cruised through that. Got to start at Sheffield Uni straight into the 2nd year. Handled that ok, depsite regretfully sometimes not understanding the difference a 2:2 and a 2:1 could make.

Applied to the nearest ‘geological’ companies to Sheffield and ended up describing soils for a site investigation company. Worked myself up during my 2 years there. Got lucky breaks with the projects I worked on so got some failry unique drilling experience. Went travelling, worked for a small backward consultancy, did MSc in Engineering Geology including a niche work placement in nuclear industry, met Mrs Mugsy, ended up working for a bigger global consultancy for 6 years doing slope stability and earthworks designs etc.

Mini mugsy born, time for Mrs Mugsy to move home back to France, moved to France,left company, signed them up as a client, worked from home for a year. Reivsited my practical hands on knowledge form my early days and now carved a nice niche working on overseas projects and working from home. Have a good list of contacts and chances to work for other clients on projects all over the world.

Love working overseas. Love big technical drilling (not tin pot 30m holes). Love being hands on. Don’t like leaving Mrs Mugsy and the children, don’t like the new company i.e. my new client that bought out my client, but this means many colleagues have left and aware of my skillset and contct me about beoming involved with their projects. Not made the jump yet, but prob will soonish.

Comapny director via the university of life and a Ba(hons). Generally motivated by not wanting to be like all the useless people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting in my life and being motivated by some top, top people.

Wunundred.

Small business owner and MTB guide.

Used to work in that London on the 2nd fit and reconfiguration of Banks. Began at 17 by lugging in the furniture, then moved onto designing the floor plate and then on to project management.

Moved to Spain in 2007 and set up All Mountain Venture in 2009. I’d been coming here biking and hiking for 20 odd years and have strong family connections down here; so it seemed a natural move after I’d had a gut-full of desk jobs and wanted to work outside.

Marketing Analyst

started out by not having a clue so took a degree that sounded interesting, Physics, to put off having to make a decision, spent too much time riding and taking all the interesting hard modules so came out with a crap degree. Temped for a steel processor as cannon fodder, eventually got a office job, admin, customer services, database design, then a CRM implimentation, after 12 years got made redundant when they moved the plant to chester. Did an MA for fun in Classics because it interested me.

Spent a couple of years temping, and discovered how lucky i had been to have worked previously with a decent group of people, even if i moaned at the time that it was $hit. Now working for a farm supplier on a CRM implementation, and general market analyst type stuff. money if ok, people are ok, so not to bad. plenty of time to ride and live.

Instructor/technician in Furniture/cabinetmaking in a College.

Too much skateboarding and too anti-authority at school so left with very little, drifted about and back to college for a while but still too preoccupied to do well despite being creative and clever.

Started work as a driver for a plastic conservatory company, lost my driving license so was allowed to work in the factory, did this for a few years before the blinding boredom got under my skin enough to do something about it, but still had no idea of direction.

Mum put me on a career analysts day course that suggested a creative and practical vocation, one of which was furniture making.

Got on a two year course at my local college studying furniture making, then went on to a three year degree in furniture design and craftsmanship in High Wycombe.

Eventually moved down to Brighton with then girlfriend and worked as a postman for a while, then with an architectural joinery company where I learned pretty complex wood machining and did a few ‘one-off’pieces.

Got very bored, left and worked self employed with an antique reproduction company where I basically had to make pieces of furniture from just photographs.

Girlfriend thought Brighton too expensive(I loved it there) and wanted to move back to the Midlands to take our lives forward, houses etc… We split up after a few months partly as I was so depressed being back.

Got into a job building narrowboats which I did for two years, then got a phone call from a furniture designer/maker who I’d been to see a few years before when firing out C.Vs.
Worked with him for two years making some amazing and complicated one-off furniture, coming up with ways to do things all the time, learned an awful lot.

Got a phone call from an old Uni friend who had been the technician on the furniture course that I started on originally and had now become course leader about teaching some leisure evening classes.
Did that for a year before sacking off the furniture making as it had become restrictive and boring and went full time and very much full circle at the college.

Been here about 5 years now. Good conditions and holiday and I get a whole workshop at my disposal to make my own designs… 🙂

I ride bikes and sail stuff, I found this place via Boards Forum.. 😆

Manufacturing engineer for the F1 team who will win the 2014 FIA constructors championship 😉

After 26 yrs in the trade and lots of bloody hard work it was a chance encounter and a little bit of luck that helped me get the job I had always dreamed of,

proof indeed that it’s not what you know but who you know in this game.

Offshore Inspection-NDT tech / Rope Access.

Started out bombing all my exams so left school at 16 and started an apprenticeship as a Fab / Welder in a Glasgow Shipyard. First year at college was good but decided the nanosecond i was in the yard that the life was not for me. BUT i finished the apprenticeship and promptly joined the Royal Marines. Did that for a good 12 years which started out an absolute blast with yearly trips to Norway and Belize amongst others. Then promptly got very serious when Iraq and Afghanistan kicked off.
In 12 years i did 3 tours of Afghanistan, 1 in Iraq, 1 in NI, and 1 In Kosovo so i defo did my bit.

But as with everything you have to grow up eventually so made the move offshore and have not looked back.

Spent the first 18 months working worldwide from far-east, middle east and Gulf of Mexico but was sick of not being at home and being on a very short lead when i was so made the move to the North sea.

Work can be good at times but very monotonous the rest. But i work 2 weeks on and 3 off so i never ever ever complain 🙂

Currently doing an HNC in Mechanical Engineering and i am really wishing i had paid more attention to maths at school.

Left school with nothing never wanted to be three, Royal Navy recruitment turned up at school and I thought that looks ok so passed entry to be an Air Engineering Mechanic as a boy sailor 16 years old. Too much discipline for me so left after 6 months longest time i could have left it without giving 18 months notice or getting thrown out. Worked as a sheet metal worker went to night school qualified as a sheet metal worker. Always good practically so worked as a mechanic for a bit and making bespoke light fittings for another firm. Been making Jiffy Catering Trucks for the past 20 years now but less and less metal work now installing transport refrigeration, diesel fired heating, 240/12 volt elecrical systems, LPG fired catering equipment, basically whatever the customer wants I get asked to make it work on a vehicle and deal with the customer with any issues in the future. My title is development manager for what its worth. I also too my class 1 licence at 21 so get to deliver the customers new vehicles too. Most recently built myself a campervan so the company decided it would be a good idea to diversify because times have been tough and I get to build, sell, quote, order parts, basically everything for this side of the business for nothing extra. I want a new challenge but not sure where my skills fit in with other companies. Being ground down about your abilities for 20 years takes its toll

bikebouy – Member

I ride bikes and sail stuff, I found this place via Boards Forum..

Not the Contributor In Chief? Shirley not?

By way of apology for the OT previous post.

I repair scanners in hospitals. Been doing this for the last ten years. Fell into this by accident when a mate rang me up and asked me if I wanted a job.
There are worse things to have to do for money.

RAF for four years till a broken back stopped that before Telic 1.
12yrs abroad doing numerous very high level rigging works that no one else would attempt.
Now the owner of 3 companies operating in the high level access sector, operating, training and equipment supply.
Have clients from general construction, through Government, Police and the Military.
Not a job most fancy – have a search for any of the vids posted on here of the “insane riggers” or “head for heights”…
That’s a normal day – you should see some of the other stuff we do……..

Carpenter
Been in the same trade since i left school. I was always told to get a trade , did’nt fancy anything techy so chose carpentry and joinery. I have been doing the same job for 26 years now.

Processed in a pink floyd way at school, went to do a pharmacy degree. Hated it and left. Main ambition never to do another exam. Did a variety of jobs, picking rubbish off margate beach, despatch riding, then started work as a technician in the local college. Found out I was quite good at teaching…now a Headteacher. I love it…most of the time

Senior Research Scientist.

From school always wanted to work as a countryside ranger. Did work experience and a bit of volunteering with North West Water. I knew the position would take a degree (as pretty much any job did by then) so went to uni and did environmental science. It seems I got rather way-laid with science, and ended up doing a PhD. Then a couple of postdoc positions down the line, I get offered a job in Oz. Think I’ll do it for a couple of years whilst the UK economy sorts its life out, then end up winning grants and getting a promotion. Looks like I might be here a while…

Was an agricultural engineer for 16 years and now a solicitor. Wish i’d stayed up the shitty end of a combine tbh but the money is a little better.

Great thread.
I’m a professor of organic chemistry. Pathway is very much on rails compared to some of the more interesting stories – start chemistry degree at 18 – PhD – postdoc – lecturer etc.
Moved at each stage – in hindsight got lucky with choice of laboratories. PhD was an average project but an inspirational and supportive supervisor. Postdoc was also a good supervisor but a world class project. Combination of the two got me my start.

Left school and went straight to work as a plumber with my dad, few rows etc later went off to work for other people till the collapse a few years ago. A wrecked knee from racing moto x meant I’ve done all sorts of shite factory jobs to pay the bills. Second new arrival int the family and finally getting my knee sorted has lead me back into plumbing. Loving it more than ever after doing loads of other things made me realise how much I missed it. Never thought I’d think that way

I’m a lawyer.

I took the direct route of straight to uni to study law but whilst there realised I didn’t really want to be a lawyer! I left uni and did other things for a few years but after my first child was born I took the plunge and got qualified.

Regretting it ever since!

Sales Engineer for a big Telco.

Left school, did Business Studies HND at a Poly, worked as a minicomputer operator for a couple of years (HP3000). Back when that was an actual job.

Got bored, became a nurse (RGN). Worked in oncology, gave lots of very sick people chemo for 10 years.

Found it all too harrowing one day (personal circs weren’t helping) and managed to blag my way into an IT Helpdesk contracting role, starting again at the very bottom. All the FT guys left, and bit by bit I assimilated their roles.

Discovered I really enjoyed the networking bits the best, what was this ‘subnet’ thing they spoke of?

Went off and did all the exams and got all the experience I could in all things networky (LANs, WANs, firewalling, etc, etc, etc) and up until a couple of years back happily built solutions on our core MPLS infrastructure, before getting lured away into Pre-Sales.

Very enjoyable job, if i may say, so, if not a little stressful at times. I act as a brake on the more fevered imaginings of sales people, while striving to get customers solutions that’ll do the job for ’em.

Accountant, on some cool projects though

Seems I went to the same sixth form as Chiefgrooveguru, joined the army at 15, got a degree in Electronic Systems Engineering but didn’t make it thru Sandhurst due to chronic lower leg injuries. Absolutely gutted at the time but with hindsight a lucky escape, and apart from having to avoid running even now, I wouldn’t change a thing.

Panicked at the time as I knew I would make a terrible engineer in the real world (good at passing exams, not so good at developing practical engineering solutions) and ended up looking at grad schemes with the opportunity to gain a professional qualification in a new field. So ended up joining a large British defence manufacturing business, getting CIMA qualified and I now look after the finances of a load of capability development contracts on some planes that the RAF use.

Despite thinking that accountancy in general is dull, my job is really interesting, probably as now I’ve progressed a bit I spend most of my time talking to other people/functions and not manipulating data in spreadsheets all day.

Great thread btw.

Hospital Doctor, GCSE then a levels, did a degree in Environmental science, worked as a consultant for a year did a masters in Hydrogeology. Worked in research for a year, opportunity came up and managed to get a place on a post graduate medical degree (which was what I initially wanted to do, but my school said I wasn’t clever enough and I believed them). Have been a doctor for last two years, have an interview next week to get onto the anaesthetic training scheme, so hopefully will end up a gas man!