What do you do for a living and do you enjoy it?

Paramedic, and enjoy it, although I don’t envy my colleagues in big cities. Rural suits me!

Automotive production supervisor, our main customer is Jag Landrover, so work is busy at the moment! Not enjoying it though, politics and bs from other departments getting to me now.

An opportunity has arisen in our engineering department which I want to grab with both hands.

. Most of the time I’m happy but sometimes I wish I’d done better at school

Don’t. There are plenty that did do better at school, but are only earning low £20k (if they have a job at all) and saddled with eye-watering amounts of debt.

You have a trade, one in demand, you’re doing just fine! 🙂

Manger in an engineering company. Liking the challenge after being a drone at the last place.

Head of a Materials Engineering Team for a large aerospace company. More firefighting than materials most days but still pretty good. Used to be an academic!

Ride bikes.

Yes.

Tennis coach for an all girls school.

I teach the 6th formers ages 16plus

Gardener, southern France………..quite enjoy it

Sales and Project Eng oil n gas industry. Specialise in choke n kill, mud manifolds and Surface test trees. Hate it with a passion as find it boring and unchallenging. Just like any other job suppose, as I find it repetitive yawn. Pays handsomely though which keeps one motivated.

everyone is a business to keep family and a lifestyle, probably not everyone’s cuppa but the hey ho

Reading the fore mentioned posts I’m jealous

Live on n enjoy whatever you all do or seek in life as an old friend once said “you only pass this way once”

see below

Director of multi service business in south west. Been doing it for 30 years, I’m pretty good at it too as I get work sent from all over the planet.
I T numpty though

Landscape architect and urban designer. 21st anniversary at my company this month and still loving it

Corporate banking in that there London. Great job.

Environmental scientist working part time in consultancy. Suits me.

Teacher, was at an expensive day school in Edinburgh now at a school in the borders that gets the lowest ranking on the poverty indices. Teaching some classes where behaviour and ability mean learning is about life skills not certificates.
Love the job could live without the paperwork.

Previous was in camouflage concealment and deception for land vehicles, then aircraft survivability for mod fun but was never home and hants is not my kinda place.

monkeysfeet – Member
Tennis coach for an all girls school.

I teach the 6th formers ages 16plus

If this is true, you win.

Vet, genuinely love my job. As I have got into management as well now there are more hassles but still get time on the front line. Work with a great team and enjoy the client and animal contact most.

Long hours, late nights and work a lot of weekends too though. Money to treat patients can be a constant battle though and trying to get a bunch of vets to agree on things can be like herding cats.

GIS Analyst/Cartographer. Re-trained in my mid 30s and the best thing I ever did! For the last 3 years I’ve worked at a Local Authority, but my job is more IT focused, so I don’t get to do much cartography or actual spatial analysis and I don’t enjoy it as much. Currently looking around and I’ve seen an interesting job in a great location, but the salary is a lot less (~£6k)….

*Saturday night after a couple of beers thread revival*

This was an excellent thread and one that I now find really interesting (looking for career inspiration). Anyone else got any honest career experience to add?

I’m semi retired and work part-time in a bike shop…love it.

I’m a Emergency Planning Manager for a large local authority in London. Its good fun and is a very broad job area – looking after different teams, responding to incidents, briefing directors, writing plans, attending exercises, providing training, running debriefs. Live a km outside the london border, with fields and forests between the house and London, so technically in the countryside (although still inside the m25), with riding only 150m from the door.

Previous was doing a similar job for the underground which was fun as well – lots of fun days but many repetitive plan writing days! Used to get a lot of back stage / Access all areas passes for London events which was a bonus (to work of course).

Specialise in choke n kill

I do that – not exclusively in the oil industry though. Thinking of moving into poisoning; any tips ?

Since this thread originaly started I’ve changed jobs and I now pursue paedophiles, online, grooming, contact, etc and pretty much anywhere south of Manchester and occasionaly overseas. Quite challenging, going into families and carting one of the parents off whilst ensuring there is a child protection strategy in place is a bit messy and there is a fair amount of exceptionally unpeasant material about. More rewarding than I expected it to be, learnig how t’internet and computers work and a bit more sense of achievement scarfing up some fairly horrible people. The worst so far has been a mother though I suspect my current target(s) will outdo her. Good bunch of people at work and when you’re out working never had a job where people are so keen to help.

Anyone else got any honest career experience to add?

You only realise how lucky you were when you leave.
Freedom is liberating a variable pay cheque isn’t.
If you want to spice it up get into a niche area being over specialised and under qualified then move continent.
Think before jumping (some good some bad)
And to counter the nobody ever wished they had worked harder on their death bed, be smart work out when to work harder and get into the position to enjoy the rest when you can.

Today (well, not ‘today’ because it’s Sunday, I’m watching the F1 on catchup, procrastinating on here and getting ready for this today’s ride) I run the telecoms and video services for a FTSE100 company. On Wednesday we have a ‘restructuring’ announcement, so on Thursday, well, I have no idea

I’m a sort of freelance everything for publishing. Currently main client is a local newspaper group but I have a fair bit of writing for US based clients and have rebooted my photography side via old contacts. But more often than not it is just ad design for assorted businesses.
I like it and get to ride my bike enough. Win.

The only job I’ve ever enjoyed was freelance and part-time.
I don’t enjoy working full-time basically, irrespective of the job.
My bones tell me life is too short to spend most of it working.

Neuro rehab coach.
Basically, a care worker for people with acquired brain injuries.
Love it to bits, but I’m permanently exhausted.

It’s starting to take it’s toll physically too, so time for a change.

Hopefully switching to the training and assessing side later this year once I’ve passed a couple more exams.

Worked in insurance complaints/compliance for years, hated it, but the money was OK.
An inch or so taller and I’d have gone for the Police or Fire Service, but they didn’t accept shortarses back then.
🙂

Nominally I’m the ops manager for a cycle holiday company. I get to do everything. IT, meet and greet the customers, bike fettling, delivering the luggage, attending breakdowns, booking rooms, checking the bills, managing the team members during the season (drivers herd as well as cats). The bit between September and April drags as it’s all planning and analysis. Booking season starts in November and runs through to June. Meeting people who are going out to have a good time is great.
We’re just about to get going with people coming to us for holidays. Down side is I get to work weekends all summer. Upsides empty mid-week trails and roads on my days off. Pay is just about enough but that’s not too important nowadays as the kids are self supporting.

Build missile guidance systems, not nice when you think about it in depth. Waiting for retirement.

Rusty Spanner – Member
Neuro rehab coach.
Basically, a care worker for people with acquired brain injuries.
Love it to bits, but I’m permanently exhausted.

An aside really but….. I’ve been doing a bit of work with Playlists for Life – its about very nuanced use of music in dementia care. (I don’t work in the care sector I’m making a film about it). Seeing it in action is pretty amazing for something thats so simple (although theres more to it than first meets the eye). Might be of interest to you as they’re hoping to role it out into the field of brain injury too.

recently gone back into site engineering for a construction firm in W yorks.Its a beautiful day out and im sat on site supervising N gas networks fit mains to new building. 😡 I will go for a ride later Enjoying the variety But Architects FFS!!!

OriginalLy Energy consultant ( buying it for big companies) moved now to procurement with a focus on energy saving. Recently changed to work for a retailer and loving it. No day the same, and work atmosphere is great.

Head of Ops for a growing boutique broker and fintech company. Everything from compliance, risk, legal through to trading oversight and IT development and infrastructure.

Hours are mad but people are all top of their respective game and we’re doing some really interesting stuff with growing client-base. Once things level out and work-life balance is better then it’s a 10/10

I’m a steel fabricator, who up until a couple of years ago had a wonderful workshop full of some lovely tools and have produced some cracking work. Overheads, a desire to keep hands on / work force small, means that has now gone.

I now specialise in on site remedial work on large steel frames, mostly positional coded welding.

I now work less, but longer days (5-6am starts in order to be on site for 7.30)

Less Overheads, less stress, more family (bike) time.

I do still miss my workshop though 🙁

Chocolatier for a small company in Galloway (cocoa bean co), if i didn’t need the very few £ that it pays i wouldn’t bother working – given the choice of work or going out on bike/farting around with whatever interests me i’d much rather be doing the latter. Work is a total inconvenience to my life.

An aside really but….. I’ve been doing a bit of work with Playlists for Life – its about very nuanced use of music in dementia care.

That looks amazing. I’m going to investigate that further.

After a 3 year hiatus into being a pub landlord (which went very well), I decided it would be nice to see my wife and daughter occasionally. So now I’m back in the travel industry, working as a product manager for a luxury holiday company. Essentially investigating cool new places to go and stay, exciting things to do there and negotiating rates and contracts. Really enjoying it. Mauritius Next month, Antigua after that – interspersed with some London time which is nice as well.

All in, I think it’s great.

That looks amazing. I’m going to investigate that further.

I’ll post a link to our film when its finished – I’ll encourage everyone to rummage their old iPods and speakers out of their bottom drawers and donate them too

Essentially investigating cool new places to go and stay, exciting things to do there and negotiating rates and contracts. Really enjoying it. Mauritius Next month, Antigua after that – interspersed with some London time which is nice as well.

All in, I think it’s great.

I hate you

🙂