If You Was Younger again, What Would Be The Job You'd Want To Do

[conny]

I had designs on being a motor bike cop but when I found out I had to do 2 years on the beat, (foot slogging in those days, not driving a panda car), I decided against it.
I set myself the goal that if I didn't have a job by the September, after leaving school in July, I would enlist in the RN.
Middle of August and my brother said I had an apprenticeship as an armature winder if I wanted it. Took it, had quite a good life in the trade and learnt many techniques for solving problems in many branches of engineering but sometimes wish I had joined the RN.
As SS says, if I'd joined up I wouldn't have the life I have now nor the experiences I have encountered getting here.

 

[Bod ...]

I wanted to be a police officer but I was too short and maybe too aggressive...

Thinking back now I would have liked to have been a carpenter. To be so creative and build what ever I wanted.

 

[gas112]

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[gas112]

Gas man - I was given the choice after school, but thought it would be boring doing fires and cookers etc. 1970. So I chose plumbing. Then Maggie sold off the utilities. Shares £££ redundancy . and self employed as a CORGI. Just that 1 wrong choice. Every other choice I'm happy with.

and not forgetting a big pension as an ordinary fitter as young as 57 you could have been retiring with upto a 1 million pension pot

 

[motorbiking]

I used to teach wannabe motorbike cops, or rather those who were likely or had failed the first assessment. They only get two goes at it or that is how it was when I was involved. The good ones tended to pass first time, most wanted to go in to SEG. Those who were "referred" or "encouraged" to get extra training, tended to be judge Dredd wannabes. Though none of the righteous rigid enforcers of the law, had any problem with asking for "blue light" discount etc at coffee stops.

It was good fun, but the powers that be didn't like the external instructors, so I spent as much time being assessed as I did teaching. Eventually I gave up as it was like a job but without the money I'd expect for working.

I like how my career has turned out. I was very lucky and got in to the right things at the right time. I think I chased money and seniority a bit too much, as I was happier being a worker bee than a management bee. I still make money for IP I sold in the mid-90s.

 

[Mottie]

I like how my career has turned out.

Same here I suppose. Always based around the motor trade but did a proper apprenticeship straight from school, moved to various main dealers, run a garage and mot station, went to work for a main dealers in Cape Town, South Africa, came back to run the same mot station until it was sold, took a supply teacher job in a school teaching motor mechanics, bought a workshop with a house attached, did car repairs, got into fitting remote control alarms when they first came out, then got involved in house alarms too for a while, got into selling/connecting mobile phones in the big money early years, rented my workshop out to manage a charity motor training centre for about 15 years and built it up big enough that we had to move to bigger premises including opening our own mot station, left there to start my own training business, after 4 years the premises I was renting was part of a major rebuilding project so I was paid handsomely to leave, moved back into my own premises 20 years after first renting them out, carried on with general repairs and training plus had unlimited access to a mates MOT station for my own use but now currently winding down towards retirement in the next year or two. I am also the Quality Assurance officer on a freelance basis for a large training organisation where I can pick and chose what hours I work. Yet to decide whether to sell or rent out the workshop. So, a bit of variety and for the majority of my working life nobody has really told me what to do as I've either been in charge or it's been my own business which is just as well as I can't take orders from idiots! I can't complain.

 

[The Samaritan]

I like how my career has turned out. I was very lucky and got in to the right things at the right time. .

Mine turned out better than I even hoped for, it was a dream to work in an officer where I could drive my car and park it for free within the works area, do no more than 35 hours, no weekends, no shifts, laods of hols + flexi-time, good pensions, a job I found a doddle, have my own desk, etc and I got that and all with 10/15 travelling i the day time and same coming back if I started and left at certain times. The bonus, the salary was ok and to top it all off - never mind paying the mortage off very early, we ended up buying a couple of other properties that allowed us to leave work, well me to leave work at a fraction over 50. I do miss the bater at HQ but not the backstabbings, cliques/bullies/or parasites.

However, I'm sure even if I was a BOAC pilot or an armed police officer moving to CID as pre my dream jobs along with a couple of others, I still would have wanted to do something different

The regret I have is not taking bigger risks like my siblings and taking out bigger mortgages and having several properties to their names but that's life and I'm actually more happy to see them doing well as it makes me happy and the fact we all worked hard for what we have and this way we appreciate more and never look down our noses at people that speak to us in a nice/polite way.

Thanks

 

[diy_fun_uk]

This is with a large dose of hindsight, however wish I'd stuck in more at school and got myself into relevant form of engineering/design that could have led to a career designing theme park rides and coasters.

English, technical drawing (remember that?) and craft & design came easily to me. Alas the other subjects didn't and I didn't apply myself.

 

[The Samaritan]

My best subject was woodwork but my parents said you don't want to do that, I'm glad they did as I could not see myself handing doors, lol

 

[Dork Lard]

At 22yrs old I was working as a high class decorator mostly in London, moving from site to site doing things like stippling, rag rolling, £800 POUND rolls of hand printed wallpaper & lots n lots of gold leaf. A Nottingham Decorating Co' used to drag me onto a big job they had at the Foreign Office quite regular & if you want to Google the piccys then ALL of that gold leaf is mine along with a lot of stippled plaster work which is still even now indistinguishable from real stone.

There's also a LOT of marble in the FO, fireplaces & floors etc with a massive central covered marble slabbed courtyard which would cost £millions to lay today.

There was this one solo bloke repairing & restoring all the cracks & damage in all of that marble, he saw how I would mix up my own glazes for the stippling & asked me how I knew so much of the craft at such an early age. I'd had the great teacher you see, I was the last & finest of 'Arry's apprentices & after his retirement I got all his phone calls & most of the work . . .

He offered me a career change into his world, international travel & top class digs, mixing & blending the resins that make invisible repairs on irreplaceable marble statues, fireplaces & floors. He said he'd got a few years left before retirement, he'd teach me, work me, then hand it all over. This isn't painting the bog walls of public conveniences in Hackney, this is the homes & workplaces of the ultra rich, the famous & the powerfull. The money he was talking made my eyes water, I was already pulling £60k - £80k a year (in the mid 80's), he was offering to at least treble that . . . .

I turned him down almost instantly, because I wouldn't be able to keep the promise that I'd pop home & see 'me mam' at least once a fortnight.

You cannot possibly conceive what happened a few short weeks after that. I was decorating in the offices of one of this countries most successful businessmen & while chatting away like me & him were the bestest of mates. He offered me a job . . . & my life changed from that day onwards . . . .

 

[Dork Lard]

This is with a large dose of hindsight, however wish I'd stuck in more at school and got myself into relevant form of engineering/design that could have led to a career designing theme park rides and coasters.

English, technical drawing (remember that?) and craft & design came easily to me. Alas the other subjects didn't and I didn't apply myself.

I hear you.

I was absolutely brilliant at physics, to the extent that the lad sat at my side & cribbing my answers is now a Dr. at NASA in the USA (we keep in touch). I hated math because their math bored me. Not one to realise that you cannot do one without the other, I dismissed the math & concentrated solely on pondering the visual.

A few years after leaving skool I stumbled across my old physics teacher in a local pub . . . One of the best nights that I cannot remember.

 

[Mottie]

You weren't on Jackanory once by any chance were you? Maybe you invented it?

 

[HERTS P&D]

cribbing my answers is now a Dr. at NASA in the USA (we keep in touch).

What's his name?

Andy