I wasn’t going to rise to the bait, but I can’t let this go.
I spent four years learning my trade, my profession. Hard work, fifty per cent in college, 50% on the job. At the end of it all, though, I got a certificate to say I was qualified. But my learning and training didn’t stop there. I got a job and worked all hours – days and nights – gaining more experience and skills as well as developing those I already had. Then I went on to get further qualified. This meant more time in college, more studying and greater challenges, but I got what I wanted and as a result in a new job became senior in my field. Not particularly well paid, but I loved what I was doing. Less than a year later I was made redundant. My employer? The NHS. My ‘trade’? Registered Nurse (Children). A university degree counts for nothing after that.
I decided that if the NHS didn’t need me, I didn’t need the NHS, so decided to change career and re-train. I have so far spent three years re-training to join the plumbing trade, applying the same degree of dedication and commitment to this as I did to my nursing career. I still have a long way to go, but I take pride in my work, acknowledge my limitations and don’t do anything I am not competent to undertake. The key word there is ‘competent’.
So there it is. Times change, teaching and training methods change. I fully respect those ‘time served’ tradesmen, who have built up a wealth of knowledge and experience, and if I could have done a ‘traditional’ apprenticeship I would have, but that wasn’t an option for me. I would also have welcomed the opportunity to work (on a voluntary basis) alongside an established tradesman in order to get more on-the-job experience, but no-one I spoke to was willing to countenance that. I did not get a redundancy payout from the NHS as I had taken a break in service to get further qualified. I am using my own money to pay for my training, I receive no grants or support other than the encouragement I am given by my family and I have never claimed any benefits from the State. I have made sacrifices to do this and continue to do so. I accept that I may never get rich, and have treated with scepticism some of the claims regarding earnings potential made by the training organisation I signed up with. I am paying for this myself in more ways than one, but I am enjoying what I do.
Remember this. You aren’t immortal and you won’t be working in the trade forever. There will be others behind you who will have to take up the baton and some of them may be like me; career-changers who have come into the trade from different backgrounds but who have the advantage of bringing with them life-experience and knowledge from other work environments. In my case it is an ability to deal with people, to communicate, to empathise with my customers.
It is not my intention to undercut other tradesmen. I will charge what is a fair price for the job and is a fee that meets my own costs and needs, and one that also reflects my current level of experience. But we are operating in a very competitive market and the customer has a lot of choice. I recognise that if I want to be successful I will have to be no less than very good. As in any walk of life there are good and there are bad. I hope I will be as good a plumber as I was a nurse. It’s not an easy way to earn a living, something I accepted from the outset, but I am starting to get work through recommendations, which suggests I am getting something right.
So 5times and others like you, I fully understand where you are coming from and I acknowledge that to you career-changers like me may appear to be a threat. We’re not. I and others like me want to work with you, not against you, but if you can’t accept that then I feel sorry for you.
Whatever the future brings in these uncertain times, we are here to stay. Build a bridge, get over it.
