Your Job (or one you are working towards)

Your Job (or one you are working towards)

Since September is drawing closer and I still have no idea what an ideal job would be in the not too distant future i was wondering what people here do. After leaving school i went to college to do a BTEC National Diploma in IT and it was a course of 1 or 2 years, but i only passed the first year then quit cos I was getting fucking sick of it and i got a job at Somerfield just to get some easy money. I regret leaving the course now cos i could have easily passed the second year. Year 3 I started a media course but I could have been on the higher one if it wasnt due to the small amount of placements left when i applied which i was told would more than likely be given to people who have a good gcse in art. So, I heard from my m8 there was still places needed filling in the apprenticeship he was doing (Theatre Technician) so i arranged to move onto there. Well you wouldnt believe it but the fucker who was in charge of the course, who promised me a place and said he'd contact me in a few weeks about my start date, fucked off and the course leader role was taken up by someone else and immediately all new applications were denied leaving me with fuck all to do again for the year.

I've reached that point though where you know you need to do something and in the past i've just passed time by and not really cared about learning stuff and having fun was the main concern at all times.

What jobs have you all got and are you happy with it? What qualifications did you gain to get the job and is it rewarding in the long run?

I was set on being a website designer as a 13 year old and have made a load of really decent sites but the qualifications needed kinda merge stuff that i'm not interested in.

Sorry for the long post I'm just stumped and getting quite worried about my career options.

I still haven't a clue about what I want to do, I wouldn't mind going down the criminology route.

And how old are you? I'm 20 in February and some of my m8's are in their second year of uni and no doubt heading into decent jobs, one has just started a plumbing apprenticeship and another has had his own trailer (hotdog vans etc) building business going for years but has left that to work for a motorhome manufacturer. I'm starting to get paranoid that i'm the one left dicking around doing nothing to aid my future and only bothered about smoking weed, getting pissed and making sure i have enough money for the next decent clubbing event.

i never knew what i wanted to do either tbh

stopped on at school, more to keep my dads mouth shut then anything else, uni did not apeall

i just had no idea what so ever, about 2 years back i figured i didnt not want to work for anybody else and i wanted to be self employed, even tho i was earning reasonable money, well about 20/25kish but what you consider reasonable is always changing isnt it, i just needed to figure out the best way of going about it, and making it happen.

why the fuck should you work for sumbody else, at the end of the day, no matter how well its dressed up, unless you work for yourself, you are sumbody elses "lacky"

now i have 2 full time "lackys" of my own and a part time one

and i could not be happier
well i suppose it would be nicer to have 4 full time lackys, but that might be another few years yet

haha. What did you do? And what do you do now?

My main concern was also to keepm my parents happy rather than benefit myself..

I spent all of school, 2 years at college, 2 years of one degree and three years of another and umpteen shoddy jobs not knowing what I wanted to do.

Then I realised at 26 that my freelance writing, which I'd always thought of as a sideline and a hobby, was what I wanted to do full time.

I quit my crappy civil service going nowhere slowly job, got a post grad loan and a place on a journalism course at Darlington College.

21 weeks later and I'm about to sit my finals and have a job as a trainee reporter lined up.

It wasn't just the qualifications that got me the job, however, all those years of pissing about are actaully 'life experience', and you learn some skills even from the worse, most menial job.

The way I see it we are all going to be working until we're 75 anyway, so not starting on your chosen career until your 30 or older isn't the end of the world.

I've been doing web design/development/SEO for a few years now but I don't think it's what I want to do for the rest of my life. I am reasonably good at it, and the money is fairly good so I can't complain, but I know in the back of my mind I'd rather be doing something else...

...change can be a scary thing though!

I wouldn't worry too much mate. You don't always need to spend 3 years at uni to do the job you want to do (with the exception of being a doctor or something). I worked as an editor for a multi-million dollar company at the age of 17 with no qualifications other than my GCSE's (and they count for fuck all in USA). I now design and develop e-commerce web sites and do pro-level SEO with no qualifications in IT at all. You can do anything if you put your mind to it!

finally going the right way and set on something that i think will benefit me in the long run... law degree @ newcastle uni

what did i do

while in 6th for i walked around silverlink asking all the shop managers for a job

ended up currys
part time salesman
hated it, its shite

asked to be transfered to the stores, still hated it but it was not as bad as the sales

mate was a car valeter, said he could get me a job washing cars, so i ended up as "pitch bitch" at davidsons ford in shiremoor (now pattersons) easy enough job, i just washed the used cars outside all day and did the odd run to punters houses in the demo cars

was "promoted" (if you can call it that lol) to a full time valeter in pattersons and stayed there for 4 years
actually really enjoyed it, had about 3 of my close mates working in the same place plus my brother, was good for banter, except the money was not so hot, i had other things on the boil to bring extra work in so i was not doing to bad for a young boyo

new bodyshop manager arrived and did not get on with anybody, unfortuanly i was the only one who bit, i ended up squared up to him in the workshop, so i was removed from pattersons
did a few valeting jobs at reg vardies shiremoor and stuff, sum in wallsend down davy bank for ford, then got a teamleader job at a pug dealers in ashington, with my own "pitch bitch" to boss about

loved the job, just hated the wages, i was classed self employed on a contract which give me about 140/week before taxes and stuff

left and ended up in nissan building the engines for a while on line, left there to build nissan seats next door to nissan for more money

was not going anywhere fast in manufacturing, i could see it was all going downhill so i jumped ship

bought into a carwash franchise and setup my own valeting buisness on the back of it
i now own A1 Plus Valeting and i pay the wages of the lads, who i used to be :chill:

carwash commision at the moment, going of last years figures is about 33k/year (only been there 8 months so i dont have a yearly total for myself)
valeting hovers between 2k to a max so far of 3k/month at the moment

just need to judge the right time to bring in another man and raise the valeting total/month

looking to the future, i plan to build my own carwash and transfer the valeting buisness over to the new wash.


carwashes are fucken expensive to build tho, i estimate about 200/300k for the carwash to be built and fitted out

i always had a goal, and this goal was that i was never going to be anybody until i was earning more then my dad, my dad makes decent enough money, but he has been outwaged by his son, and thats the way it should be

what i like most is when the lads are not at work, i will work the carwash, i dress the same as them, nobody can tell really, people think i am a scruff on minimum wage working for sumbody else and they "tip" me

at first i used to refuse to take them, then i figured if sum fucker is stupid enough to give you money, just take it

That doesnt sound too bad like. You sound like someone who's good at making decisions and predicting when a change is needed and going for it. I however dunno if I'm like that half the time lol.

What kinda things do you do at the wash?

And magicpaul, what is SEO? And what qualifications do you have and where did you look to get into the job you are doing?

SEO = Search Engine Optimisation - it's basically helping people improve their web sites ranking with Google etc..

I have 11 GCSE's - an A*, couple of A's, few B's and C's...fairly good but nothing spectacular (my mate got 10 A*'s and an A He was dissapointed with the A).

I went to college and did English Lit for a few months but got bored and left.

I'd always been really interested in computer graphics, 3D animation and visual effects. But Newcastle isn't exactly ripe with oppourtunity for that sort of stuff, so I started looking online. Ended up talking to people who worked in the industry and eventually ended up writing for a web site on the subject. Got offered a job by a fairly major animation publication worked freelance for them for a bit then went over to LA (definately a case of being in the right place at the right time!). I was really lucky, got to travel to a few film festivals and met a lot of very cool people.

Then company I worked for got bought, it was around the time just about every Internet company around was getting bought by somebody else. Things were silly. Millions of dollars were changing hands and everybody was being promise the earth. Then the "dot com bubble burst" and everbody suddenly realised that they weren't going to make their money back. The company I worked for went from 500 employees to only 70 employees in about 2 weeks!

When I came home I had already worked for Clive @ the Magicbox when I was still at school, so just went back there until I found something else. I ended up doing the company web site as it was the thing that came naturally to me and have basically just kept doing it since then. The company has gone from a local shop to one of the largest magic companies in the UK doing hundreds of thousands in online sales alone!

I also get a lot of freelance work refferred to me by word of mouth. Just knowing the right people I guess!

Still I'm 23 and have no idea what I want to do with my life. I know I don't want to design web sites until the end of time. It's cool but my heart isn't in it! I am off to LA again in a few months so hopefully I'll be inspired or something!!

is mine ready yet?

wow i only got B's n C's for my GCSE's. Simply cos when it comes to doing work I leave it till the last minute meaning about 95% of all my coursework was done either very slowly until a day or two before the deadline or all in one day depending if it was left for me to do at home. As for exams, I wasn't in a good atmosphere or routine to do much revision at all and spent my would-be learning time getting pissed and waking up in a different house everyday.

I wish i'd tried a bit harder now as I was in top sets for most things but I think that's what made me so laid-back about any work i had to do. I just assumed since i was in higher sets than a lot of people i couldnt do badly when it was all over.

I'm thinking about juust winning the lottery but i dunno yet. I'll see how i feel

:groovy:

I got 10 GCSE's A*-B and stayed on at school, mainly to play rugby because i sed to enjoy it and i got money to stay there, imagine that getting payed by a private school to go there! Anyway my sporting days were cut short by damage to ligaments in my ankle. However i stayed on and got A-Levels in biology chemistry n maths

I then went to nottingham uni and studied forensic science Bsc for a year(which i passed), then i decided i didnt want to continue, so i took a year out and went back to uni in loughborough to study human biology which i have just finished my first year. I still have absolutely no idea what i want to do for a career other than something to do with the human body

Haha there could be many different career paths starting from the very low and degrading up to the very high paid and well appreciated jobs

You all seem to have done so well at school. Didn't any of you get sidetracked by the discovery of alcohol and house parties? and the thrill of skiving lessons after lunch time?

Came out with 10 GCSE's, A's and B's mostly I think - can't even remember.

Started a college I didn't to go to... Was offered a job by an IT company I had done some work for the previous summer.

Was a very hard choice but I took it, and dropped out of college.

Joined just at the right time, worked with some really big clients, went to team days out and such, worked with some fantastic people, learned so much it is unbeleivable.

And I thought I was better than everone else before I even started there hehe.

14 months on went for an interview at PowerText in Sheffield, got the job, I'm now a full time er.. Systems Developer

Career moving along nicely really.

Not looked back.

I'm training to be a social worker. Not really sure why now as after completing my first year on my placement, I have realised that there's actually very little a social worker can actually DO to help people- offer emotional support, yeah, but the restraints laid down by government policy make the job very hard at times
So yeah I wouldnt really recommend it.

As for knowing what you want to do... I don't think many people do to be honest. It's hard to say what you want to do until you've tried it out. You might think you want to do something and then actually find you hate it. If that makes sense. So I would suggest that if you find something you think you might like, try and volunteer at it for a bit...?

Im at this stag where i feel i have to do something at college purely cos i dont really have the qualifications to even try a job that I might feel happy with long-term. My parents are also nagging no end. An apprenticeship wouldnt be a bad route to take i reckon but I dunno what in. It's also advised that you are already employed in a workplace suitable for the progression of the apprenticeship although a suitable location MAY be able to be arranged but not guarenteed.

Qualifications are nowt compared to on the job learning. i did 6 years further Education - and learn more in the first 6 weeks when i eventually got my first job.


Wanna know what the world is crying out for? TRADESMEN - brickies, plasterers, sparkys, plumbers, mechanics, chippes - i know a plasterer who pulls $500 a week without fail - Everyone needs tradesmen - and always will

I was thinking about taking that route. My m8 has just started a plumbing apprenticeship through an agency. Its just knowing what I like doing and what i don't. I like using computers and making websites of graphics but web design can get really frustrating sometimes and i cant do it all day like I would be in a job. You also seem to have to know a lot more than I do such as dhtml, php, java for a lot of jobs i've looked at out of interest. Graphic design seems to focus on art and design on paper more than the computer based side of things (in college).

What do u do MOS? I notice u have your cushty little office with a tv in it lol.