How long did it take you to decide on a career?
 

When I was choosing my O-Level options at school back in the 1800's ;) I did so with the vague intention of going to Art College and doing a degree in art but had no further clue as to what to do after. Unfortunately I went a bit off track and ended up dropping out of school before I even got around to sitting my exams and, ever since then I've bumbled through life going from one job to the other.

At the moment I work for myself as a Narrowboat Broker but I'm seriously bored with it and only did it as I couldn't find anything else to do when I moved up to Yorkshire. However, 30 years after making my original O-Level choices I've finally decided what I want to be when I grow up and that's an Air Traffic Controller in the RAF, well that is if I fail Pilot Training :D Unfortunately I'm now too old at 44 :cry:

So, how long did it take you to decide what you wanted to be when you grew up and how did you get there? I'm looking for ideas and inspiration :thumb: :D

I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up! :(

Still deciding that one!!! :lol1:

Still deciding....

I didn't have a clue what I wanted to be.

Sort of got roped into Industrial Roofing/Cladding as that's what my old man does. I work for him.

If I lost my job or quit, I wouldn't have a clue what else to do.

Maybe go to the states and become a Porn star.

Still deciding. So far, no inspiration to be found here Sal. :(

I think I have just about decided, but then changed my mind again, with future plans lol.

Doing some training at the mo for my future, but also some more planning, so lets see which wins :)

I wanted to be a JCB driver when I was a kid. I ended up in IT which I enjoy, but I'd love to fly cargo planes for a living. Trouble is my current job pays more & isn't going to destroy my social life, where as the aviation industry tends to do that to people.

Was a Chef for a while, but didn't like the days off, or lack of. Then went into IT, just because i loved playing the games. Probably not the best reason, but it's been good to me.

I still enjoy programming, but my recent job is crap and i've just started making poker tables, so i'm questioning whether i still like IT. I love the money side of it. If i could make enough tables to be close to the IT salary, i'd be doing that.

I'd love to run a chalet holiday business, but that boat sailed a few years ago. :(


Think you've gotta decide whether job satisfaction is more important than salary, or vice versa. That might help...

Not sure if it's any use to you, but I always had a pretty good idea what I was going to do.

Right from the age at which I could wield a screwdriver with adequate strength and coordination, I've been taking stuff to bits to find out how it works. I hated arts subjects at school but found maths and sciences a doddle, so it was natural for me to do maths, physics and electronics at A-level and then go on to read Engineering at university. I've now been an electronic engineer for over ten years and couldn't really imagine myself doing anything else. It's just as well I enjoy it I suppose.

With hindsight, the decisions I made at school were more about dropping those subjects I really didn't want to do, then seeing what was left - in that sense I count myself quite lucky that there actually was something left that people would pay me to do, otherwise I'd have been really stuck!

If it's any consolation, Mrs C is currently in much the same position: fed up after 10 years in the Civil Service and wanting to do something completely different, but no real idea what. If we come up with any ideas then I'll let you know :)

I'd LOVE to drive a JCB or one of those Tonka Truck things, I'd be quite happy doing that for a living :thumb:

Job satisfaction is more important to me although obviously the mortgage still needs paying :D Anyway, it's sort of comforting to see that I'm not alone in the 'still to find career' stakes :thumb:

Does sitting on a beach drinking margaritas classify as a career.

Have worked in IT now since leaving school and both love and hate it, but the longer I stay in IT the less I love it and the more I hate it.

Would love to just have the money to sod off and do something else.

Wanted to be a pilot when I left school, but was told rather bluntly that because I wear glasses your screwed.

I've ended up running a business with my dad and brother.
It's pretty unusual and we're the best in our field.
The monies pretty good and it has it's perks.

But I want to move to another country.

I liked spain so I'd move there.
I really liked Florida so I'd move there.

But the old mans soon to retire so I can't really see that happening. Guess I'm stuck where I am.

I do on occasion get to driver mini diggers. And I love it!
We had a 3 tonner here for a week and boy can you make a mess quickly with one of those bad boys!!
Takes a little longer to clean up but great fun!

YouTube - Baz Luhrmann - Everybody's Free (To Wear Sunscreen)

Sit back and listen to this...

I would have loved to have done picture restoring. Fell into the film industry and stayed there for 27 years! Got out of that........changed so much over the last couple of years. :(

Now doing 2 days a week at Waitrose :( and a few hours at the local surgery doing medical summarising. :)

I once set up a tree nursery and part of the job involved using a mini digger to dig the trenches for planting. No-one else got a look in at the digger, I was as happy as a pig in the proverbial and cried at the end of the two weeks when it had to go back :D

Kim, what did you do in the film industry? Why do everyone else's jobs always sound more interesting and exciting than my own?? :wonder:

I've jacked in the two days I did at the pharmacy, the boss was a religious loono :cuckoo:

Was Bob your boss? :p

I was a negative cutter. I used to cut out each scene from the reels of original camera neg and splice them together, then synch the sound tracks to the cut neg which would then be printed. :D

Hence the user name! :thumb: :D

Fazackerley! :thumb: :lol1:

well when i was at school my sisters boyfriend was into cars and so was i, so i used to help him fiddle with it like changing rocker cover gaskets and stuff so i decided to see the carreers (sp) advisor and told them this. so they got me an interview with a couple of garages/bodyshops etc, i decided that the bodyshop was 90% prep work which involved sanding, grinding etc and i'd find that tedious. so i went into mechanics, got a really good place at nationwide autocentres spent two years there and got my level 2 NVQ, but because of a pay dispute i left and went to another place, but by this time i was growing bored of constant services alllll the time and not getting involved in like engine rebuilds and stuff, so i decided to leave the industry. i'm now working for network rail and i'd like to either work on trains like the maintenance side of things or become a train driver but need to get to know the right people first because its true what they say its not what you know its who you know

I'm an ATC controller in the RAF..... and what I really wanted was to be a narrowboat broker, maybe I shouldn't of spent all those feckin nights studying about spacial geometrics :mad:

........ :D

28 years, 10 months, Four days and counting........... :lol1:

When I was at secondary school I remember saying I wanted to be a Pharmacist, probably as I spent a fair bit of time in there getting prescriptions, but I did like chemistry and biology, and so took chemistry as a GSCE. Think I got a "C" in the end, though I could be mistaken. The idea was on the wane and by the time I left school I wasn't overly sure what to do, but did have an interest in computing, so did two years at college on a BTEC Computer Studies course, and from there I got into computing.

Part of the course required a work placement for a few weeks, and I managed to get in at the local Allied Dunbar office. Initial job was helping with data entry, but they also had a new software rollout happening so I was asked to help out with that. This placement continued as a one day a week during the second year of the course.
They didn't need an in-house tech, though they did try and persuade the management that they did (I'd also been on-site at their crawley office and helped out the SE regional managers there and we got on well) so no job there.

During the last few weeks of the course I started as a freelance typesetter for a local firm. This is where I first encountered an learnt about Macs. As I'd finished college I had a lot of spare time, so spent more and more of it at the printers and this led to a full time job, so I was doing the typesetting thing, along with in-house support.

After a few years of that it was time to change, I wanted a more techy role, and had friends who were sys admins, and it happened that a local Mac software company were looking for a tech support person, so I applied, got the job and have been there ever since.

It is a bit niche, so when I want to move elsewhere I might have problems, but I have built PC's and done a bit of support on them, mainly friends and family, and I like to think I know a fair bit about general computing, plus I am a geek so I like to learn tech stuff.

If I wanted to do something else, as in not in a computer capacity, what would it be? I'm not sure. Ideas of performance car mechanic appeal, but I don't think I'm that mechanically minded. I was told I'd make a good tech/sales chap, as I can seriously talk the tech, but I'm no salesman, nor do I really want to be. Part of me thinks that learning a trade, electrician or plumber, would be a wise move, as you always need tradespeople, not sure if I'm too old to start back in the serious learning game though.

wanted to be an electrician,couldnt get an apprenticeship.Took a wrong turn goin to mcdonalds one day ended up in a golf course,got an apprenticeship and im still there after 6 years...and i get to play with tractors,diggers and dumpers all day :D

Still trying to decide .. at 47! After many moons in IT in the south east, which pays the mortgage but is seriously full of BS merchants, we've decided to sell up and move back to Cornwall. No job to go to but I'm sure *something will come along* .....

Dave

When I grow up I will know: ask me then...

I wanted to be a marine biologist, as I was fascinated by the Jacques-Yves Cousteau programmes, and seriously into science. But I didn't want to leave the island to go to Uni, so it was either a Pathologist lab technician or a Customs officer (I don't know why). I ended up getting a job in electronics, did that for about 6 years, moved into telecoms for 12 years-ish, then IT. Yes I wished I'd gone to Uni, studying sealife somewhere warm and sunny or fighting with some recalcitrant bit of hardware, what a choice.

15 years after leaving school i'd seen the 'light'.
Now i had all those years drifting through various roles such as a butcher, printer, tree surgeon, retail manager but none of them kept me sain.
After a very messy seperation 5 years ago i went a little do-lally and off the rails.
Two years ago i thought right, now if i'm to get anywhere in life i have desicions to make, so i made it (with lots of help of course!).
So my desicion was to study health physics (radiation) in 2006 and i passed my exams last may.
Finally after a year of searching i've just started my career as an ops technician on a nuclear site meaning the things that interest me are now my daily field and with plenty of courses and training on hand and a great salary my future 'finally' at 31 looks rosie again.

Enjoy what you decide!

And I thought Moderating was a career in itself.......:freak3:

Some wise old bird - aka Clever Dick - told me that many people have 3 careers in their life. And funnily enough if you look at a few older pals it often turns out to be true.

I graduated as a civil engineer, hated office design work, but enjoyed being on site playing with concrete and dynamite :luvlove:

Then switched to sales and then to running my own business. I think it can take years to find out what you really enjoy and often what you are good at.

Working overseas was hugely enjoyable. I guess, if circumstance were different, I could happily spend a few years running a beach bar and blues/jazz club on a beach in the Seychelles :D No, I wouldn't get bored.

(Want to join me Scoobychick?) :nono:

dl