Work

There are different ways of making a living and passing time during the day/night. I've worked in some very different jobs and here are some of my views about them and work in general.

Easy Money?

Winning the lottery is just a little fools dream of mine. -but, that's just something I have to deal with. Another way to easy money, in my view, is to invest in stocks and shares. This, however, should only be done with money you can afford to forget about, as anyone will tell you. (and this will probably be the only useful piece of information ANYONE will tell you because if they know anything worth while then they will always keep it to themselves.) So unless you have insider knowledge or time to follow company news and share prices, just stick to company floatations, and unit trusts or in their tax free form; PEPs and ISAs.

But Really.

Ok, so maybe we aren't too good at picking the right lucky numbers, maybe we haven't got thousands of pound to invest, and then even if we did, we still need something to pass the time... a job.

I've never really understood why but, I have never seemed to get a job through the usual method of interview, as you will see...

As a child I never had a Saturday job or a paper round, which was fine by me. -I never saw the need. Some of my friends had jobs to earn a little extra cash but, I was happy with what I had. When I was a little older, I did get a summer job with a friend as an operative (labourer) on a building site. We got the job mainly because we knew the builder. -he still owes me 30 quid for my last pay packet. ...but I don't hold it against him. A couple of years later we then went to work on a construction site. Again we got this job because my friends dad was a director of the company. I really enjoyed this job, mainly because it was full of new exciting things and interesting people I'd not come across before.

Industrial Placement

I think the economy was a bit shaky at the time I needed a placement at uni. I had a couple of promising interviews but, nothing came of them. Time was running out and I really wanted a placement so, I phoned up a difficult access civil engineering company and offered to work free of charge in exchange for the experience, and I got the job. I learned a lot of useful stuff during this period, not only civil engineering related stuff but, how the people I worked with interacted and behaved towards each other. Just prior to starting my placement year we had studied a book on Team Roles by R.Meredith Belbin. With this book fresh in my mind I analysed everyone I worked with. As a useful piece of advice, avoid telling people a) that you have analysed them and b) what you have decided they are. ...they won't appreciate it.

Placement Part 2. About half way through my placement year, I was visiting back home when I came across a construction site in Tamworth where they were building a by-pass on the A5. I popped into the main site office and asked if they had any jobs for a placement student. I filled out a form and had a chat with the site agent. He was impressed with my attitude and offered me a paid job. This was handy since I wasn't being paid for the placement I was doing at the time. I really enjoyed this job. I learned a lot of useful engineering and people (motivation) skills by observing the success and failures of those around me and by talking to lots of different workers. Fortunately, there were a few engineers kind enough to guide me through the engineering processes, to whom I am very grateful. (Unfortunately, this support had been absent in my previous placement). The wood butchers (joiners) were a great source of entertainment as well as information. They knew the best ways to kill time and had the best stories on site. I also gained an excellent reputation for accuracy and attention to detail. I took on quite a lot of responsibilities and my work was rarely challenged. It was this job that introduced me to the joys of Quality Assurance, BS5750. In theory it is an excellent idea, to keep written (and some photographic) evidence of EVERYTHING that happens. Although this seemed to take up a lot of time, I think it is a good idea. Unfortunately others don't see it in the same light as me, and are creative with the details. Although I didn't come across this attitude too much here, I did in my first REAL job. (You can write what you like! It doesn't have to have happened. -is how they see it).

Proper Work

Armed with my degree and industrial experience, I was itching to get a proper job in the real world. I had sent loads of applications to civil engineering contractors but, the construction industry was still a little bit fragile. The standard reply was, "Thank you for your application. At present we have no positions available for which you can be considered. However, we will keep you CV on file should a position arise." I generally accepted this as a rejection. ...until out of the blue, I was offered a position on a "brown site" in the Black Country. The position was as a clerk with potential to progress. I took the job on. I got to grips with the paperwork easily and took all available opportunities to go onto site to find out what was going on in the mud pit. I felt it my duty to pass on my engineering skills to the resident placement student since I had been helped during mine. I quickly took on about three jobs at the same time. (I just felt that I could do the jobs better that the people who were too busy to do them themselves). I was clerk, engineer and QS as well as being mentor to the placement student, and I was enjoying it, it gave me a sense of purpose and achievement. I think news must have spread through the company and I was head hunted down to work on another site in London, on the underground.

It was here that I observed motivation by fear and dodgy dealings, and corner cutting and false record keeping.

To be continued...

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