considering a career change

[Matesrates]

Hi all. im at a stage where i cant face getting up in the moring to go to work. ive tried jobs in commercial and domestic but i dont have the passion for them like i used to. ive been in the trade for 15 years including my apprenticeship but now im considering a totally different carrer.
I know ill always have trade behind me to fall back on, has anyone made a career switch and regreted it and moved back?

Thanks

 

[FatAlan]

What are you thinking of doing?

 

[PEG]

More to the point,what are you doing now,which is deflating your balloon?

 

[Matesrates]

always fancied the fire service but im 31 this year so not getting any younger. ive heard it can take years to get into if your lucky

 

[Matesrates]

More to the point,what are you doing now,which is deflating your balloon?

moat of the time ive been testing for local authority housing, ive been in this for at least 7 of the 10 years ive been qualified.

ive tried the commercial/shop fitting route but that wasnt for me either

 

[Charlie_]

Do you want to get out of the electrical trade all together?
You could look at other aspects of the trade depending on your skill set; sales(wholesalers), design, maintenance

 

[Dustydazzler]

my best mate quit the trade around 2000 and joined the rozzers.
been in the met ever since and loves it , loads of benefits and great over time rates etc
but he does live and breath the force and often pulls 6 day weeks sometimes 14/15 hour days

 

[FatAlan]

Police and Fire Brigade all good careers. Recently finished 30 years in the plod. Pay and conditions now are not nearly as good as they used to be but realistically they’ve had to cut back and reform like all of the public sector. Police work is good fun if you throw yourself into it 100% and as hinted at above there can be loads of overtime going. Problem is like anything it’s easy to get disillusioned and think the grass is greener. 30 is not too old...oh to be 30 again

 

[peterhyper]

my best mate quit the trade around 2000 and joined the rozzers.
been in the met ever since and loves it , loads of benefits and great over time rates etc
but he does live and breath the force and often pulls 6 day weeks sometimes 14/15 hour days

I know a few people that have left the met due to poor pay, crippling shift work and being over worked due to lack of staff. You used to be able to work 30 years for your pension and that has been increased to 40 years.

Working 6 days a week and 14/15 hour days to make a good wage isn't appealing to most people who want a life.

 

[Dustydazzler]

31 years young is not too old to join the police of fire brigade, you will still be able to serve a solid 25-30 years (health permitting) and gain a full pension I believe.

As I mentioned my best mate joined the police aged roughly 25/26 after a few years bouncing around the trades , he had a bad leg injury in service and they looked after him really well on full benefits etc.
not many employers would pay you in full for 10 months while laid up.

 

[littlespark]

I was a spark from leaving school to ‘98 when I went to uni at age 24. Still working part time to support mortgage and family.
No jobs when I graduated, so stayed on the tools. Done some of my most interesting jobs around that time including Heathrow T5.

2007, my father in laws business was looking for a manager, so we dropped everything, sold our house and moved back home.
Did that for 10 years. Long days, 6 or 7 days a week. Very varied, between manual work, office admin and stints helping out on the bar.

He sold up, and now I’m self employed back as a spark.... but if I want a day off or a lie in, I can have it. My choice.

 

[Squid]

Working for the local authority housing department no wonder you lost the will to live.

I went in to data cabling and IT years back just before the building trade collapsed, have a look in to train maintenance as well, signalling etc etc s most firemen I know bitch on about how bad it is and have second jobs on the go part time.

 

[Taylortwocities]

Become a Member of Parliament. The country needs someone with a semblance of common sense. And you wont need to get up early, either!

 

[FatAlan]

Come Brexit there will be loads of jobs going with UK Border Force and Immigration. They’ll all be minimum wage though as they’ll be run by Tory MP linked private companies fleecing the public purse

 

[Deleted member 9648]

There was a doc on ch5 last night called 'Cash for orgasms' or some such. This fella was seeing to ladies 'requirements' and making a very tidy wage thank you very much. As far as I know he isn't a member of a scam and hasn't done the 18th either.
Got to be worth considering.

 

[static zap]

Police and Fire Brigade ..... Police ....work is throw yourself into it 100%

I think this matches the advice I was given that you're never "Fully" off duty !!!
(Cannot be too half hearted)

 

[FatAlan]

There was a doc on ch5 last night called 'Cash for orgasms' or some such. This fella was seeing to ladies 'requirements' and making a very tidy wage thank you very much. As far as I know he isn't a member of a scam and hasn't done the 18th either.
Got to be worth considering.

I wonder who PATests his equipment ?

 

[FatAlan]

There was a doc on ch5 last night called 'Cash for orgasms' or some such. This fella was seeing to ladies 'requirements' and making a very tidy wage thank you very much. As far as I know he isn't a member of a scam and hasn't done the 18th either.
Got to be worth considering.

I wonder who PATests his equipment ?

I think this matches the advice I was given that you're never "Fully" off duty !!!
(Cannot be too half hearted)

We used to use the term ‘job p*ssed’. If you worked some of squads like the Flying Squad you were expected to work the hours it took to get the job done. You can’t for instance do a surveillance operation in an 8-10 hour shift. Overtime is the last bastion of police work and if they ever did away with it they would have to provide a major pay increase to keep the motivation going. Also quite normal to arrest someone and work a 24 hr shift in order to collate evidence and get charging decision in the detention period.

 

[Spoon]

I wanted to be a lumberjack!
Leaping from tree to tree....

 

[peterhyper]

I wonder who PATests his equipment ?

We used to use the term ‘job p*ssed’. If you worked some of squads like the Flying Squad you were expected to work the hours it took to get the job done. You can’t for instance do a surveillance operation in an 8-10 hour shift. Overtime is the last bastion of police work and if they ever did away with it they would have to provide a major pay increase to keep the motivation going. Also quite normal to arrest someone and work a 24 hr shift in order to collate evidence and get charging decision in the detention period.

No wonder so many court cases are lost if the poor sod doing the collating has worked a 24 hour shft!

 

[peterhyper]

I wanted to be a lumberjack!
Leaping from tree to tree....

I don't think Lumberjacks 'leap' from tree to tree, so perhaps it's a good job you found another career path or you might have been very disappointed

 

[Pete999]

I don't think Lumberjacks 'leap' from tree to tree, so perhaps it's a good job you found another career path or you might have been very disappointed

Oh I dunno judging by the Loonies that trimmed the Pine trees next to my House, swinging about like Tarzan they were.

 

[peterhyper]

Oh I dunno judging by the Loonies that trimmed the Pine trees next to my House, swinging about like Tarzan they were.

I'm more referring to proper tree surgeons as opposed to travellers who aren't

 

[FatAlan]

No wonder so many court cases are lost if the poor sod doing the collating has worked a 24 hour shft!

Jobs do get handed over but if you’ve been working on it from the start and know the job inside out it makes sense to carry on especially if it’s a complex investigation. Of course, under the human rights act the detainee is also entitled to a rest period in the 24 hr period...more rights than the police officers! Now that’s an EU guided bit of UK legislation that I don’t like. Pre police and criminal evidence act you could arrest someone, go home for the weekend, and come back and deal with on Monday ... if you remembered !

 

[Dustydazzler]

I have dipped in and out the trade since I was about 15 or 16.
Have tried being a rep and even tried showroom manager.
But my draw is always to tinkering with lectrics..

That said I did just get a quote to remove my conifer hedge and the gardener wants £1500 cash.
Reckons its about 2 days work.

Maybe there is more money in bush whacking after all...

 

[TJ Anderson]

moat of the time ive been testing for local authority housing, ive been in this for at least 7 of the 10 years ive been qualified.

ive tried the commercial/shop fitting route but that wasnt for me either

Are you good and effective at fault finding and rectification? Before you knock it on the head, try some national facilities firms. Lots of opportunities and interesting work.

 

[FatAlan]

I have dipped in and out the trade since I was about 15 or 16.
Have tried being a rep and even tried showroom manager.
But my draw is always to tinkering with lectrics..

That said I did just get a quote to remove my conifer hedge and the gardener wants £1500 cash.
Reckons its about 2 days work.

Maybe there is more money in bush whacking after all...

Depends whether it’s a 30 foot high leylandi hedge or not? I’ve had some big beech trees taken down and done a small bit of chainsaw work clearing up. Talk about a dangerous job, knowing where to cut and the weights involved.

 

[Midwest]

Also quite normal to arrest someone and work a 24 hr shift in order to collate evidence and get charging decision in the detention period.

Me thinks a slight exaggeration; your 17 week work pattern rotation 'computer says no' would kick doing a couple of those, and tell you to go home and do some gardening leave.

But then the Met always think they know better. ​

 

[peterhyper]

I have dipped in and out the trade since I was about 15 or 16.
Have tried being a rep and even tried showroom manager.
But my draw is always to tinkering with lectrics..

That said I did just get a quote to remove my conifer hedge and the gardener wants £1500 cash.
Reckons its about 2 days work.

Maybe there is more money in bush whacking after all...

I wouldn't charge anything to whack my neighbour's bush

 

[FatAlan]

I wouldn't charge anything to whack my neighbour's bush

Wish I could say the same about my neighbour

 

[peterhyper]

Jobs do get handed over but if you’ve been working on it from the start and know the job inside out it makes sense to carry on especially if it’s a complex investigation. Of course, under the human rights act the detainee is also entitled to a rest period in the 24 hr period...more rights than the police officers! Now that’s an EU guided bit of UK legislation that I don’t like. Pre police and criminal evidence act you could arrest someone, go home for the weekend, and come back and deal with on Monday ... if you remembered !

Wasn't PACE a 1982 act that was introduced in 1984 (from memory - not google), so you must be old if you were in the job over 35 years ago.

 

[FatAlan]

Me thinks a slight exaggeration; your 17 week work pattern rotation 'computer says no' would kick doing a couple of those, and tell you to go home and do some gardening leave.

But then the Met always think they know better. ​

Used to do seven days of night duty, finish at 6am Monday then start again at 2pm, do two late turns before getting 2 days off.

 

[FatAlan]

Me thinks a slight exaggeration; your 17 week work pattern rotation 'computer says no' would kick doing a couple of those, and tell you to go home and do some gardening leave.

But then the Met always think they know better. ​

Used to do seven days of night duty, finish at 6am Monday then start again at 2pm, do two late turns before getting 2 days off.

Wasn't PACE a 1982 act that was introduced in 1984 (from memory - not google), so you must be old if you were in the job over 35 years ago.

Yes, correct. Just quoting old war stories from the old sweats that still couldn’t get their head round PACE in 1987.

 

[Martin Kerr]

You could try being an MLA in Northern Ireland, we hadn't had a government in over two years and they still get paid

 

[Midwest]

Used to do seven days of night duty, finish at 6am Monday then start again at 2pm, do two late turns before getting 2 days off.

I did a quick swing's, rapid rotation, 4 on 4 off etc, or whatever the flavour of the year shift pattern there was. But soon as I did too much overtime, the working time directive (in recent years) kicked in.

Not with standing operational demands, supervision can't allow you to fall asleep on the job.

 

[littlespark]

Used to do seven days of night duty

That’s clever. Not seven NIGHTS of night duty?

 

[Spoon]

I don't think Lumberjacks 'leap' from tree to tree, so perhaps it's a good job you found another career path or you might have been very disappointed

Are you saying that Monty Python is wrong???? How dare you...
Next you will be saying Harold did not exist...

 

[Gary Gemmell]

I was in IT networking and systems programming and electronics until i felt like you - i woke up every day with a feeling of dread going to sit on that sweaty overcrowded bus with all the equally sad and depressed faces for those two hours of depression to sit in an office with backstabbing colleagues and an asswipe for a boss and one night i watched the movie ~"WANTED" - The last line of the movie made my mind up - i went in to work the next day , told my boss what i thought of him but resisted the temptation to smash a keyboard into his face and left.

3 Days later I was in Romania - I did what i always wanted to do and that was travel the world looking for hidden treasure especially the AMBER ROOM or ---- GOLD with my magnet diving equipment and metal detectors and found a few things; not much but after a year in Poland and Russia I went to Germany and after teaming up with some German detectorists we found a massive hoard of ---- gold in a certain mountain area in Austria - needless to say we did not tell anyone and had it melted down and sold through a guy they knew in Berlin but i dont really need to work now.

You got to take a chance some day - 99% of peeps want to but never have the balls to do it - if you take the chance you might just find it works out!

 

[holychihuahua]

Hi all. im at a stage where i cant face getting up in the moring to go to work. ive tried jobs in commercial and domestic but i dont have the passion for them like i used to. ive been in the trade for 15 years including my apprenticeship but now im considering a totally different carrer.
I know ill always have trade behind me to fall back on, has anyone made a career switch and regreted it and moved back?

Thanks

I became a petty criminal and subsequently ended up doing tiime in Wormwood Scrubs, Pentonville, Belmarsh and various other excellent English prisons. Pentonville was my favorite. There was a real party atmosphere there and you could get a room with a view ( of Caledonian Rd). Belmarsh was always horrible felt like being in a mental hospital. Its a souless modern building. You cant beat the Classic architecture of an old victorian prison.

 

[Squid]

Become a Member of Parliament. The country needs someone with a semblance of common sense. And you wont need to get up early, either!

Pointless unless you have molested someone or an animal or have been partying with IRA or Hamas, Moley at least meets one of the criteria to become an MP........

 

[telectrix]

I wanted to be a lumberjack!
Leaping from tree to tree....

 

[telectrix]

I have dipped in and out the trade since I was about 15 or 16.
Have tried being a rep and even tried showroom manager.
But my draw is always to tinkering with lectrics..

That said I did just get a quote to remove my conifer hedge and the gardener wants £1500 cash.
Reckons its about 2 days work.

Maybe there is more money in bush whacking after all...

re your conifers.... just get a suicide bomber to do it, just for the love of allah.

 

[static zap]

..... quote to remove my conifer hedge and the gardener wants £1500 cash......
.

Sticky ,Spiky & Horrible things .. May have just priced for a job he doesn't want ! ( Disposal charge? )
( Need to spy on him find a slack month )