Be Excellent To Each Other

Following on from another post, I thought it might be interesting to find out how people have got to where they are in life, work wise. I'm sure most of us have done some real shitty jobs in the past!

I've been an office assistant in a printing firm, which involved me walking round with a clipboard on monday and asking each machine operator how many they have printed, and putting the numbers on a chart, that nobody ever looked at. Then for the rest of the week I did literally nothing, this was in the days before internet access on every desk. It was awful, in every sense of the word. I spent most of my time up in the server room with the couple of IT bods, chatting about shit all day.

I've delivered telephone directories, which involved a day of unloading them from a lorry, then 4 days of dragging a trolley round the local streets. It turns out telephone directories are fucking heavy! Only lasted a week there, they seemed surprised when I said "no more"

I've built PCs from component parts, to refit about a thousand stores of a building society. It got to a point where I could build around 80 desktops and 2 servers a day, right from bare chassis, including having to grab all the parts from the warehouse and install the software images on all of them.

I've flown round europe testing GSM modems, with multiple laptops and phones in my hand luggage. 2 hours in the airport of each country, then on to the next plane.

I've been a tester for a CRM application, starting as a bog standard nobody, then ending up running the department due to attrition rather than anything else! Everyone I started with left over the course of a couple of years, so there was little old me, with 40 people and no clue what I was doing.

I've worked for a company that was creating software that was used for computational genomics, basically we were trying to work out how to cure cancer. That was fun but short lived, turns out there isn't any money in curing cancer and I got made redundant. It also turns out that the statistical ability of leading scientists and their peers is in the main, fucking atrocious. I only did statistics at A-Level, and even I could tell that they were basing their research on samples that were in no way representative. You can't say whether a drug works or not based on 12 samples, regardless of the fact that each sample costs you £10000 to get and you don't have the funding to get any more…

I've worked for a large consultancy, on governmental systems that affect most of us on a daily basis. Nobody had any clue how to make the systems work, and everyone spent all their time running from fire to fire.

I'm currently leading a department for another consultancy, and spend my time talking to various people about how they should build software, rather than actually having to do any work myself these days!


Out of all of them, the current is easily the best. The worst had to be the telephone directory delivering!

I've been a puppet, a pauper, a pirate, A poet, a pawn and a king!

No, but really...

(long post to follow)

Paper boy
Waiter/chef/kitchen porter
Plastics factory
Furniture factory
Lorry loader/unloader and van loader/unloader
Front desk work
Research Scientist
Office admin
Data entry

DJ
PR Cunt
Bank Cunt
Union nutter
Support Worker - Drugs/brains/homelessness/refugees/other

There's not enough drive space for me to list all of my jobs. "Lots" is a fair answer to the question.

Shop help
Till monkey
Shelf stacker
Ice packer
Silk screen printer - T Shirt company
Production assistant - Local newspaper
Graphic Designer - Printers
Creative Manager - PR company
Graphic Designer / E-content Designer - Travel company

And on the side: Illustrator / Web designer

Oh, if it's just lists you're after:

'Play leader'
Garage Shop
Night shift shelver (Wilkinsons)
Morning Cleaner (Debenhams)
Student Union Shop
NTL Call centre
Agency Call Centre
Computer Shop (Time)
Airport Gadget Shop (Dabs)
Duty Free Shop
IT Techincian
IT/AVA Techinician
IT/AVA/Air Con/Water Cooler/Door Knobs Technician.

OXYMORON!!!!!1!!1!!11!!1

You know those salt and pepper sachets in KFC, et al, I made them.
You know printer cartridges (mostly Brother) I made them. The machine was designed for 3 people, there was just me, it wasn't working so I had to manually cut the flange (hurr) off the parts. for 12 hour shifts. With a loop tape broadcast of fucking awful songs.
I have picked potatoes and worked in a mail office for mail order office suppliers Lyreco.
Worked as an analytical chemist for a fine chemicals company.
Worked in pensions review for Windsor Life reviewing mis-selling of pensions.
Developed analytical methods for Gaviscon, Lemsip, Remegel, and Woodward's gripe water(!) at two different companies.
And I currently make chemical and explosives detectors.

Heh, mine's a bit one-track:

Paperboy
Barman
Computer programmer (nuclear physics)
Computer programmer (web design)
Computer administrator (self-employed, part-time)
Computer programmer (travel)
Computer programmer (mobile telecommunications)
Computer programmer (travel)
Blogger (self-employed, part-time)

Pot washer.
Sticker-upper of skittles.
Pot washer somewhere else.
Computer support / IT monkey / PC dogsbody
Computer Programmer.
Computer Programmer another place.

That was my title.

I suppose the only difference between it being a regular graphic design job is that I was responsible for sourcing and ordering branded products, commissioning photographers and cartoonists etc alongside my regular design / illustration work.

The boss was a fucking mental woman. Out of a team of 6 (including her), 3 of us left in the space of a month.

Paper boy (£8 for 400 houses, delivering a free paper that nobody read)
Warehouse order picker
Spreadsheet monkey
Time & Attendance stuff
IT support
IT support/website stuff/development/SEO/proof reader (I only started doing the latter as I kept finding mistakes in all our documentation)

Are Lyreco big into potatoes, Bobby?

I worked in my (Indian) uncles Indian restaurant for my first job. I loved it, I helped him in the kitchen, making rice, and pakora and stuff. When it was quiet he would make curries that he liked to eat and try them out on me and always found it brilliant that I could eat the hot ones he liked that no one else in the family would touch. I think this is where I got my love for spicy food from.

I worked in a very nice hotel in my area as a waitress at functions. I always lovd the weddings and was desperate to go to one there. About five years ago my big sister got married there, to a guy I had known when I worked there. This time next year, my big cousin (who also worked there) is getting married there. She is getting a discount because the general manager recognises her and remembered that about half the guests have worked there at some point in their teenage years

Then, I left there to work in McDonalds because aged 17 I would go from earning about £3.00 an hour to nearly double that. Sadly, I HATED that job and left after about six months to work in a shop.
Got fired from the shop (only time I've ever been fired) although technically I think they said they were letting me go because it was after Christmas, for calling in sick on my birthday (my eighteenth! and they wouldn't give me it off!).

Shortly afterwards I started working in a nuclear power plant as a health physics monitor. Was suddenly earning more money than ever before with tons of overtime and weekly wages like I couldn't believe. I spent most of this money on partying. I partied very hard.

Spent the next six years switching between the good nuclear power job on fixed term contracts and then crappy jobs to tide me over 'til the next contract. Worked in sales, in call centres, in bars and was even an assisstant manager of a bar/restaurant. during this time I was offered a full time permanent position in the nuclear power job and I didn't take it due to moving to Glasgow to party. Regretted that for a long time.

Three years ago, I quit the longest contract I'd ever had at the nuclear plant, which was looking like it could become permanent, to start an engineering apprenticeship earning about a third of what I had been earning. One of the toughest things ever but really worth it and now I'm nearly finished my time as an electrical engineer and i love it There was a while there when I thought I would never settle down, either into a career or get out of the partying lifestyle and meet someone but I have turned 180 and I'm a total homebird and in love. Aww

That could have been phrased slightly better. It was near to them, though!

Best job I had as a kid - I got 15 quid for two and a half hours work, and a free beer.

Wow, someone ring the Guiness Records people!

9 quid for about an hour and a half for me, with the free nibbles and pop ( I was only 15, I think, so no beer ). 18 quid a week then seemed like a huge chink of cash.

I'm still very much doing shitty jobs, precariously.

I was 15 too... our local was fine with underage drinkers if they behaved.

A mate of mine made more money on paper rounds, but only because he had like 5 of them and was up at 6am every day.

I have done:

Paperboy (Sunday papers too, bastards)
Delivering Betterware catalogues/orders
Early mornings behind the till in a papershop
Working the stationary counter at WHSmiths
Selling suits in the dodgiest retail operation I've ever seen
Development of automated line testing systems for a telco
Infrastructure design/architecture for a bank

didn't you do telesales as wel?

I have worked a few..

Paperboy.
Department store in Lancashire did - Shoes, clothing, the fun fair, Car Park, dressed as bear...
Frozen Pizza Company
Petrol Station
Do It All
Time Computers on a Production Line, moving up to fixing the returns...
Worked for a P&P computing, fixing printers, desktops, laptops.
BT Sytegra call centre, 1st, 2nd & 3rd line support - Moved to Leeds
IT contracting for 2+ years.. Doing rollouts of IT to big companies.

Last 10 Years I worked for EDS and now HP. Where I worked on a lot of big Government and Private Contracts. I worked my way up from lowly workorder/design engineer to, designing Comms Rooms, to problem solver to finally an Information Systems Architect. That is where I am now.

For sticking skittles up yourself?

'Taste the rainbow'

I've done the following:-

Part time ladder maker - Ladders made out of green plastic which I had to cut. My snot and spit was bright green for months after that.

Disney Store part time - This is the job where it seemed I had the most cash. The store was practically next door to Electronics Boutique and I bought a fuck load of PS1 games every week.

GAME - As a deputy manager. This was like hanging out with my mates, all day.. every day. Good times (Although I'm sure I hated it at the time)

Worked for a bank in a call centre - Got suspended for cheating the system. Only thing is, I'd been doing it since I started there. It took them 3 years to find me out. Hated it.

Then worked in marketing for a government run organisation which was my calling.... until I got made redundant.

I now work as a sales rep for a newspaper that no one reads and I hate it.

I have done:

Checkout staff at Wilkinson's
Retail sales at Topman/Topshop
Barman at a golf club
Wine waiter at assorted Manchester hotels
Barman at assorted other venues
Bank cashier (easily the worst of the jobs)
Database systems developer
Database systems support
Programmer/Business analyst
Unemployed bum
Mapper of processes
Assistant Risk Manager
Risk Analyst at a small company
Risk Analyst at a bigger company
As of Monday, Risk Analyst at an even bigger (flippin' massive) company

I worked in a Pizza Hut whilst I was at college, I was a waiter, and I wasn't very good at it.
In my gap year before Uni, I did some volunteer work. I worked in a special school as a classroom assistant, and then went to Sri Lanka and did all sorts.
I went to uni, to study business, and realised that just getting a degree probably wasn't enough to get me an interesting/worthwhile job, so I started SavyGamer as a side project in my first year.
Around about the time of the end of my second year, RPS started letting me do the bargain bucket.
I sort of tried to do 3rd year, but ended up spending more time on SavyGamer, and spending time with my long distance girlfriend. I decided to drop out.
I've written for a bunch of other places, too, like VG247 and Eurogamer, and there's no doubt in my mind that my reputation being boosted by writing for RPS was a huge factor in that.
I'm now making an OK living from SavyGamer, and it's still growing at a decent rate. I also write about indie games for DIYgamer now too, which is nice.
I quite like working for myself. The hours are great (Lie in every morning if I want), and I get loads of free time, and no boss! I like to say "I'm never really working, but I'm always working", since SavyGamer doesn't take up a huge amount of my time, a typical working day mostly involves watching films/tv, playing games, and pissing about on the internet, and just doing a spot of work here and there.

Edit: In conclusion, I've never had a proper job.

OOOh, jobs, I've had a few:

Between year 1 and year 2 of uni, sold sightseeing tour tickets in London, boring job, but fun people and the tour guides were mostly attractive girls who liked to get drunk and snog you, great fun when you're 19!

I failed year 2 of uni, and had to take a year out, so I got a job working in an internet cafe, helping people browse the web, and check emails and such. That was an excellent job, met my gf there (still with her 16 years and 4 kids later) had so many parties and lots of good memories, even if the owner tried to get off with my gf, and I tried to push him into the Thames...

I left there because I felt it wasn't going anyway, went to work for Tektronix (the people who make colour printers) for 6 months, it was sold as an excellent support job, and I ended up just doing backups and database queries, so I left to go back to...

Cafe Internet as the IT Manager, in 6 months my job went from £5 an hour to £25,000 a year, and I was in charge of all the IT stuff, doing training courses, designing a new website, hiring and firing etc, got made redundant 2 weeks after my first son was born! Which was scary, however I found and started my new job before the notice period was out.

As part of this job, I worked with Procal Harem, MTV Europe, Chips with Everything (appearing on 5-6 episodes), ITV's late night show set in an Internet Cafe, went to loads of gaming events, hosted a trance night every last thursday of the month and that's just the stuff I remember

Working for an Irish company with a London office selling Forex software to banks and stuff, Sole IT person in London, routine job, support salesmen with all that entails, frequent trips to the Irish offices, which was always good fun. Laid off when the new MD decided that all IT should be done from the Irish offices to save money.

Moved to Devon, got a few temping jobs before being asked to work for Barrysworld as a Game Admin, essentially running quake 3, leagues, reporting on them and so on, got asked to help with the production of a TV show for "network of the world" (the same guys that make Transworld sport) called Quake Republic. I organised the teams, ran the games, wrote reports, and then acted as a "pitch side" reporter to give my expert opinion during the game. The show was essentially Match of the Day but for quake 3 CTF.

The Venture Capitalists that were funding Barrysworld decided that they were not going to give them the 2nd round of money they had promised they would, so BW decided to stop, and I ended up working for SplashDamage (the guys that made RTCW and other FPS games) formed from a few of the Barrysworld staff and the Quake 3 Fortress people. We continued to make quake3 TV shows for Network of the World (broadcasting on the internet and in SE Asia), and Paul decided to concentrate on making computer games, and as I wasn't based in London, I got made redundant again.

Bringing me to now, where I work in 3rd line support, for an EPOS solutions provider, our department provide EPOS and Stock Management tills, computers, software, etc for Petrol Stations and Corner Shops and some super markets. Been here since 2005, by far my longest job, but also unfortunatly the most boring since Tektronix.

Malc

Oh, yes! I knew I'd left something out. Trying to sell people portrait photo shoots over the phone.

That sounds horrible... I think we should have a "jobs I hated" thread too.

Yeah, it was shit. I was fucking good at it though.

Waitress
Dole scum (thanks tax payers )
Garage shop till monkey
Assistant quantity surveyor
Quantity surveyor

Nothing very impressive at all:

Factory Monkey - Trafalgar Cases (making packing cases for car parts), Pratt's Bananas (Packing bananas (and the occasional lizard or spider) for various supermarkets - £280 a week after tax, when you're sixteen is pretty fucking awesome!), BOC (now Gist - packing clothing and perfumes for Marks & Spencer worldwide).

Retail Monkey - First Sport (the amount of money I would spend on trainers was crazy), Blockbuster Video (I fucking loved this job - By the time I left, I'd basically memorised every single rental barcode in the store), Virgin Megastore (Loved this job too, maybe not as much as BBV, mind you).

Now, I'm a full-time carer. *joy*

Chip-shop potato peeler
General lackey at Iceland
Checkout operator at Morrisons
IT Technician at my old secondary school
Web Developer at the Shropshire Star
Web Programmer at my current company, rising to my current position here.

International spy.
Test engineer for financial company.

FFS, you worked with Procul Harum but you can't spell their name????!!!111

I'll let you off if you tell more of this, bekuz they are possibly my very favourite band of all time.

1. Civil servant

1.1 'Box clerk' in an Unemployment Benefit Office (not great, but good training for dealing with the public).

1.2 Placing officer in a Jobcentre. - Slightly better than working in the UBO.

1.3 Training admin officer in a Jobcentre. - Slightly better than being a placing officer.

1.4 Training admin officer in an area office. - Not bad - very little direct contact with the great unwashed.

1.5 Accounts supervisor with the Manpower Services Commission. - Better than i expected it to be.

1.6 Staff training tutor with the Manpower Services Commission. - The dog's bollocks. Did that for seven years until I was head hunted for the next job, which was ...

1.7 Open Learning Liaison Officer with the Manpower Services Commission. - Good fun. Drove around the north west of England demonstrating CBT and interactive video training at exhibitions and conferences to get employers interested in new ways of learning. Got a lot of free lunches on that one.

1.9 NW Regional IT Manager with the Manpower Services Commission/Government Office for the North West. The dog's even better bollocks. No one knew what I was doing and no one cared, as long as the network was working. Managed the installation of the first networked 'puters in our office network, configured the PCs, trained the staff, ran the helpdesk and did sys admin on our Ultrix network. Did loads of user acceptance testing for new apps and email when we were first able to send messages to other offices and not just our own internal staff. - Ground breaking stuff.

1.10 Facilities Manager for Government Office for the North West. - Had to accept this offer when It was outsourced to Fujitsu and I didn't want to leave the civil service when I was getting close to early retirement eligibility.

1.11 Temp Ministerial Business Unit Manager for Government Office for the North West. By far the worst job I ever had and would probably have caused me to have a nervous breakdown if I'd been appointed to it permanently).

1.12 Corporate Performance and Risk Manager for Government Office for the North West. - Allocated to this job during our final restructure, after facilities management was centralised and my post was no longer needed. Basically cutting and pasting directors' reports on performance and risk into big spreadsheets and a big MS publisher Balanced Scorecard chart each month for the management board. Money for old rope, really, but someone had to do it.

2. Unpaid back office manager for a claims management company which has more or less gone out of business.

3. Currently - Freelance interviewer for a national social research organisation. Still making my mind up about this one. It entails interviewing people in their own homes for projects commissioned by academic institutions and government departments on a wide range of topics.

What's worse is that I meant the moody blues!

I rushed the post, and I got confused between those 2 bands as to which one sang "Knights in white satin"

Essentially they came in to the cafe and played that song, and we broadcast it over the interent live on real player (about a week after real player came out) apparently it was the first live band to be broadcast over the internet in this way.

Malc

So.. Employed by the MNA group were you? I am now..

My first job was delivering newspapers for next to no money, until I figured I could just recycle them and go for a walk every morning and nobody would notice. I was fired six months later.

My second job was washing dishes and being treated like shit by all of the waitresses and management at a hotel, while I went to college. I lasted eighteen months before impulsively handing in my notice one day, with no other job lined up.

I tried agency work, but after one day in a sweet factory peeling labels off Heinz bean tins ready for them to be rebranded and the agency never bothering to call me about any other jobs, that didn't go very far.

My third job started as temporary data entry at my elder brother's work. After six years I'd managed to move to creating printed maps and various other graphics, to becoming their only graphic & web designer, developing interfaces for reasonably large web applications. Until I was made redundant in the shitty financial mess in April this year. But the pay was poor, I was getting bored of working alone, and wanted to leave.

Now I'm working for a rapidly expanding company making web sites for various charities around the world. The pay is a lot better, and it's given me chance to vastly improve my visual design skills, but ultimately I'm bored at how little the company cares about the fine details of design, and how I'm effectively pushing pixels doing wallpapering for clients I'm three steps removed from ever talking to myself. But it's a step up, and one more towards what I want to keep doing in life.

I was indeed. Whereabouts are you "stationed"?

I'm very impressed by the number of people who've gone from seemingly-rubbish jobs, straight into the IT sector. What's the feckin' secret?

Me? It's almost too depressing to read, but here you go...

Rosette Maker.

Housing Assistant for various local council offices, starting as a youth trainee and ending up with a full-time, temporary position. Having money for the first time in my life was nice, but I blew it all on computers and telescopes. I'm mad for it, me.

I then decided to go to college and then uni (having left school at 16) and, because I was a mature student, got a "job" as a senior resident in halls. No pay, but free lodging, which was well handy in my third and fourth years.

Graduated with an MA in Archaeology, and went straight to Ireland for 3 years. Worked on a huge (and highly controversial) excavation, first as a plain field archaeologist, then became a supervisor and ended up working on writing the site report for nine months. Looking back, I had an absolute blast, but archaeology isn't really a career for anyone who wants to settle down, and at this point in my life I had to make a decision on what to do - so I decided to move to Canada and get married.

Was then unemployed for a year, while cursing myself for giving up archaeology to come to a stupid, cold country where everybody talked funny.

Finally, swallowing my pride, I started applying for retail jobs. Got a contract position opening a new store, which became permanent, then an assistant manager position. Left after 9 months to go to a bigger store, where I was, over the course of the next 4 years, a Sales Lead, Planogrammer, Shipper-Receiver and Department Head/Assistant Manager.

Two years ago, my then-boss called me into the office and shouted at me a bit for not working hard enough, and told me I should work unpaid overtime. I went home and applied for the first retail management job I saw online, and to my abject surprise (and, I must admit, mild horror) I got the job. So now I'm a Store Manager. In retail. And I fucking hate it, but at this point I'm practically institutionalised.

In my case, an IT degree.

Actually no. I got my degree after I started. Technician was an entry level (9k!) position and I've worked my way up through the grades

West Brom. Working for the sister paper.. Was the company as much of a shambles then as it is now?

Ah, that makes sense!
For some reason I didn't even think of "crappy early job - education - qualification - really nice job in chosen field."

Nights in White... Buffering!