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Posted

I work in the Legal end of the Civil Service here in Northern Ireland.  Used to work in private legal practice which was terribly restricting when it came to tours abroad etc.  Now, I work flexi time and it's the best thing ever!  I'm going on an Australian tour with my band now in April and will virtually be paid every day I'm away without using any annual leave :)

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Posted

When I joined BC I was a 23 year old bass player for an alt-rock band signed to a small label with worldwide distribution. We were just about ready to record album number 2. Progress in writing and recording the album was very slow. So slow that I joked to the drummer that I could qualify as a lawyer in less time than it took us to finish the album.

 I am now a 33 year old solicitor. 

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Posted

What with identity theft and all, plus an aversion to posting personal details on the line, I will not be sharing the details of my occupational life .

It is however considerably less interesting than anything posted so far :) 

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Posted
1 hour ago, Teebs said:

So you've specialised in destroying companies then? :D

Pretty much 😁

None of the companies I’ve been employed by are still in existence. The names may exist in a couple of cases but the companies have been bought out and “rationalised”. 

I can’t take credit for all of them though....

I also made sure that in the year 2000 not a single line of my code was running in production anywhere in the world so they couldn’t pin anything on me.
 

 

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Posted
4 minutes ago, Skinnyman said:

Pretty much 😁

None of the companies I’ve been employed by are still in existence. The names may exist in a couple of cases but the companies have been bought out and “rationalised”. 

I can’t take credit for all of them though....

I also made sure that in the year 2000 not a single line of my code was running in production anywhere in the world so they couldn’t pin anything on me.

Nice!

:)

Posted (edited)

I guess I'll have to thank Dave for starting this thread.
Felt like a smuck, as I'm clinically depressed and on benefits after a stroke and a burn-out.

This after a long life where I've been really all over the place:
Many different jobs, ranging from being a nightwatch at a brewery and at a boarding school all the way to being a police senior officer advising our PM and other ministers, being a classical musician and music college teacher, an IT teacher and having several different functions in child protection services before starting a sea kayaking firm catering for both firms and end users.
The kayaking firm was my last project before everything went to smithereens roughly six years ago.

In some of these jobs, I had too much power for one fallible human. In others, the demands on my knowledge and insights were tremendous, as people's lives depended on them.


As I said, I felt like a smuck before the thread, but now realise I've just been omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, and hence my next project probably will be to create a new universe or two.
I think...
😁

Edited by BassTractor
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Posted (edited)

I'm a 'Quality Assurance Consultant' for a well known Copyright and Royalties society.

Basically I check the quality of incoming performance data from our suppliers, check the work of our staff who process/match the performed music, train staff in research &  processing systems and try to stop incorrect payments going out in our distributions...

Edited by cetera
  • Like 1
Posted

What an interesting thread

I worked in the wholesale meat industry for many years (not a butcher, but I employed a few). BSE put paid to my business in 97 (well that and some bad management). I got to go to some interesting places...well one, Saudi Arabia. Then ended up working in the same industry for someone who I used to employ and that was ok (went to NZ a couple of times) and then working in printing and now building e-commerce websites. About to semi retire having sold my business to my studio manager. Ideally I'd like to work as a postman in the village I live so I'm waiting for an opening. Walk to work, plenty of exercise, home by 1.15, spot of lunch, play music all afternoon and work on stuff for my band, build the odd website every now and then, cook tea, watch Antiques Road Trip, early bed....bliss!

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Posted
1 hour ago, Dan Dare said:

The major thing I learned is to believe little of what you see, hear and read in the media (all of it)...

Me too, although most of the meetings I went to were attended by a combination of harumphing ex army mustaches and hyper-neat, pinstriped civil servants.  I remember once being invited into the Lord's tearoom and being taken aback firstly by the number of familiar faces and secondly by the realisation that there were no party lines being observed.

Posted (edited)

Interesting thread!

Music maker* & sound designer here, work independently from my studio in Kingston. No agent, so the work can be difficult to keep coming in, but it's fun (mostly!) when it does. Kind of grew out of a hobby I've been at since my teens but been at it seriously for about 20 years, however only about 5 years as pretty much my sole means of earning. Graphic design was my proper training and I still do a tiny bit but it's basically my previous career at this point. 

 

* my very average bass playing not included !

Edited by tedmanzie
  • Like 2
Posted
4 minutes ago, RossHetherington said:

I'm a Conservation Architect. 

Is that the same as, or different from, architectural conservation?

Sorry for the numpty question, but the term is new to me.

Posted
2 hours ago, RossHetherington said:

I'm a Conservation Architect. 

In the early part of my career I worked on some heritage projects for Scott Wilson.

Posted (edited)
On 08/03/2020 at 14:36, dmccombe7 said:

Not sure why it would put barriers up.

As an ex-copper coming from a family of coppers, I'd say it does put barriers up as to the general public even though it shouldn't. Not that people are very anti-police per se, but often police are regarded as "the others".

IME, coppers also tend to bond with others coppers, for different reasons.
One aspect is that people in the police force share with some other lines of work that they experience a lot and look into many dark corners of people's lives and of society in general - stuff that many in the general public wouldn't understand even it one wasn't bound by anonymity orders.

Edited by BassTractor
clarity
  • Like 2
Posted
8 hours ago, Baxlin said:

RAF Air Traffic Control

Building Society staff then Branch Manager

IFA for almost 30 years before


 

 

 

RETIRING

As a teenager i always wanted to be an Air Traffic Controller and even looked at RAF to do it but was talked out of it by my Dad who was a Navy man and dn't want me in the services. I did OK tho so no regrets

Dave

Posted
8 hours ago, Skinnyman said:

I haven’t really had a career, certainly not in the sense that it’s been planned anyway. 

I left school in ‘76 and spent too long prevaricating to get Into Uni and I’ve been doing “fill in” jobs ever since. One day I might actually get an application in on time and go do a course. 

In the meantime, I’ve delivered washing machines and televisions, been a shop manager for currys and then Rumbelows (remember them), joined their training department as a trainer, swapped to the IT department as a trainee programmer, left and went to Comet (remember them?), then joined a series of IT software firms ending up as CTO for one of the Fujitsu divisions which we carved out as an independent. Once that was sold, I was a director for the firm that bought us for a bit before going into semi-retirement and becoming a store assistant at Aldi for a year or two. 

I then got offered a contract job at RBS doing some mainframe architecture stuff before I ended up as head of real-time payments architecture at the company that runs the BACS, LINK and Faster Payments Systems (relax, I never worked on any of the UK systems 😁. Well, just the one but it was cheques so it doesn’t count). 

Then the company got bought, I got bored with the commute and I retired. 

And now I spend my days volunteering with Young Enterprise and tormenting Young @Teebs on here.

Which is a nasty job but someone has to do it.....

(The @Teebs thing, obvs. Young Enterprise is good fun)
 
 

 

Fair bit of jumping around between high techy stuff to delivery boy / man. Seems to be up and down a lot on career ladders.

With regards the Teebs thing i can see where that comes from. :laugh1:

The Teebs things does continue to make me laugh.............a awful lot so keep that up.

Dave

  • Like 1
Posted
6 hours ago, BassTractor said:

I guess I'll have to thank Dave for starting this thread.
Felt like a smuck, as I'm clinically depressed and on benefits after a stroke and a burn-out.

This after a long life where I've been really all over the place:
many, many different jobs, ranging from being a police senior officer advising our PM and other ministers - all the way to being a nightwatch at a brewery and at a boarding school, with being a classical musician and music college teacher inbetween, as well as an IT teacher and having several different functions in child protection services before starting a sea kayaking firm catering for both firms and end users.
The kayaking firm was my last project before everything went to smithereens roughly six years ago.

In some of these jobs, I had way too much power for one fallible human. In others, the demands on my knowledge and insights were way too tremendous. As I said, I felt like a smuck.

But after this thread, I now realise I've just been omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient, and hence my next project probably will be to create a new universe or two.
I think...
😁

Another quite unusual and differing career path @BassTractor. Sorry about the stroke and burn-out but i could see why in certain jobs the stress can be over-whelming.

If creating a 2nd Universe please let me know as i reckon i could jump on board. I have the Hitch Hikers Guide which will help us along the way.

At the end of the day we all have BC to fall back on for some support and a blether or even a basschat.

Always around for anyone that needs a wee chat.

Dave

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Posted
6 hours ago, cetera said:

I'm a 'Quality Assurance Consultant' for a well known Copyright and Royalties society.

Basically I check the quality of incoming performance data from our suppliers, check the work of our staff who process/match the performed music, train staff in research &  processing systems and try to stop incorrect payments going out in our distributions...

I always thought you were full time musician or bass shop.

Dave

  • Like 1
Posted
2 hours ago, BassTractor said:

As an ex-copper coming from a family of coppers, I'd say it does put barriers up as to the general public even though it shouldn't. Not that people are very anti-police per se, but often police are regarded as "the others".

People in the police force share with some other lines of work that they experience a lot and look into many dark corners of people's lives and of society in general - stuff that many in the general public wouldn't understand even it one wasn't bound by anonymity orders.

Is it not more a case of they stick together and dont want to fraternise with the natives. Having known a few police officers over the years they did all tend to socialise together rather than meet up with outsiders in the pub even as young men we noticed that. I just assumed they were told not to be too friendly with non-officers in case of being led astray or other such suspect possibilities.

I can also see by your avatar that you do indulge in the water of life. A man after my own heart sir altho not so much the peaty type stuff.

Dave

  • Like 1
Posted
3 hours ago, BassTractor said:

People in the police force share with some other lines of work that they experience a lot and look into many dark corners of people's lives and of society in general - stuff that many in the general public wouldn't understand even it one wasn't bound by anonymity orders.

I get you, I'm a social worker...'Brothers in Arms' ;)

  • Like 1
Posted (edited)

A teacher at a mixed comprehensive secondary school. Main subject is Computing / ICT and I also used to teach music as well. 

Edited by darkandrew
Posted
1 hour ago, dmccombe7 said:

i could see why in certain jobs the stress can be over-whelming.

[...]

Always around for anyone that needs a wee chat.

Dave

Thanks for your kindness, Dave!
Just for clarity: twas not the job itself that broke me, but specific stuff outside this thread.

 

54 minutes ago, dmccombe7 said:

Is it not more a case of they stick together 

[...]

I can also see by your avatar that you do indulge in the water of life. A man after my own heart sir altho not so much the peaty type stuff.

Aye, but I'd say "in addition" rather than "more".
I forgot to mention this specifically in my second paragraph, which I intended to be about that side of things. I've edited and put in a few words.

Uisge beatha: YES!
Islay: YES!, but like you I do appreciate the non-peaty stuff.

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