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If I could start again...


MarkW
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I went for a soldier instead but for various reasons ended up going away to sea.

 

You sure you weren't in the 'Navy' queue? :D

 

Nope I spent 6 months learning how to shoot people. Never needed that particular skill set since although may have been tempted when Somali pirates were being a nuisance.

 

Do you have those water jet things around the boat (that I saw in an annoying Tom Hanks film) that stops them climbing aboard?

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No, we do have a double barrier of razor wife and strategically located spikes about 1.5 metres long. Since ships started carrying armed guards there has not been a single successful Somali pirates attack. Most sensible teams fire warning shots only. There are some fairly horrible vids on YouTube of somewhat gungho characters blasting away like dambusters (Russian and American ironically).

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No, we do have a double barrier of razor wife and strategically located spikes about 1.5 metres long. Since ships started carrying armed guards there has not been a single successful Somali pirates attack. Most sensible teams fire warning shots only. There are some fairly horrible vids on YouTube of somewhat gungho characters blasting away like dambusters (Russian and American ironically).

 

Think I’ll avoid watching that.

Sorry know this is off topic but when did they start carrying armed guards?

Also how do you apply for a job as razor wife? I think I might have the necessary qualities :D It could be my “If I could start again.....”

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No, we do have a double barrier of razor wife and strategically located spikes about 1.5 metres long. Since ships started carrying armed guards there has not been a single successful Somali pirates attack. Most sensible teams fire warning shots only. There are some fairly horrible vids on YouTube of somewhat gungho characters blasting away like dambusters (Russian and American ironically).

 

Think I’ll avoid watching that.

Sorry know this is off topic but when did they start carrying armed guards?

Also how do you apply for a job as razor wife? I think I might have the necessary qualities :D It could be my “If I could start again.....”

Armed guards became the thing in 2011 when various authorities agreed it would be a good thing. Like all such things in the early days we had very experienced ex British forces guys. Also very expensive. Then a bunch of cheap cowboy outfits turned up (cue the vids mentioned earlier). My company never used them but have gone for cheaper options of ex gurkas. Depending on where we are going we pick them up / drop off either off Muscat, Djibouti or Sri Lanka.


As to the razor wife that was my auto spell check having a fit and me not seeing it. Oops.

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No, we do have a double barrier of razor wife and strategically located spikes about 1.5 metres long. Since ships started carrying armed guards there has not been a single successful Somali pirates attack. Most sensible teams fire warning shots only. There are some fairly horrible vids on YouTube of somewhat gungho characters blasting away like dambusters (Russian and American ironically).

 

Think I’ll avoid watching that.

Sorry know this is off topic but when did they start carrying armed guards?

Also how do you apply for a job as razor wife? I think I might have the necessary qualities :D It could be my “If I could start again.....”

Armed guards became the thing in 2011 when various authorities agreed it would be a good thing. Like all such things in the early days we had very experienced ex British forces guys. Also very expensive. Then a bunch of cheap cowboy outfits turned up (cue the vids mentioned earlier). My company never used them but have gone for cheaper options of ex gurkas. Depending on where we are going we pick them up / drop off either off Muscat, Djibouti or Sri Lanka.


As to the razor wife that was my auto spell check having a fit and me not seeing it. Oops.

 

I guessed but I think a boat protected by razor wives would work well :D

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Think I’ll avoid watching that.

Sorry know this is off topic but when did they start carrying armed guards?

Also how do you apply for a job as razor wife? I think I might have the necessary qualities :D It could be my “If I could start again.....”

Armed guards became the thing in 2011 when various authorities agreed it would be a good thing. Like all such things in the early days we had very experienced ex British forces guys. Also very expensive. Then a bunch of cheap cowboy outfits turned up (cue the vids mentioned earlier). My company never used them but have gone for cheaper options of ex gurkas. Depending on where we are going we pick them up / drop off either off Muscat, Djibouti or Sri Lanka.


As to the razor wife that was my auto spell check having a fit and me not seeing it. Oops.

 

I guessed but I think a boat protected by razor wives would work well :D

 

Would certainly scare me off and I suspect Mrs. S-Westerly would qualify with minimal training.

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I wanted to be an hairdresser.


Not kidding either.

Even now I go on about it. I never will. Financial reasons nowadays but yes I would have loved to have been an hairdresser.


When Grace was young I used to put all these random fancy plaits in her hair before school and her teacher would say "yer dad's done yer hair again I see" lol


I am probably the polar opposite to what you would envisage a male hairdresser to be to be honest.

You see I'm not talking a barber but a proper woman's stylist....lol

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One thing I'd say though is that I had no idea what jobs were available when I was in school. I had no idea about the city of London or financial software or anything that I find myself doing on a daily basis now. I wonder if kids these days are equally in the dark about their future job prospects?

 

I'm the same.


I was the second person in my whole family to go to uni. My brother was the first.


My family is made up of farmers (admittedly more two generations back than now), manual labourers (gas works, coal mining), factory workers and people that went into the military.


Nothing wrong with any of that but not for me, plus as standard around here there's not many factories left. Even my dad now has to commute for an hour as his factory moved out of the area.


It meant I had absolutely no idea of most of the jobs I'm aware of now, even things like computing and software (no one in our school was into that sort of thing, which seems to be how many people my age got into it). No idea how you got into them. No idea what you could do with an engineering degree.


Careers advice back then was basically helping you become a teacher, or a car mechanic etc.

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Unfortunately I was to young , but I’d of definitely gone down the route of armed robbery during the 1970’s ... all wages was paid in cash no video cameras and I’d of gone about my business in an old Jag.

 

That still sounds like hard work to me. I'd have thought you'd have gone for bra fitter - assuming that's not what you do already... :lol:

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One thing I'd say though is that I had no idea what jobs were available when I was in school. I had no idea about the city of London or financial software or anything that I find myself doing on a daily basis now. I wonder if kids these days are equally in the dark about their future job prospects?

 

I'd say it's as bad, or possibly worse.


I just wanted to be an engineer. And my college were fairly horrible about it. When I was a 16 year old kid, I was getting A's in physics, it was known I could rebuild my motorbike as I used the school workshop to do it, and my systems project was a remote control car with regenerative braking and radar activated brakes while they were still just an idea for commercial cars.


But, because I competed in climbing competitions rather than chess competitions. I did parkour, photography, and I wrote for a couple of blogs as a travel writing/vehicle reviewer. They saw these as, and I'm quoting one of my teachers directly here "council estate activities".

No applause for the variety, it was "you aren't university material".


This did cause havoc as I hit my rebel stage around the same time, and decided to f**k everything off. You'd think teachers would understand the stages some teens go through but nope. Luckily I resolved to do it myself, and by 22 I was given part funding to go to university on a distance basis. So I got there in the end, even if it was partly fuelled by wanting to add those teachers on linked in as a subtle F-U :lol:

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When Grace was young I used to put all these random fancy plaits in her hair before school and her teacher would say "yer dad's done yer hair again I see" lol


I am probably the polar opposite to what you would envisage a male hairdresser to be to be honest.

You see I'm not talking a barber but a proper woman's stylist....lol

You know, I'm proper envious of your daughter here! My mum could just about scrape a brush through my hair and yank it into a pony tail. (Disclaimer, love my mum to bits and she's a fab mum, she's just a tom-boy too!)


To this day I would love to know how to do a french braid (Mainly cos I have super curly hair, kinda like Merida from Brave and so regularly look like an unruly lion!) but just don't have the co-ordination or know how and never really had the sources to learn from. Always been a tom-boy and didn't really care about makeup and the like when girls my age did.

Sounds like you've set your daughter up with some pretty cool life lessons here :mrgreen: Would give you a gold star if I could.

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When Grace was young I used to put all these random fancy plaits in her hair before school and her teacher would say "yer dad's done yer hair again I see" lol


I am probably the polar opposite to what you would envisage a male hairdresser to be to be honest.

You see I'm not talking a barber but a proper woman's stylist....lol

You know, I'm proper envious of your daughter here! My mum could just about scrape a brush through my hair and yank it into a pony tail. (Disclaimer, love my mum to bits and she's a fab mum, she's just a tom-boy too!)


To this day I would love to know how to do a french braid (Mainly cos I have super curly hair, kinda like Merida from Brave and so regularly look like an unruly lion!) but just don't have the co-ordination or know how and never really had the sources to learn from. Always been a tom-boy and didn't really care about makeup and the like when girls my age did.

Sounds like you've set your daughter up with some pretty cool life lessons here :mrgreen: Would give you a gold star if I could.

They weren't right good half the time....lol


Funny thing is. Even to thus day it's a standing joke. Graces friend spends a lot of time with us as a family (sad tale. She lost her mam to cancer some years back) and we were at the coast. Sure enough 6 pints of Stella and I'm attempting French plaits in the van with x2 14 year old girls :lol:

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One thing I'd say though is that I had no idea what jobs were available when I was in school. I had no idea about the city of London or financial software or anything that I find myself doing on a daily basis now. I wonder if kids these days are equally in the dark about their future job prospects?

 

Our careers adviser was a joke. He looked like Cosmo Smallpiece and had found a vocation for which he had no discernible talent. He told me I should be an astronomer because that's what my friend (who I'd gone in with) wanted to be. The ability to be good friends with someone without wanting to follow the same career path was apparently not something that had ever occurred to him. One girl who had only ever wanted to be an engineer was told she should be a combine harvester driver.


:scratch:

Edited by MarkW
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One thing I'd say though is that I had no idea what jobs were available when I was in school. I had no idea about the city of London or financial software or anything that I find myself doing on a daily basis now. I wonder if kids these days are equally in the dark about their future job prospects?

 

I'd say it's as bad, or possibly worse.


I just wanted to be an engineer. And my college were fairly horrible about it. When I was a 16 year old kid, I was getting A's in physics, it was known I could rebuild my motorbike as I used the school workshop to do it, and my systems project was a remote control car with regenerative braking and radar activated brakes while they were still just an idea for commercial cars.


But, because I competed in climbing competitions rather than chess competitions. I did parkour, photography, and I wrote for a couple of blogs as a travel writing/vehicle reviewer. They saw these as, and I'm quoting one of my teachers directly here "council estate activities".

No applause for the variety, it was "you aren't university material".


This did cause havoc as I hit my rebel stage around the same time, and decided to f**k everything off. You'd think teachers would understand the stages some teens go through but nope. Luckily I resolved to do it myself, and by 22 I was given part funding to go to university on a distance basis. So I got there in the end, even if it was partly fuelled by wanting to add those teachers on linked in as a subtle F-U :lol:

 

It beggars belief and so saddening to hear it still happens. Glad you made it where you wanted to be in the end :thumb:

“Not for the likes of you” bollo should have died in the 50’s. It’s saddening to hear someone who’s taken a role to educate and uplift a young person use it to squash them because of their own bitterness. A good teacher or mentor is a life changing thing but the ones who think their only job is to judge and critique (not enable and enhance) should go find something else to do.

I always wonder how a careers advisor ends up in that role? Its certainly not something you set out to do in life is it? They also seem to have no experience of any discernible career or any real knowledge of them.


I’m no fan of Robbie Williams but I heard a song of his where he has a go at ‘sir’ putting him down and I have to say his sneery tones were most enjoyable :D

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It beggars belief and so saddening to hear it still happens. Glad you made it where you wanted to be in the end :thumb:

“Not for the likes of you” bollo should have died in the 50’s. It’s saddening to hear someone who’s taken a role to educate and uplift a young person use it to squash them because of their own bitterness. A good teacher or mentor is a life changing thing but the ones who think their only job is to judge and critique (not enable and enhance) should go find something else to do.

I always wonder how a careers advisor ends up in that role? Its certainly not something you set out to do in life is it? They also seem to have no experience of any discernible career or any real knowledge of them.


I’m no fan of Robbie Williams but I heard a song of his where he has a go at ‘sir’ putting him down and I have to say his sneery tones were most enjoyable :D

 

Career advisors are fun. I told them I liked tech but wasn't specific so maybe something like a mechanic, marine biologist, racing as I found it all interesting. The career advisor must have wanted to have an early day so they said I wasn't specific enough so they couldn't give me a better placement and they put me in Debenhams :lol:


I think a good teacher can come in any shape/size/age. Mine was a friend who shook the chip off my shoulder when I was a very angry kid essentially. But you see these kind of kids everywhere, and people write them off.


So I think the best thing we can do is fill in the gap teachers miss, if I see engineering potential for example I try to encourage it along as best I can. I think of it like paying something forward, someone does something for you, you do it for someone else.

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One of the nicest things about having my own business is that when you spot a bit of undeveloped talent you can help nurture it, and sometimes provide opportunities that I never had. We're currently paying for two of our staff to do part-time PhDs alongside their daily lab work, and it seems to be working out very nicely. When I did my PhD 20+ years ago nobody was funding the kind of research I wanted to do, so I self-funded and spent my nights retreading lorry tyres at Michelin to pay for it.

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One thing I'd definitely change is my financial education. I left school and went to uni with no real idea of financial management and budgeting. Luckily I've never got myself into unmanageable debt but there's probably a few things and financial products I wouldn't have taken out. My uni overdraft(s), whilst always paid off in time probably would have been smaller if I'd been able to budget better. And yes, budgeting is as simple as working out what comes in and comparing it with what goes out, but I'd never had to manage money and expenses before yet suddenly there I was at 18 away from home with a student loan, rent to pay and books to buy finding a part-time job but not really knowing how much extra money I had to bring in.


It goes beyond that too, to loans and interest rates and more. My folks don't like talking about debt and it's only now I understand who the lady who visited each week was and why she was there (Provident loans). All I knew was my mum would say "don't mention it to your gran".


We're a lot more open with our kids, they're young so don't wholly understand but we've explained when we've bought things on credit cards and that it's money we need to pay back.

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I wish I'd know more about apprenticeships and that they weren't just in plumbing and building etc. I think I could have gone further. I was never quite university material and not particularly confident in my own ability so never really tried, however I wish I'd got an apprenticeship.

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I wish I'd know more about apprenticeships and that they weren't just in plumbing and building etc. I think I could have gone further. I was never quite university material and not particularly confident in my own ability so never really tried, however I wish I'd got an apprenticeship.

 

I left school at 16. Was really lucky to get a decent apprenticeship. Hated school and like many, nobody in my family had ever been in 6th form, nevermind Uni :shock:

Did a proper apprenticeship. Sat on my laurels for a few year then got bored.

Again fortunately I've always worked for big multi nationals. Thus once showing willing they between them have put me through everything since.

Lisa. My over half. Bizzarely enough has done the same. Left school at 16. In her family and extended family she was the first to go to college. First to go to uni and certainly first to do a masters.


Strangely though.

If anyone asks what I do. First comment is "mech tech by trade"


I was an absolute twat at school. I tell my kids now to work work work at school. Not do it the hard way like I did.


Totally agree with the FU to some of the teachers mind :up:

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Part of my brother's job is conducting college inspections for Ofsted. Last week he turned up at a college 40 miles away and found himself face-to-face with a lecturer who had written him off at another college 25 years ago! He said the amazing thing was that the guy not only remembered him, but also the classes he went on to take and with which of his colleagues.


I'm sorry to say that he also remembered me, although I wasn't totally surprised: it's a running joke in our family that after "Hello" the next thing anyone says to my brother - and usually with a hint of anxiety in their voice - is "You're Mark's brother, aren't you?".


:oops:

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I wish I'd know more about apprenticeships and that they weren't just in plumbing and building etc. I think I could have gone further. I was never quite university material and not particularly confident in my own ability so never really tried, however I wish I'd got an apprenticeship.

 

I left school at 16. Was really lucky to get a decent apprenticeship. Hated school and like many, nobody in my family had ever been in 6th form, nevermind Uni :shock:

Did a proper apprenticeship. Sat on my laurels for a few year then got bored.

Again fortunately I've always worked for big multi nationals. Thus once showing willing they between them have put me through everything since.

Lisa. My over half. Bizzarely enough has done the same. Left school at 16. In her family and extended family she was the first to go to college. First to go to uni and certainly first to do a masters.

I said for years during and after my degree that if I could have reached the same place with an apprenticeship I would have much rather done that. :roll: It didn't help that the undergrad uni I went to boasted of a workshop, but never took us in there unless you were lucky enough to win a place on extra curricular activities ('Race' team etc). :evil:

I would much rather have worked and learnt at the same time...


After working a while I decided to go back to uni full time to do the next step up and had a Completely different experience! :D

I really enjoyed studying because I now had the contrast of a working environment, so I wasn't just learning hypotheticals and theory anymore, I could see the real life reasons and examples.

I was generally just more aware of the courses available and what they may do for me.


So graduated that, this September just gone and I'm now with a really awesome company who are dedicated in helping me keep learning and expanding my talents, properly grateful how solidly I've somehow landed on my feet; I'm also very aware and deeply thankful for the people in my life who supported me in their own way. :love:



I think if you'd asked me 6-8 years ago if I'd like a do over I would have taken the chance in a heartbeat, because I would never have seen where I am now as an option... Not even close.


I would never have had the confidence to do the qualifications to get the job I have now, I would never have thought myself good enough to take the weekend course to become qualified in the firework trade, enough to start my own company. :love: I would never have seen the home life I have and the family I've come to cherish so much, both actual and biker / friend family.


I guess to anyone who's still with me at this point (thanks!) I am definitely one of those stories of "Hold on, keep going, it does get better."

I'm really grateful for this thread [mention]MarkW[/mention], so thank you, it's really given me a chance to stop and look at what I have and be grateful for it!

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I'd have probably done what I chose to do from 16, rather than starting at 19. It's only three years, but I keep thinking where I'll be three years down the line :lol: . I did Engineering Apprenticeship, and have been working my way through qualifications and I'm currently 3 months away from completeing my degree. Long old slog after 8 years in the industry, doing ONC/HNC and then HND before starting the dgree - but the light is at the end of the tunnel.

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