1. Your first job.
At 17 I was a shop boy in our local supermarket. This was in the late 1960s, when supermarkets were only just invented in England. We did everything on the premises in those days. I worked in the “Provisions Department” (ie. dairy, delicatessen, etc.). The first thing they did was teach me to bone a side of bacon. Yes, we had bacon delivered as cured half pigs and we had to bone, joint and then slice it. I also served on the deli counter as well as helping out wherever needed. I did this for about 2½ years in vacations ending up on checkouts, doing displays and helping run the wine counter. I still know more about bacon that most butchers!
2. Your best job.
This would have to be wasting time as a post-grad student and then a post-doc. In fact I wasted so much time as a post-doc I had to resign before I was sacked.
3. Your worst job
IT Technical Sales. I hated anything to do with selling and stress. I’m really a techie. I did this for 2½ years in late ’70s, before PCs were around. I worked in the City of London and did get to go one or two interesting places as a result.
4. Your current job.
IT Project Manager. I’m currently running team who have just installed two of these enormous beasts of machines.
5. Job you are aiming for.
Retirement.
6. Job you wish you could have regardless of qualifications.
Gentleman of Leisure. Somehow I think I might be able to do that quite well!
7. Job you wish you could have regardless of salary.
Dilettante Researcher. Well almost regardless of salary; I would need enough to live on! I’ve always wanted to research what I like when I like. I should really have been an academic, but not in the sciences where I was trained; far too much like hard work! Oh and the picture is the Reading Room of the British Museum (it was the British Library); what a stunning place to do research; it really is awe-inspiring inside.
8. Job you would absolutely HATE to do.
Anything nasty and messy: abattoir work, butchery (bacon is OK, it isn’t bloody), refuse collection, emergency services, medicine.
9. Job that you just do not understand how it is done.
Anything to do with electronics. I never did understand how to design circuits, and a totally inept with a soldering iron.
10. Least amount of time you’ve worked at a job.
Two Christmas when I was a student I did 2-3 weeks delivering the mail – back in the days when the Post Office took on casual staff at Christmas. It was horrible early hours and quite hard work, but interesting.
11. The silliest job in the world.
There are lots of these, but Fashion Model has to be somewhere near the top.
12. First thing you will do when you never need to have a job again.
Sleep and Recover
1. half a pig, 2. UEA, 3. Computer Sale, 4. New IBM Z10 Mainframe, 5. man in chair, 6. Gentleman of Leisure, 7. British Museum Reading Room, 8. Butchery Lane (4), 9. tag some of this stuff if you know what it is, 10. Red Bike in the Snow, 11. Sweet, sweet madness…, 12. IMG03898
As always these are not my photos so please follow the links to enjoy the work of the photographers who did take them!
Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.
