Post by postscript on Jun 24, 2007 14:37:35 GMT
Hi everyone. In a post a few posts back by now, Roger mentioned that he had at one time been a stockbroker. I think it was on the thread about the CW European tour, in relation to the costs of promoting such a tour and the likelihood of a viable financial return.
To my knowledge he had latterly worked in insurance.
It occured to me, as we are beginning to know one another better and to be more comfortable in opening ourselves up to each other that a thread on our respective careers might be in order. So I have started one.
Rather than simply saying, 'What's your career? I thought the title above was a fun way of expressing it but hopefully not too oblique a title for my intent.
Just how many skills do we have amongst us? Just how diverse is our 'population' as marketing analysts would express it?
So, having mentioned Roger, whom I hope will want to enlarge upon my minor quotation from him, I'll start the ball rolling.
While my life has generally been singularly uneventful, as I suspect is true of the majority of lives--the Hayleys of this world being unique beyond compare--my life has been reasonably diverse.
In answer to the question I have posed as the title of this thread, I am rather inclined to say 'I haven't a clue'! My answer varies according to context and purpose behind the question, or relevance to the moment in which I am asked.
If I answer the question on the basis of, 'For what were you specifically trained?' I would have to answer, 'as a printer'. Precisely, that should be 'Trained in managing production in a printing plant' but I was taught to handset lead type at 13 at school and to print on hand and treadle presses, so I regard myself as a true printer--one who can actually 'do'.
In fact, while at college I took the City and Guilds exam in hand composition, just to see how a self-taught amateur could hold his own with a professionally taught factory-trained apprentice. There have been times when I have regarded that certificate more highly than my later degree!
That experience came in very handy when dealing with a truculent overseer. 'If you think you can orgainse my composing room better than I can, go ahead!' Now how do you get out of that one? Very simply, by chance there happened to be some type sitting on the desk. If you don't pick lead type up properly you are likely to spew it all over the floor (printer's pie), losing half to a day's work for someone.
'Don't touch that!' Not only did I but I picked it up completely, waving it flamboyanty in the air under his nose. His expression changed immediately. In that one gesture I'd told him I had the practical experience he didn't think I had. I then selecterd the one man in the room he himself never dared to interrupt--the trade union representative. 'What's he doing?' What ever it was I decided it could wait and made to go and give him new instructions. I knew I would never get there--which was my purpose.
The truculent overseer suddenly rushed round the desk and blocked my exit. 'What exactly do you want?' I told him. 'Am I ging to get it?' 'Yes!' End of incident.
That perhaps is why I have always preferred people who 'do' rather than people who simply 'know' the theory of how it can be done!
Peter S.
To my knowledge he had latterly worked in insurance.
It occured to me, as we are beginning to know one another better and to be more comfortable in opening ourselves up to each other that a thread on our respective careers might be in order. So I have started one.
Rather than simply saying, 'What's your career? I thought the title above was a fun way of expressing it but hopefully not too oblique a title for my intent.
Just how many skills do we have amongst us? Just how diverse is our 'population' as marketing analysts would express it?
So, having mentioned Roger, whom I hope will want to enlarge upon my minor quotation from him, I'll start the ball rolling.
While my life has generally been singularly uneventful, as I suspect is true of the majority of lives--the Hayleys of this world being unique beyond compare--my life has been reasonably diverse.
In answer to the question I have posed as the title of this thread, I am rather inclined to say 'I haven't a clue'! My answer varies according to context and purpose behind the question, or relevance to the moment in which I am asked.
If I answer the question on the basis of, 'For what were you specifically trained?' I would have to answer, 'as a printer'. Precisely, that should be 'Trained in managing production in a printing plant' but I was taught to handset lead type at 13 at school and to print on hand and treadle presses, so I regard myself as a true printer--one who can actually 'do'.
In fact, while at college I took the City and Guilds exam in hand composition, just to see how a self-taught amateur could hold his own with a professionally taught factory-trained apprentice. There have been times when I have regarded that certificate more highly than my later degree!
That experience came in very handy when dealing with a truculent overseer. 'If you think you can orgainse my composing room better than I can, go ahead!' Now how do you get out of that one? Very simply, by chance there happened to be some type sitting on the desk. If you don't pick lead type up properly you are likely to spew it all over the floor (printer's pie), losing half to a day's work for someone.
'Don't touch that!' Not only did I but I picked it up completely, waving it flamboyanty in the air under his nose. His expression changed immediately. In that one gesture I'd told him I had the practical experience he didn't think I had. I then selecterd the one man in the room he himself never dared to interrupt--the trade union representative. 'What's he doing?' What ever it was I decided it could wait and made to go and give him new instructions. I knew I would never get there--which was my purpose.
The truculent overseer suddenly rushed round the desk and blocked my exit. 'What exactly do you want?' I told him. 'Am I ging to get it?' 'Yes!' End of incident.
That perhaps is why I have always preferred people who 'do' rather than people who simply 'know' the theory of how it can be done!
Peter S.
