Thread: How did you choose a profession/trade when you left school?

Originally Posted by Tombie

I have no intention of working beyond 60.

See what happens when that comes around

I thought the same,now 61,but still ticking along sort of half running the show.But i do a lot less than i used to do,a bit of paperwork,ordering and Quotes, that is about it.I still enjoy it,though,particularly on the odd occasion being out in the field helping one of the boys on a job.
Although being from the younger generation they do things differently.

I think when SWMBO moves out of the business completely,thats when we will both go,which will be in the next year or so.
Its no good one being in it and not the other.

We dont need the business,if it wasnt for the boys it would have been sold years ago.

I am a bit worried about being bored,but i think that will sort itself out,once we stop working.
There is always work around the properties we own,as well,and travelling,grandkids,touring,etc,etc.

We need to travel more,as well, before we get too old,or have medical issues,etc.

When I finished school, I really knew what I wanted to do. I had a burning desire to build beautiful timber yachts and managed to score a shipwright apprenticeship with a true craftsman…….that would start in eight months’ time. So my “plan” was to hone my skills at surfing, sailing and camping until the apprenticeship started. This didn’t sit too well with the old folks who wanted me to study something useful. So the “agreement” was I would start a uni degree in Digital Systems Design i.e. learn to build computers from scratch!...not my choice. Turns out I wasn’t terribly well suited to this field of endeavour and promptly failed along with 75% of all the other students who had enrolled in this course. The following year it was only offered as a post grad masters. In the meantime, my shipwright craftsman proved to be not much of a business man and had gone bankrupt. Not to be dissuaded, I knocked on about a hundred doors and finally managed to score another shipwright apprenticeship, this time with an old Yugoslav traditional cray boat builder. I really enjoyed the work but as time went by I developed allergies to nearly every timber in the boat yard to the point where I would spend more time sneezing than working and this was in the days way before PPE was even a thing.

So that was that and with my limited skill set I could only get a job working in a bank. This was definitely the most mind numbing thing I had ever done. Apparently, humour and practical jokes are not a thing in the bank and yes it was time to leave. I went on to study Physics and Biology at the end of which I was offered a position at the WA Dept of Agriculture in the Brucellosis Eradication programme. I took the job as there was a recession on and government positions were gold. Turned out to be way better than I expected as I got to work out in the field as well as in the lab, playing with lots of fancy machines. Over the next 30 years I was fortunate to work with amazing people in immunology research, developing veterinary diagnostic test and vaccines for exotic diseases…as well as getting long service leave every 7 years! As a guvo worka, I could take my long service at half pay and tack on my annual leave at each end, allowing me the time to restore two old cars, as well as build a house and a yacht of my own (with PPE!).

However, a mid-life crisis saw me go back to uni to do a degree in Mech Eng after which I was offered a position at JP Kenny working at the sharp end in the subsea oil and gas industry. Once again I was very fortunate to work with truly amazing people on some of the most challenging projects in the world and spend eye watering amounts of other people’s money on big wiggly pipes and yellow boxes that sit on the ocean floor. That was fun until the oil price fell through the floor at which time I was encouraged to take a self-funded sabbatical which I have chosen to continue to this day. The notion of retirement doesn’t scare me as I never learned how to be bored. There is still way too much to do, you just don’t get paid to do it but it is still fun and I get to spend a lot more time with my family and friends.

Originally Posted by RANDLOVER

I hope that is not because they weren't even thinking of inviting you to the Xmas party!

Well ..... that may be what they're thinking, but either way I'll still be working in 12 years time.

Edit: our roles now range from hybrid to completely WFH - when an ex-colleague recently resigned my old employer advertised the job as completely hybrid, as in, they didn't care where you were working from: you may, at most, have had to go to one of the offices once a month. Our group had always been decentralised so this is just the logical next step, particularly since the lockdowns proved that with the tech we had we didn't need to be in the office or logged on 9 to 5, so long as we met timetables and targets. Our productivity went up 20% during COVID and we also saw more of our families. I'm thinking of moving back to the country in a couple of years and with a good internet connection I will be working full time but still able to run a small farm. Or at least have a few chooks and veggies.

Originally Posted by scarry

See what happens when that comes around

I thought the same,now 61,but still ticking along sort of half running the show.But i do a lot less than i used to do,a bit of paperwork,ordering and Quotes, that is about it.I still enjoy it,though,particularly on the odd occasion being out in the field helping one of the boys on a job.
Although being from the younger generation they do things differently.

I think when SWMBO moves out of the business completely,thats when we will both go,which will be in the next year or so.
Its no good one being in it and not the other.

We dont need the business,if it wasnt for the boys it would have been sold years ago.

I am a bit worried about being bored,but i think that will sort itself out,once we stop working.
There is always work around the properties we own,as well,and travelling,grandkids,touring,etc,etc.

We need to travel more,as well, before we get too old,or have medical issues,etc.

I hear what you’re saying!

If I’d kept the business in Adelaide I would have retired at 45.
Instead sold it and moved onto other things. I was bored!

We (me and Mrs Tombie) are well and truly comfortable and our investments have us able to have the life we want at 60.
Intention is to live 50% of the time in our house in Hua Hin Thailand and the rest back here fishing and relaxing and catching up with the Grandkids.

Will see where my hobbies take us, they’re rather expensive at the moment!

What this thread demonstrates is the huge depth/breadth of experiences and expertise/talent on this forum.

All brought together by a common passion for Green Oval products.

1) I grew up as a city kid with some distant connections to the land.
2) At high school I decided to do medicine, make a bunch of $$ and buy a cattle station. By Yr12 I had scrapped that idea for doing vet science, making a bunch of $$ and buying a cattle station.
3) Did vet science and went to work for a large beef cattle company.
4) After the beef crash of the mid-70s I left the company and started a private vet practice. Made a good living but never enough to buy a cattle station.
5) Sold the practice and went overseas to a position in academia.
6) Returned to Oz to complete postgraduate studies and remained in academia/research for 35 yrs.
7) Had a part-time 'parallel' career as a charter pilot.
8) Took a 'package' and tried retirement - but it didn't take!
9) Set up as a consultant working when and where I feel like it.
10) Chase barramundi around northern Australia in my spare time!

Some very interesting stories.
I grew up on a dairy and banana farm, which is where I got to know old Land Rovers.
I wanted to become a train driver, but the parents had other ideas.
I won a scholarship to university, but was also offered a cadetship on the local newspaper, which the old man reckoned was a better idea as I would get paid and not be burden on the farm, where money was tight.
I spent over 30 years working in rural and regional newspapers in NSW and Qld, which was interesting, but the writing was on the wall as News Corp bought, stripped and sold or closed newspapers, so it was time to get out.
I had done a BA externally at Uni NE while working. Smartest thing I did was put an extra $50pw into super for all those years.
The wife and I did some CELTA training at UQ and then moved to Thailand to train uni students in English language. I also did a M. Ed. (TESOL) from Uni Wollongong.
After three years we came back, worked at an international language school in Brisbane and then at a big non-government school training students, refugees and locals, in English for work. I veered into doing a Certificate IV in Training and Assessment.
I delayed retiring for a year because I was the only person among 1500 staff at the group of 12 schools who was qualified to assess students in a particular course we offered.
Now happily retired.

Since others have outlined their career after getting into their field, I'll add a bit to my post above. After working in the field on surveys in the Bowen Basin, and the gulf Country and then working out of Roma, all in Qld, for three and a bit years, I was put in charge of a field crew working in the middle of the Simpson for the next nearly two years. Encountering light aircraft in this operation, I started learning to fly.

Then back to Roma for a year or two, and bought an Auster aeroplane. And while in the Simpson, my brother had got me to go shares with him in a 30ft yacht, located in Brisbane. after various small jobs in Qld, including the first geophysical exploration for coal in Australia, I was put in charge of a crew starting work in PNG, where I spent the next two years. Assessing the Auster as unsuitable for operations there i traded it on a Cessna 180.

After this contract was completed, I was laid off, but the company found me a job in Melbourne with the Big Australian. I remained there for the next 22 years, working mainly all over Australia, on and offshore, but also PNG, Myanmar, UK, USA, and bringing the company into the computer age, as well as working with learned societies and helping to run conferences etc. This ended when the company decided they did not need a chief geophysicist. Shortly after my move to Melbourne, my brother moved overseas, and we sold the yacht, replacing it with a new 37 foot schooner built in Melbourne. Also, having moved to Melbourne, with rental aircraft readily available, I sold the Cessna.

With retirement age approaching, we had already planned to retire here and build a house, so we did. At the same time I accepted an honorary position as editor of a learned journal, and also did occasional consulting jobs, including several months in the USA. We moved into the house in 1995, and in the next year my wife was diagnosed with Primary Pulmonary Arterial Hypertension, a rare, progressive, and almost untreatable disease with a prognosis at the time of 2.8 years from diagnosis. She died in 1999, just after the birth of our. first grandchild, while waiting for a lung transplant.