Chaps
I'm glad you're all engaging with me, it's really appreciated and i'll explain why:-
I've stalked this forum on and off for at least 8 years, initially as a guest and a few years ago, i registered as a user.
When I was 15, my parents were getting divorced so i ran away as a kind of protest and joined the fair ground. Helped Jimmy Chipperfields brother pack down in Cannon Hill Park and went with the crew to the Goose Fair in Newcastle.
When i cam back, they were divorced and I had missed my exams. The Winter of discontent was full on, there were no apprenticeships going and I can remember my careers meeting with the teachers, they taught us how to fill in a UB40 form, who i might add were experiencing success in the charts with "I am a one in ten".
Parents had a row about where i was going to work and my mother told my dad i was not to work on the building sites with him and that i had to work in an office.
Anyway, I ended up working in a warehouse schlepping boxes about. They sold haberdashery so i thought i'd have a go selling it myself on the Birmingham City Rag and Row Markets, which i did do, for a year and half. Got bored with it so went travelling. When i left Birmingham (1982), there were 1 millions unemployed. When i came back a few years later, there were 3 million unemployed and I just didn't believe i could get a job, had no money for going back on the markets, no qualifications, etc etc. Lost my confidence basically, so decided i would go to college and do some o'levels. At the time, i could sign on and study under the 21 hour rule. As long as i didn't study for more than 21 hours a week, i could claim benefits. Whilst there, i met a girl and wanted to get my end away but didn't have any money to take her out. So, i robbed my dads ladders, got me a bucket and sponge and went knocking doors round the back of my nans house. Cleaned 7 houses (this is where i nearly fell and poop myself, literally), managed to get paid out on 5 of them at £5 a time (this was 1984), the others wouldn't pay me, said i did an awful job, which i did do cos i didn't know what i was doing. I'm sure the others paid me cos they didn't check the windows, had they done, i wouldn't have got paid. Anyway, with my £25 (i got £23 a fortnight on the dole), i rang the bird up and she cancelled on me. Anyway, went out got ped that night and pulled some bird in the Dubliner in Digbeth, Marvellous.
In the mean time, I eventually ended up working in an office, call centres actually, became a team manager and then senior manager and several years ago, ended up working for one of the largest cleaning chemical manufacturers in the world. I manged a team of customer service people who organised installations along with reactive and planned maintenance for a division of electrical engineers. The equipment was dosing pumps for washing machines and dishwashers etc.
Anyway, about 3 years ago, a 12 year relationship i had been in, came to an end, my mom died and i lost my job all at the same time. Knocked me for six basically. Spent the following 2 years more or less thinking about what i was gonna do with my life and i'm still thinking about it.
Problem is, when i reflect back on things, i know that i don't want to work for anyone else ever again. Yet i don't have a trade or a skill which i can use to work for myself, except my nous and some might say, i aint got any, others will say i'm a genius.
In the mean time, i keep coming back to 3 things which i believe i can do, one of which ive already done but they are:-
1.0 I can drive so i think i could always be a taxi driver but i just don't fancy the hours and the dig in the back of the head. But the overriding reason i don't is cos i know ill end up being a fatter B than I am already.
2.0 Window cleaning, low barriers to entry, active job which would manage my weight and health along with the fresh air. There are down sides, i know and this is why Grudge you should put that bet on, you might just win it.
3.0 Internet. I thought that if anyone wanted to set up a shop and sell something, it had to be on the internet, its a no brainer. So, last August, i opened a shop on eBay, ive got 2 of them now, one selling watchstraps and batteries, the other, my old favorite, haberdashery. I've got a shop outside eBay selling haberdashery too but its no where near as good as eBay but has lots of potential.
After 12 months, i'm pleased i've done it except i've been sitting in a spare room for 3 years now, 1 year of which has been building my eBay shop and i need to get out and do something in addition to this cos i get very little social contact apart from when i walk round Edgbaston reservoir every day, trying to manage my weight.
When im walking round, and it can be up to 4 hours a day (i walk 7 and 14 miles on alternate days) i think i could be canvassing and building a round and get a reward for walking, plus i can afford to take the attitude i have because i don't have a mortgage so i'm not financially led although, i do like money, don't get me wrong. I just don't need to work for £10 an hour so i reckon i can afford to hold out for the choice jobs provided they are within the scope of my abilities. But, like a few of you have said, stop thinking about it and go out and find out. I will, but im in no rush, plenty of time.
I think someone said that i sound like a hobby window cleaner and i think that is exactly what i might end up being.
I decided to come out of the closet and start talking to you chaps because i feel i have a leap to make. I am no window cleaner, but i thought that if i start to engage with window cleaners, i might think like one, if i think like one, then i might behave like one and if i behave like one, then i suppose im a window cleaner.
Anyone else wanna take me out on the poles?
Martin