I’ve never been lucky enough to have a career or jobs I actively enjoy. I’ve only had jobs that I’ve at best tolerated.
I never really knew about all the kinds of jobs that existed and there were probably lots of things that I could have aimed for had I known about them. I think I would have done something creative but ultimately I always knew that it wasn’t going to be graphic design for other people. I just wasn’t creative enough and I was studying it a bit too prematurely in terms of the internet not being around and much of the software being in its infancy.
At the time of writing this in 2022 as I’m nearly 48, I still don’t know what my ideal job would have been. What I’d like to have done and what I’d be capable of doing are two quite different things. Through my years of academic, professional and personal life I’ve come to understand that I’m just not very good at doing anything. If I’ve ever done anything to a reasonable standard, I’ve always been aware of why it’s not to a professional standard or the limitations of what I’ve done not being directly transferable to a career. It’s nice to get praise for something I’ve done like costumes, design or other artwork but it’s often the case that I couldn’t do those thing good enough, fast enough or cheap enough to make them commercial. One exception is the pub maps, but that could only ever be a sideline, not something that could get anywhere close to a full time income.

Here’s a summary of the paid jobs I’ve had…

1987 to 1988 or thereabouts.
Whilst not being a real job, my first experience of any kind of paid work was being a paperboy for a free newspaper. I think I got paid 1p per newspaper and I must’ve only had about 200 to deliver each week.

September 1991 – October 1991
My first proper job was working in a small video shop in Oulton in about 1992. It didn’t last very long but it was alright. As there’s a real chance that this could be read by someone that doesn’t even know what a video job was. It was a kind of library where you could hire VHS video tapes to watch on your VCR at home. It was what people had before Netflix.

December 1992 – October 1997
After my previous video shop job it wasn’t too long until I began working at Ritz in Rothwell.
After about a year or so of working for there, the company had been bought out by Blockbuster and the store went through a transformation.
The job could be quite boring and also quite busy but overall it was a good job to have at that point in my life as it helped supplement my only other income from my student grant. It was one of the reasons I was able to avoid taking a student loan during my college years.
I was able to keep my job even after they’d accidentally dismissed me after I went to California for two months.
There are way too many things to list that I did there that I shouldn’t have. My employment eventually ended when in October 1996 the manageress come into the shop unexpectedly one Friday night to find an open can of beer I’d hidden but was drinking from. I was allowed to resign instead of being sacked, but it added up to the same thing though.

July 1996 – October 1996
I got another job, largely standing behind a counter at Total for a few months from summer to Autumn. I was always working with someone and I didn’t like that much. There was always too much to have to do. The manager there didn’t think I was enthusiastic enough or something. Well excuse me for it not being my dream job. No loss. I was really glad when it was over and I hadn’t had to make the decision myself. However, this was just 13 days before the Blockbuster job had ended abruptly.

August 1996 – April 1998
For part of 1996 I had three jobs whilst still being a student. Apart from the two shop assistant jobs, I had also taken on an evening cleaning job cleaning at an Employment Agency called HMS, which was part of the same company I worked for, Initial Rentokil, and it was later rebranded as Initial.
I mostly worked when the staff had finished and left for the day. The offices were on the first floor above the corner of Vicar Lane and Eastgate in Leeds. It was sometimes relaxing to just sit in an empty office watching people go by.
Working in town overlapped with working at Parceline by a few months but I finished in April 1998.

January 1997 – June 1997
Whilst at HMS I also began a further cleaning job employed by the same company but working at Imperial Metal Industries (IMI) (Yorkshire Copper Works) in Stourton.
I really quite liked that job for a number of reasons. The site was vast, varied and interesting. I would be able to work alone as part of a large team. I was the only male part of this cleaning staff but that was okay. I’d have to go around the heavy industrial areas and also clean brand new offices. One of the more interesting parts of the work was in an old office block that was being wound down. It was so strange because parts of it had barely been touched since the 70s or 80s. There were all kinds of boardrooms, labs and abandoned areas to explore. Outside areas were also heavily industrialised and interesting to walk around,. I was able to finish duties quite quickly a lot of the time and spend parts of my shift just soaking up the different environments. I only ever took a couple of photos, and it was well before I would ever have a digital camera.

July 1997 – February 1999
Delivery Driver / Furniture Assembly
Initially the job was meant to be for just one week.
For the most time, I was delivering office equipment and furniture and having to assemble it in homes and premises for a company called Viking Direct. I covered all of North, East, West and parts of South Yorkshire and County Durham. It gave me a much better sense of geography and every day was different.
For the last part of my time working for Parceline, I was doing normal deliveries and collections around Leeds City Centre. That was less enjoyable and often quite stressful.
Overall the job hadn’t been bad and I saw some interesting places. I resigned just before I was going to be sacked. Oddly, I still have the uniform. Not that Parceline exists any more, I would have any use for it, or could even fit into trousers with a 32 inch waist.

May 1999 onwards
After an agonising period of 10 weeks of being unemployed, in 1999, I got a new job via an agency and began a call centre job. I’ve done a lot of things there. Retention, Business Customer Service, Correspondence, Bereavements & Long Term Illnesses, and unfortunately, Business Customer Service again.

One of the worst things to happen with my job was the company I worked for offloading customer service responsibilities to an outsourcing company. I dislike my job but I hope I never have to stop doing it until I either win the lottery (ha!) or get to retire away from the job.
I resent the original employer for abandoning so many of its frontline workers. It used to be a great employer and we got all kinds of things like trips to London, Christmas Hampers, weekly head massages etc. There’s nothing like before with the current employer.

2023
A further massive change happened in 2023 when the client of the company I work for decided to shift all their Business Customer Service to the Philippines. I was due to become redundant and get a year’s salary as a payout. However, two months after being made aware of this, my employer was able to redeploy me to customer service for a different kind client in a very different sector. Oddly, it’s a massive change, but basically the same job description. (Phone-Monkey.)

One good thing to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic was me having to work from home. If I never have to go into the office to work again then that would suit me just fine. I get to stay in bed for longer, use less petrol, not sit in traffic, spend more time with my dog. I’m also away from an environment with lots of noise and annoying people.