I attended a lunch meeting of the Southside Chamber of Commerce in London, held in The Bankside Restaurant, 32 Southwalk Bridge Road, London, owned by a member. Quite a large restaurant, with modern furniture, with leather seats, clean wooden tables high class and tasteful. The waitress’s were cheerful and helpful. The menu, printed on the printed place mat, gave a good choice of four courses, Good British food.
I had a wonderful soup, and for the main course, Cumberland Sausage, mashed potatoes, crispy fried onions, and a lush gravy. A British meal at last. But too much for me, as I try to loose more weight that will mean no dessert.
I have been a member of the Chamber for a number of years, and in that time have made many presentations to the group on subjects I teach NLP, memory skills etc. It is fun to be reminded many years later that someone can still remember one of the strategies I taught them.
I love my job.
Although a small turnout, it is a time to network, talk to people, relax.
One member had lived and worked in the area I was born and brought up in, in the Midlands of the UK, Chasetown and Lichfield, a place I had left over thirty years ago, but still retaining a slight accent of the area.
I will not loose my Midlands accent, it is my individualism that I take with me.
Another member, a lawyer, had just retired from the British Government’s Home Office, now wondering what should the next move be in his working life.
A member I had never spoken to before sat next to me, and we exchanged details of ourselves.
I transpires that in a way he was having a similar career path as myself. Although younger than me, I could see him taking the same road I took.
Not being an academic, I was an artist, I loved making things, a hands-on man, I was forced or coerced, after the normal school leaving age, to follow an education in commerce, law, accounting, statistics at the Staffordshire College of Commerce. I did not really enjoy this experience, in fact I did not like accounting, statistics meant nothing to me.
On leaving college, with my certificates in my hand, I was maneuvered into the very early days of computers.
The first computer I worked on in 1966, a Leo, one walked into a large room which contained the processor, made-up of flashing electric valves. As you walked down the middle of this array of lights, you could touch and watch the bits and bytes being shuffled around the memory as it took I think five minutes to add 1 + 1 to come up with the answer 3.
My career journey had begun with computers. For many years I worked with computer manufacturers, NCR, Sperry Univac, Texas Instruments, producing solutions on the computers to customers requirements, accounting, payrolls, stock keeping, hotel management, retail. I was an expert. The expert.
In 1988 after a long stay in the Middle East as Software Manager with Texas Instruments, I returned to the UK to find (after a rest) a new job.
I had really never had to search for work, after all, I was good, I was an expert, I was often “head hunted” for new positions.
Now jobs were not there. No one wanted me. Nobody loved me.
Why?
Ok, I did not have a degree, a process I was to undertook in the late 1990’s at Brunel University, but I had all the knowledge, I had been at the forefront of discovering and working with new technologies. Why?
Age. That was the answer.
I was too old. Computing is a young persons game. The owners, the managers who interviewed me were all younger than me. Perhaps I was a threat to them.
But I have so much to offer, and someone saw what I had, employed me, and I became an expert in the computerised replacement window, door and flat glass manufacturing sector.
For a number of years I helped and advised companies in the computerisation of the processing of windows, doors and flat glass units. With friends, we formed our own company, but the down turn of the British economy of the early 1990’s saw the company end.
With all my expertise, still nobody loved me, nobody wanted my knowledge, I applied for hundreds of jobs. Not even getting an interview.
Employment agencies used me to help the other unemployed get jobs, paying me in postage stamps and blank paper for me to print my large CV.
That is when I did my own thing, got off my bum, and offered my expertise to small to medium sized companies to run their computer sites, supply their hardware and software, make sure their sites and staff were fully operational.
Still I was not happy.
That is when I came across NLP, Hypnosis, with Paul McKenna and Richard Bandler et al. I loved this new information. I needed more and more.
After a couple of years, I had had enough of the rat race, travelling each day into Central London, Piccadilly Circus, Oxford Circus, trying to compete with the young whiz kids, just out of school, “knowing everything” about computers, (Gameboy). I told my clients I had had enough.
Thus my journey in training, consulting, coaching phobia cures.
To this day, I am researching for more knowledge I can place in my portfolio to train others.
I go to the originators of whatever I want to learn, and get their approval to teach their work.
Yet, I come across many people who have had similar experiences to me and employment. They do not work, they blame the government, society, the ageism immigration, anything but themselves.
Poo Poo happens. It is said that we will have to re-educate ourselves every six years, as knowledge and technology is moving so quickly, if we do not move with it, we will have no jobs.
I hope the member of the Southside Chamber, like me and you, updates with new knowledge, not to sit back and hope we have a job for life.
Life evolves, let us evolve too, and learn to learn.