Totally agree Muddy, and wanting the opportunity when its offered.
2 Likes
People and the world in general judge on a lot of things . You can be academic and still the world judges you - look how Alan Turing was treated .
Looks are a big thing too I was amazed to see how Hilary Mantel was subject to vitriolic abuse on her looks when she made remarked on Kate Middleton in an academic lecture .
1 Like
It was 1976, started a new job, the gaffer was giving me a lift home, he said “Spitty, you are very good at what you do, within two years, your will have your own Office and a company Car”. Went to the Pub that night, thought it over and concluded Nah. 
1 Like
That is true, Muddy. I did various things throughout my working life that might have made that difference. Walking out of jobs, for instance, hopping from one to another. What would have happened had I stayed.
I first went to the Indian bank as a temp (when those kind of agencies actually existed), around 1988, and they were looking for a departmental secretary, as theirs was promoted. I had an interview and was taken on, over two of their own staff (who never really forgave me). Many years later, I again took over that lady’s place, in the top secretarial position, when she resigned, and I stayed for less than 2 years when the voluntary redundancy scheme was brought in.
That was my longest time in a job (just over 17 years) and gave me an occupational pension and financial cushion. However, my colleague, who has been there from school, and who I have regular chats with, is so anxious to leave now, she reckons I would hate it there, had I stayed. Yup, I thought that!
My cv now would be full of the little and many jobs I had over the years, but truly, it hasn’t been all that bad, and yes, that statement about being in the right place at the right time, did ring true with me. Several months after leaving the bank, and still idle, I went to a jobs fair, and saw the stall from St Thomas’s Hospital. Picking up a leaflet advertising a job as a Medical Laboratory Assistant, I applied. Had an interview, and got the job. And so started my time with the NHS. After leaving there a few years later (by this time I had additional health problems, with neuropathy, and unable to travel), I then spotted an advert in my local paper for a local hospital, as Bank Staff. Got the job!
I only resigned because we were soon taken over by Islington Trust and I was no longer given jobs.
1 Like
I completely agree Spitty. If I had not seen an advert for graduates and chanced my arm (not yet a graduate) by applying with an extensive accompanying letter, I know I would have not been as successful as I have been. To be offered backing and employment combined with sandwich education/qualifications, was the opportunity of a lifetime that I had to chance my hand with and luckily for me, I was successful.
And…and…had my mum not been working for a certain company, which offered to pay for secretarial training with a job afterwards, my working life would/could have been completely different. As they were able to claim back all their training fees and my salary, from the Govt, (I think that is what mum said), they couldn’t stop me leaving after 9 weeks.
1 Like
Not only luck and being in the right place at the right time, also it’s often a case of knowing the right person or right people. Wanting the job and getting it so as to then commence an apprenticeship / training within that company, cannot happen without those people who create the vacancies.
1 Like
I was wondering why someone without an academic degree should NOT make a good and successful life? If you are a skilled worker, you are in great demand. The economy is looking for them desperately. You might only have problems if you’re unskilled but in this case training will be offered very soon. Taking house ownership as a criterion for having made it, over here there’s hardly any craftsman who doesn’t own a house but many academics who don’t have one and never will.
Its that age old problem, how do you measure success? The only way folks seem to do this is, to look back where they came from, then superimpose one scenario over the other. On that basis, a person from a bad start has the best chance of being successful.
I left school at 16 and promptly married Mr Ripple , i became a stay at home mum that was my career.
I left school at the first chance I had with only a handful of mid-level CSE’s to my name, purely on the basis I grew up with an abusive parent and was desperate to get away from. By sheer luck, I managed to drop into an apprenticeship with a large power company just as my parents were divorcing. Over the years I managed to put myself through college and ended up in university and now I’m on the edge of retirement and I often look back at how far I come academically, which back in the day, was unthinkable for me, having no self-esteem and being convinced (and told) that I was stupid. I also think about what I could have achieved had I not been subject to an extremely bad home life when I was growing up.
3 Likes
Perhaps family circumstances might be an influence and of course a personal tragedy or severe injury could have an influencing factor 
Maybe but this thread is about degree-related success, isn’t it?
Same here with some modifications. Plus there was an additional negative factor that made itself felt: In contrast to almost everyone around me I was struggling with my health and couldn’t exclusively focus on my career.
2 Likes
I’m not the instigator of this thread title, so you would have to ask Baz46.
Before answering a couple of posts I would like to thank all who have contributed to this thread, it’s been very interesting to see the individual experiences of work since leaving eduction. I had hoped to be able to read and then be involved more than I have been. Unfortunately life has a habit of taking over and that is what happened since starting this thread. Other things took up my time, my apologies for that.
No reason whatsoever. There’s possibly more effort and determination required to get to where you wish to be, as initially there are no academic qualifications to indicate what a person’s strengths might be. You have to prove yourself without these which often is not always easy. I have always been surprised to learn of the successful people who are dyslexic. Due to this their efforts are directed in other ways, dyslexia can often be offset by leaving the lack of this for others to help with and that person concentrating more on their real aims to achieve. That all comes down to sheer determination to succeed, despite any problems that person may have.
Well no not really, it’s not entirely about that. It’s more about how those who didn’t have that favoured start in working life, compared to how these days it’s more or less obligatory to have the ‘necessary pieces of paper’ to have good employment prospects, or so it’s thought. These days young people are in education from the age of four or five right up until reaching 21 if they go to university. That’s 17 years education in total compared to, myself for instance, from the age of five (slightly over that) up to the age of 15 when I left school. My total education was just under ten years, way under today’s total.
Speaking to young people today, who have spent that total 17 years in education, they are very surprised to learn that education for my age group was so little and meant we just had to be able to read, write and do basic maths. It was then out to work to earn a living, as was required in those days.
For anyone nowadays who is unable to achieve the ‘required’ academic results it’s often causing them problems. They feel, without those ‘pieces of paper’ it’s not possible to achieve in life. With the need for good academic results it’s very difficult to explain to them that anything is possible, it just depends on their determination to succeed and get to where they wish to.
Thanks LongDriver, hopefully I have satisfactorily explained why I started this thread. I have to say it has been good to see how many here on OFC have achieved success by hard work and determination, without necessarily the need for those ‘so important pieces of paper’.
2 Likes
Despite the supposedly articulate way I post in OFF, I have the blight of dyslexia, but during my early school days I was simply classed as disruptive and what was it …as thick a two short planks I believe. Within days of being sent to boarding school, I was streamed with others similar to me and in smaller groups shown how to not only read more fluently, but also with simple aids, conduct ourselves more efficiently and also with more purpose. Those skills never left me and with electronic aids along came auto-editor that highlight and offer alternatives before printing/publishing. A simple reading aid at school was the ubiquitous 6" ruler held under the line being read and that stops the words dancing around before me. It works with numbers too 
Needless to say that armed with my new skills and extra teaching input, I flourished where before I floundered.
Work was a tad difficult to start with and once I had at least one technical clerk to assist, I went from strength to strength and for my last 10yrs I had the skills of the same PA who worked alongside me as I travelled through various departments/divisions.
One tip I learned along the way was to always ensure a happy team of typists as it was they who correct any obvious mistakes and consult the author if in any doubt. Also pre-printed publications help when preparing contracts out for competitive tender. Simply list all of the sheet numbers and others assemble the contract for proof reading prior to postal dispatch. . simples
2 Likes
There seems to be a fundamental difference between your and my country in this respect. It does strike me that for you those ‘necessary pieces of paper’ are academic degrees only which leaves aside other equally important “pieces of paper” like skilled worker’s or craft certificates or even master tradesman’s certificates all of which are highly respected, door-opening, formal qualifications outside the academic world. Don’t you have them?
Over here they are just as if not even more accepted than academic degrees. They guarantee good employment prospects and a favoured start in life. As I said , only if you have no “pieces of paper” at all, the road to being employed can be a bit bumpier.
Young people over here leave school at 18 at the latest, not at 21 which is indeed a bit late. Add to that three years for a B.Sc. and you can start your professional career at 21 even with such a academic “piece of paper”.
There was a good system until Blair poked his effin nose in!!! He had everything dumbed down to the bare basics. He even tried his utmost to do away with competitiveness in schools 
I could go on, but I’d be removed if I did so as you have stirred one of my pet hates and that’s a fact!
The age of 21 I quoted was the age of leaving university. They leave sixth-form school, or the alternative of college, at the age of 18 then it’s on to university for three years to gain results like the BSc. you mention.
We used to have trade apprenticeships, I served one of these but they were more or less stopped when there was thought to be the need to get young people off the unemployed register, that coincided with introducing university for all. The ‘pieces of paper’ that went with this became something employers required to show the level of achievement gained. Now these have lost some credibility with employers as they are more commonplace. During this time apprenticeships lost their training value so many craft trades lost their regular supply of youngsters who once would have taken an apprenticeship. That is why there were and still are trades, particularly plumbers at one time, earning a fortune because trained craftsmen were not as plentiful as they once were.
Because of the pressure to achieve the ‘pieces of paper’ as they were ‘required’ that meant those who were not really good enough academically, experienced real problems, often being unable to complete their education so they left without any qualifications but having also missed the opportunities there used to be to start an apprenticeship, which may have suited them better and most of which finished at the age of 21.
As LongDogs writes, it was meddling in the existing education and training in recognised trade apprenticeships that was the cause of how things have been. Slowly though this is changing as the value of trade apprenticeships is once again being recognised and youngsters are being advised that there is as much value in a trade apprenticeship as there is in a university degree, for those who are academically able to achieve those.
@LongDriver I know exactly what you mean, interference by government was just to ‘massage’ the high unemployment figures of the time.
@Dachs We now see the results of this in that there are not enough skilled tradespeople and it takes time to train a person in any trade. To fill this gap people came from abroad and although they might have been trained they were not paid the higher rates of pay our own trades usually were paid. That then lowered the prospects of good pay if an apprenticeship was taken, again causing problems for young people setting out in the world of work. All in all it was a real mess and it’s taken years to get to where we are now. The value of trade apprenticeships is now advised and recognised but it’s been a very long road to get back there.
1 Like