A predominately outside and varied work life. How has yours been?

[JAG63]

Kitchen porter - barman - steel related, cast magnets - Army 32 yrs - arb. 

[eggsarascal]

43 minutes ago, Steve Bullman said:

Mines nowhere near as interesting as the OP.  I'm out!

Something to hide?

[Ratman]

Your turn yolky [emoji6]

[the village idiot]

I spent 35 years sneaking teaspoons into people's washing up bowls just before they poured all the water out. Then went into forestry.

[eggsarascal]

8 minutes ago, Ratman said:

Your turn yolky

Did I miss your go Ratty?

[Ratman]

Brought up on a farm, at 13 i worked saturday mornings at a local car garage, did work experience at another car garage and stayed there doing weekends and holidays till i was 16, fanny’d about at school and skived for quite a lot of it. Did cleaning on a night at my current place of work in offices etc, along with my car job, left school and started as hgv mechanic at my current place of work monday to friday, stayed at car garage for a further 12 months on weekends. Jacked that in at 17 and just stuck to main hgv job.
Done a fair bit of rallying, rac, tour of mull.
Moved to bike racing, thundersport GB for a couple of years.
Done house building, plumbing, plastering etc all in my spare time. (Still on with current home projects) 37 next so who knows what life still has to bring ?‍♂️

[Ratman]

Nope, its there [emoji6] come on, break your shell [emoji51]

[MattyF]

As the title suggests, what have you done during your working life? I expect many on here have had as varied a life as mine.
I'll kick off with mine. In late 1975 I was kicked out of school at 15 for being a smart arse and thinking that school wasn't for me. Got a job on a farm for a year or so until my grandmother left me enough money to scrape a ticket to NZ. I remember it cost about as much then as it does now. Worked there for two years by overstaying my work visa, getting caught by immigration, and them being good enough to allow me an extension. Worked on sheep and cattle stations, with a fencing and shearing contractor, and even did a month in a slaughter house. There was always a job there if you were willing to work hard. Great place and great people.
Came home and didn't want the drudgery of returning to farm work so started an apprenticeship in a car bodywork shop. Still wanted to travel though, so took off around Europe on a motorbike. Got a job in Germany in another car bodyshop and stuck it for two years. Then had some time off the cars and went to work for six months in a stone quarry near Heidelberg.  Great money. Took off around other parts of Europe mainly exploring, and even doing some shelf stacking in a French supermarket. Returned to the UK and bought a house with a workshop and started a small body shop business catering mainly for the trade, and one private collector . The house with workshop in 1982 cost £12000. 
In 1985 a friend put in a word for me and I got a job through a contractor on a North sea offshore oil installation. The house was paid off within a year and it still allowed me two weeks in every four to continue my business. Got married and continued to work the body shop until a divorce made me realise that being stuck in a shed doing restorations and crash damage was not for me. I've always enjoyed fishing and lived on the river whenever I got free time. The next 22 years were spent on three different sporting estates as their fishing ghillie. The first place was a hard go as during the winter I was thinning woods on a self employed per ton basis. Luckily I had a good mentor on the estate who had done a great deal and showed me the basics so I didn't kill myself.  He just operated the forwarder as he was getting on in years. I did the same job on the next estate during the winters, before getting full time employment on the last estate. The winters on the last estate over 8 years or so were spent helping out with the shooting as a beater and picker up with my dogs. Funnily enough, it was the last estate who paid me through the most basic saw course, even though I never did any work in the woods except for my own firewood and trimming down the river bank. 
I now work as a driver for the NHS out of hours service. I reckon I'm a jack of all trades and a former master of one.[emoji57]
 
 

Would you go back to being a ghillie ??

[eggsarascal]

Much like the OP, got kicked out of school in 1985 aged fourteen, went to work for a mates father that was buying/modernising/selling terraced houses in Stoke-on-Trent. Left that and worked in pottery factory for two years. Roll on to the early Ninties, got involved with drugs/crime, got sent to prison more than once before I learnt my leason in 1996. One of my brothers bought a place in Benalmedena Spain so I went over there with two weeks worth of clothes, got a job there and came back twice in 18 months. Moved to Suffolk with the job I did (working on the roads) and meet a Swedish bird, that lasted a few years then we split up, spent a few years shagging anything with a pulse then settled down, bought a place in the country then split up again. Nothing to hide here.

[the village idiot]

19 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

I spent 35 years sneaking teaspoons into people's washing up bowls just before they poured all the water out. Then went into forestry.

In reality, after a failed attempt at pretending to be clever at university I was a fruit and vegetable farmer for 7 years. Then I made ice-cream for 6 years, before trying my hand at woodland management.