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My very first job

3rd May 2016
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I am unsure if anyone will find this latest blog on the new AWEB but here goes.

 As I write I am heading down to Birmingham on a Cross Country train (No where near as good as Virgin) to the Digita 2016 event. I am potentially adding a lot of clients and and 2 staff to my current business if the deal I am working on comes off so need to get a lot from this conference.

It’s a 2-day event with quite a lot to get through, I will be paying a lot more for Digita if my plans come off so need to know it will do what I need going forward, without too many billable extras.

The conference is well planned an organised, although Mrs Glennzy is disappointed that she has just started her new job so could not come for 2 days in the spa.

I bumped into a guy I trained with recently which took me back to my very first job.

I trained with a provincial 4 partner firm (they are a lot bigger now) at a period when they were growing rapidly, in those days they took on a school leaver every year. I joined when I was 16. The department was 10 strong with a manager 30-year-old and then 9 lads down to me at 16. Each year we would take a new school leaver on it meant you could pass the crap jobs down to them as you moved up. Obviously some guys moved on or to other offices.

The crack/banter in the office was great we worked hard and played harder. We would solid until Thursday, did all our billing Friday mornings then went to pub at dinnertime then out Friday night. This type of thing is probably frowned on now but the partners tolerated us as they knew we were successful and rattled out the work and smashed budgets year on year.

This was the best job I ever had and only moved on once I passed my exams at 25 and there were no management opportunities.

After that the jobs I had were working predominately with women which although ok, did not have the same comradery and that is what I missed most when I started working on my own from home.

I remember one day when I had been working out at a clients, a new client had turned up at the office who was a baker, he had bought in a hamper of his goods which was quickly moved into our office for the lads to share out. As I was not there the lads kindly left me a pork pie on my desk.

However, the job I was on had turned out to be a bit of a mess I ended up there all week, so the lads kindly decided to gaffer tape the said pie to the underside of my desk.

The following week I asked could anyone else smell bacon, to which I was told I was going around the bend. This went on and on with the smell growing stronger each week. I bleached my bin out and looked all over and could not find the source of the smell.

How the lads kept a straight face I will never know.

Eventually after 3 months I was rocking back on chair and went back too far and caught the now heavily decayed and mouldy pie with my knee and duly disintegrated.

I was livid, yet everyone thought it hilarious, even the senior partner stuck his head around the corner to see what the commotion was and duly pissed himself laughing.

I don’t think you get this type of banter now in offices as I suppose it would not be PC or classed as bullying, but if I am honest those were the best 10 years of my working life with a great bunch of lads. I still bump into a lot of them. When I left the senior partner told me “that as long as he was a partner in that firm there would always be a job for me” which meant a lot as although he was an old school guy he was hard but fair. He still keeps tracks on all the progress we make away from his firm as he is clearly proud of the training he gave us and the young accountants he produced.

I managed to get some revenge on the lad who was the pie ring leader, he had a £20k BMW which was his pride and joy, which I put for sale on autotrader for £1500. He got over 600 calls.

We had some laughs in that office. Great days.

I will update you on the Synergy event on my retrun trip.

 

 

Replies (4)

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By tom123
04th May 2016 07:09

You managed to get a blog posted then - it's not easy, is it?

Sounds like a solid start to your career - but don't get too maudlin about it - keep looking forwards ;) Good luck with the event.

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By tom123
04th May 2016 07:11

I see you managed to get a blog post done - it's not easy is it?

Sounds a good start to working life - but also, to an extent, of it's time..

Keep looking forwards and onwards - good luck with the event.

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By A mum and an accountant
04th May 2016 10:35

Love the good old days! My first job was pretty good too and Friday lunch at the pub was pretty common. The office banter is one of the main things I miss about working at home.

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By mrme89
04th May 2016 11:24

I’ve done something very similar to your Autotrader trick.

I worked for a transport company a few years ago and was looking for a new car.

The guy I worked with drove a Toyota Yaris and he thought it was the best thing since sliced bread.

He thought it was funny to stick my details into the ‘request a call back’ on a few Toyota dealerships.

To get him back I stuck his car on Auto Trader for a ridiculous price resulting in him getting a load of calls.

A few weeks had passed before I got a load of emails thanking me for applying for a brand new Yaris.

It was back on!

I put the car back on at a sensible price and put in my email (a newly formed gmail account) this time around. I arranged around 15 viewings for his car at his home address across several evenings and a couple of weekends.

He didn’t do anything to get me back after that.

I did feel slightly guilty for all the peoples time I had wasted in the name of revenge.

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