A8 Owners Daily duties.....

[Lloyd]

After i served my country in the Royal Corps of Transport and came out with a HGV license ive pretty much stuck to the industry , has a wee spell in sales ( cars and mobile phones) but trucks have pretty much been my bread and butter , pwned my own at one point but thats just a mugs game these days with the cost of fuel,tax,insurance and lack of rates to pay for it all.


I can drive most kinds of truck and operate most kinds of trailers and currently work on container transport for a family firm in central Scotland

[tc4332]

Here is my virtual cradle to wooden overcoat diatribe.
Age 11 I tried my hand at window cleaning, lasted one day, water was too wet. Started as an unofficial van lad on a retail bread round just in my local area of South Manchester which apart from school holidays was a Saturday job.
Age 12 Managed to swap to a wholesale bread van covering Central Manchester same working times. After a few months wangled my way onto a wholesale round that covered my local and school areas. This meant I could work every weekday from 06:00 until the driver dropped me off at school at about 09:00, but I also met up with him for lunch. Fridays he would collect me from school at about 15:30 to start the weekend deliveries, and I also worked Saturdays with him.
Age 15 This lasted until I left my grammar school at fifteen with special dispensation because I had gained a position in an Army Apprentices College in Chepstow. Started as a Vehicle and Plant Electrician, progressed onto Centurion tanks but after the course at eighteen was posted to Germany and never touched a tank again. Landed up working mainly on staff cars which gave me the taste for larger cars. Everyone else had various bubble cars whilst I had an Opel Kapitan. I then attended a radio course and became an Aircraft Radio, Electrics and Instruments Technician attached to the Army Air Corps (light blue beret like Prince Harry). Not much work to do so took my PSV and drove the unit bus all over Germany (East as well as West).
Age 27 Left the Army and obtained a job with IBM as a Customer Engineer, working on punch card machines, tabulators and eventually 360 mainframes and had a hand in the early days of teleprocessing. Somewhere in the loft I still have a 12 inch 1K floppy disk from those days. Eventually changed employer and worked on the Motorway Signalling and Telephone systems. That was very interesting and busy but being on call 24/7 for fifteen years took it's toll and the Boss insisted I took a six month break. That lasted all of a week when I was asked to take a coach party to the Shetlands for a few days. After twelve years of driving coaches all over Europe, and two manning the office nights & weekends realisation dawned that life was racing by so I returned to a more normal life and became an IT Manager (sorry Guys, looks like another trend is forming) for one of the larger soap manufacturers, again with quite a bit of Euro travel involved.
Age 65 Retired, well sort of.
Next month I will be 75 but I am still driving a bus, only a 16 seater ferrying handicapped kiddies to and from school. But also chasing up and down the country between all the major airports ferrying aircrew about. Most of that being in Merc Vianos/Vitos, a Chrysler 300C or the company 2006 A8. The owner purchased his A8 to have something better than my 2004 A8, but mine looks nicer on her 20 inch wheels and I have a few gizmos and DIY mods that his does not have.
There we are then, lots of diverse experiences to chat about when we meet.
Every year you will be able to find me on the third Saturday weekend of September in Chepstow (Army College Reunion), and Remembrance Sunday weekend in London (I march at the Cenotaph).

[Simon Wallwork]

Born 1960.
Worked in a shop about 1976
Joined the army in 1977
Became a social worker, looking after kids/ handicapped adults about 1982
Sold Volvo cars for a main dealer in 1988
Started learning to fly again- for the third time! In 1993, while still flogging cars.
First commercial flying job in 1996- Loganair.
Now flying for new startup airline- as a contractor- in India.

Been fun so far!

[Delboy]

Originally Posted by Simon Wallwork

Born 1960.
Worked in a shop about 1976
Joined the army in 1977
Became a social worker, looking after kids/ handicapped adults about 1982
Sold Volvo cars for a main dealer in 1988
Started learning to fly again- for the third time! In 1993, while still flogging cars.
First commercial flying job in 1996- Loganair.
Now flying for new startup airline- as a contractor- in India.

Been fun so far!

Wow I am impressed, not the usual career progression path

[Borys]

So guys,
In UK for nearly 13 years now.Came from Poland in 2002.Back home it was mostly school for me.As money issues made my living hard decided to come to UK.
Life was hard back home - we had a big house 6 bedrooms in a small village.While most of my family lived together grama,grandpa my sis all was ok ish.Then as live is cruel as it is my father died (he was 40), soon after grama and grampa,my sis got married and moved out.Was very hard to keep the house only with my mum so we sold it (imagine 6 bed, 2500 square meters of land for 30k £ back in 1999-we bought a flat for third of that money)
Left PL to look for better life and help my family back home)
UK got a job in hospitality and stayed there till today from cleaning bedrooms to maintenance manager as present (13 years with one company)
My hobby cars and bodybuilding ( do some personal training, diet plans etc - extra income)
Was fortunate to get my mortgage, brought my mum over,and we live all together
My sis came to UK too but leaving separetaly in same town
So whole family together.
My job doesn't pay a lot but happy where I'm now
Check out my contest pic - that is me in my prime still to this day :-)

[gninnam]

Mines quite boring next to you lot....

Met the careers officer at school and told him I wanted to be a technical drawer and he told me it would be a 7 year training period on low pay..... so put me off that idea (wish I had gone that way but never mind.....)

Brother who is older than me told me to do a computer course at college while I decide on my future (2 year A level and City & Guilds course)

30 plus years and still doing computers

Worked for various companies over the years in various IT roles (best was as an IT consultant also pre and post sales, covered all of the UK with the occasional journey to Europe).
At this time had started a young family so one of the companies I did a lot of consultancy for offered me a position as Network Manager so took it.

5 years later and having to travel a lot again (this time the globe) as the company has grown massive over the last 7 years.....

Planning on staying at this job until I retire but you nevet know

[ScottD3]

gninnnam, at least you get to traveling.
That's interesting and not very boring.

The most interesting thing I get to do is going to the post room to see if I got any post.

Interview tomorrow, so it might all change.

[gninnam]

Originally Posted by ScottD3

gninnnam, at least you get to traveling.
That's interesting and not very boring.

The most interesting thing I get to do is going to the post room to see if I got any post.

Interview tomorrow, so it might all change.

Good luck with the interview
The problem with work travel is it is just that - flight, office, hotel, flight.
A little bit of sight seeing (if you are lucky) but more often than not, not!!

[tintin]

Originally Posted by gninnam

Good luck with the interview
The problem with work travel is it is just that - flight, office, hotel, flight.
A little bit of sight seeing (if you are lucky) but more often than not, not!!

Couldn't agree more - my (unenviable…) record was 11 flights to 8 countries in 6 days, culminating in being so jet lagged that I caught a flight from Harrisburg, PA to the wrong NY airport , and had to get a $100 taxi ride across NY to the right one.

I saw the light shortly after that and much prefer to do less of that now...

[ScottD3]

That seems really interesting and different but that could just be the fact that I spend my day stuck in the same office, behind the same desk doing the same thing (sitting on sketchup and reading forums) and nothing ever changes.
I'm sat in the definition of insanity!!