A8 Owners Daily duties.....

[Architex_mA8tey]

My earliest job of interest after the almost essential paper round when I was a lad was actually valeting cars at the local Audi & VW dealers which was where I first got interested in Cars. I then progressed to "the art of buying auction cars, doing them up and selling them on for a profit" as soon as I could drive. Other car related activities were Stock Rod racing (3 litre Capri stock cars) and Rallying in such cars as Mk 1 Escorts, Mk2 Escorts and Sunbeam Ti's.

My "proper job" background (as the name suggests) is Architecture. After I qualified I worked for a few Architects practices both small and large (including working on such varied buildings as Worcester & Gloucester Cathedrals and the restoration and conversion of the Hoover building on the A40 as you come into London from Oxford. I then set up my own practice specialising in residential Architecture and house type/house layout design, we also specialised in thatched properties early on. I still have a business in this area to this day mainly designing house types for National and Luxury House Builders the latter of which gets me involved in some interesting projects!

It was Architecture that led me back towards cars when I did some Architectural work for a funeral director who one day offered me his fleet of limos and a rolling contract to hire them back to him to do all his funerals (and his weddings he had booked for the weekends) and so that became an additional business. We did some 3500 funerals over the following 5 years and I really must write a book about that whole adventure sometime!

I have a low boredom threshold with work and started up a national loft conversion business whilst doing architecture and at our busiest we were starting 12 new conversions a week so it was a pretty busy time! They were very upmarket hi-spec conversions with many energy saving features and build times/disruption were minimized by making the roof window openings and taking everything in through the roof and only opening up for the stairs at the last possible minute. We also did truss rafter conversions when nobody else was offering this and used "kitchen planner" type 3D software to help show clients what their conversion would actually look like.

When I sold that business to a larger building company I made a bit of money so I invested in some property which I now rent out and which will hopefully act as a pension fund in coming years. At that point I had been dealing with Velux roof windows whilst doing loft conversions and they were looking for someone to set up their Architectural binder and CPD program for Architects and Specifiers so I worked for them for 6 years. I think in the busiest year we did 240 seminars and I personally gave 120 of them!

I enjoyed the variation/interest of working with a product manufacturer in the Building industry and went on to work for many big names including Knauf Plasterboard (House Builder national agreements), BuildStore (Developing a National Self Builder Offering), and Corus Steel (now Tata) dealing with National Builders Merchant Groups. I also sat on the Exec of the UK Timber Frame Association for a couple of years and spent a couple of years between the UK and Canada involved with that.

Nowadays I am running the Architecture business, an Internet B2B and Ticketing business, and am also a Director in a business that provides low energy ventilation and heat recovery systems (design supply and install etc) to residential properties throughout the UK and Ireland. Who knows what the heck I will be doing next . . . . .

[Dezzy]

Dezzy worked in a local ATS centre as the "boy" left and went to work for a local tyre firm, got laid off form there through lack of business. Done various things to survive here and there but we'll leave that to a pi55y evening at a meet.

Got an apprenticeship as a Shipwright in a Shipbuilders, served my time and am a fully indentured Shipwright and was building ships of various types from pontoons for floating bus stops on the Themes to Super Yachats. I then got an opportunity to go into the design office and learn a very specific 3D design software tool. I took this for a couple of reasons 1, shipbuilding is very hard work and 2, shipbuilders don't seem to live very long.

I'm now a director of my own company offering design engineering and Liasion to companies that might need it. Currently building Aircraft Carriers.

Any other shipbuilders in da ouse?

[Reffro]

OK I'll join in.

Transport Management at Uni, including a 14-month placement with Mobil. Car Salesman for Ford and Honda for 9 months combined. 2 years as a Commercial Mortgage Broker.

I now work for an Automotive Business Intelligence provider. We have data for sales, news, specifications and prices of new vehicles for 60 markets worldwide, selling the data and software to produce reports used by all the major OEM's.

I started in the Automotive Research industry as a Specs researcher, before becoming a Volumes researcher for my current company, JATO Dynamics. In the 10 years since, I have moved up to my current position where I manage the Volumes (sales/regs) data research. I have 10 people in the UK and a further 32 worldwide tasked with the Volumes research. We take new monthly sales/regs volumes data for 60 countries and research it into a consistent format to feed our reporting software. We also collect additional sales data locally to improve the volumes data and provide a link to our pricing and specs. The idea is to produce a database that tells you what is on sale, where in the world, with prices and specifications all detailed and how many got sold.

So I get paid to be a car geek, well that and a bit more, but I do work in an industry centred on my passion, so I'm luckier than most.

[RanjS8]

Well my day job is an optometrist...but I m a mathematician at heart who loves solving problems.

I started work life in a petrol station at the age of 10 and grew up helping my parents run two businesses...then went to uni to get an office job....but I hated the mundane nature of working for someone else...

So after a few years of various office roles including actuarial trainee, filing, management information systems, system admin....I finally quit and decided that I would learn to renovate houses whilst running a newsagent.

After 6 months of learning to diy....I soon realised to buy another house I needed a mortgage and to get a mortgage I needed a job....hence my search for a career that allowed me to choose when I worked.....So I went back to uni for the second time at the age of 27 to do optometry.....I would recommend university twice to anyone....it gave me the chance to do all those things I didnt do first time around....and boy was it fun!!!!!!!!!

After qualifying as an optometrist....I soon met my wife and brother in law Amar....and my passion for Audi a8 was started......combine that with a bunch of tools my dad left to me and what do you get.....me working 3 days as an optometrist....2-3 days tinkering with my car....and sunday to run the newsagent...

[Singh]

Ranj - You forget to mention that fact your in the process of getting your pilots license. I planted that D2 seed well. Ranj had just been to the Merc dealer and put a deposit down on a E500, I managed to let him drive the D2 just in time for him to realise he'd made a mistake and get his deposit back.

[David's8]

Following on from Dezzy's nautical theme, I joined the Navy straight from school and spent most of the time at sea as a navigator and anti-submarine warfare specialist in some of Her Majesty's war canoes (aka "sleek grey messengers of death" or the " grey funnel line" - or just "targets" to submariners!) which had, or so it appeared been designed by people who had never been to sea. (Sorry Dezzy). I have done some time in the "old" Ark Royal" (with REAL aircraft like Phantoms and Buccaneers - younger readers may need to look them up). If you really want acceleration you need to try being catapulted off a carrier. Retired some 10 years ago and now do marine navigational consultancy for offshore renewable developers - tidal turbines/wave energy converters/wind farms. It makes a change to be involved in building things at sea as opposed to destroying them with a shedload of high explosive - though nowhere near as much fun!!

Met Iceblue8, and having had to sell a A4 Avant 2.0 tdi, i saw the light and now have bought his previous S8.

[Dezzy]

Originally Posted by David's8

Following on from Dezzy's nautical theme, I joined the Navy straight from school and spent most of the time at sea as a navigator and anti-submarine warfare specialist in some of Her Majesty's war canoes (aka "sleek grey messengers of death" or the " grey funnel line" - or just "targets" to submariners!) which had, or so it appeared been designed by people who had never been to sea. (Sorry Dezzy).

Ouch! Ha Ha.

Aye, Aye Sea fairing matey.

Don't worry i don't take offence. And I have respect for all you guys that do or did what you’ve done. But you have put it quite well yourself "sleek grey messengers of death" I'm trying to be a little careful here as i like Naval contracts.

But basically you served on ships that weren't designed for your comfort because you were just the organic bit that helps work the ship and there were loads more of you if you broke. Naval rules are for obvious reasons different to commercial. Hydrodynamicist spent months making sure the ship will do 30 knots and then it had to be crammed with all the equipments the Navy require so it’s rammed in where ever it’ll fit and that doesn’t normally work out that well if you’ve got to use it. Now however things are changing I don’t know if you’ve had the chance to look at type 45 but it is a taste of things to come, crew’s cabins are much better than those 25 year old ships.

This is another ship i worked on, the owner and crew of this ship were very pleased with both the accommodation and operation of it. http://www.internationalyachtcharter...tails/samar253 Maybe you went to sea in the wrong type of ship?

[graynada]

My first job on leaving school was in a Mustard Factory (not Colmans) but this was just a fill in job until;

I too joined the Navy (is there a theme forming here). I spent 15 years in total in the Senior Service serving on various ships which have all either been since sold or scrapped.

On leaving I spent a couple of months working as a Portable Appliance Tester. Marvelous job. Everyone so please to see you as you interupt their work, disassemble the snakes wedding of power leads and normally hlf their desk too. Elbow deep in dust and crap in the places never clean. As you can tell I miss that job.

From there I went to work for the shipbuilders (this is starting to get spooky now) Vosper Thornycroft as a Field Service Engineer and later as Quality Assurance in the actual ship building bit.

And then ito my current job working for the Civil Service, and all I'll say about that is don't believe what you read in the media.

[Architex_mA8tey]

Originally Posted by Dezzy

This is another ship i worked on, the owner and crew of this ship were very pleased with both the accommodation and operation of it. http://www.internationalyachtcharter...tails/samar253 Maybe you went to sea in the wrong type of ship?

Thats not by any chance Jim "The Laird"'s yacht is it Dezzy?

[Dezzy]

Originally Posted by Architex_mA8tey

Thats not by any chance Jim "The Laird"'s yacht is it Dezzy?

It wouldn't be right of me to name the owner, so don't worry Jim your secret is safe