A8 Owners Daily duties.....

[M-A8]

EDIT: Bloody hell, that came up long, like a serious article in The Times sorry

Time for me then.

Age: 31
Origin: Poland
In UK for 9years now.
Education: 15years in total. 2 diplomas in IT, IT inc. telecommunication with elements of electronics and also multimedia and computer graphics.

I worked for the biggest telecommunication company for only few months until I realized that IT isn't what I want to do for a living.

At the age of 15 (while studying) I got into car tinting business, back then it was something unknown and not done properly. Within 2 years we got contracts with almost every single car manufacturer tinting brand new cars for customers who have chosen to have windows tinted to specific grade. Within another year we already had own dedicated bays for tinting in Mercedes, Audi, Volvo, Nissan, Honda, BMW, Renault, Peugeot and many more dealerships.
In the meantime I was stripping and swapping car interiors for a private investor, not for long, all in my own time which was very limited due to looong working hours and studying at the same time.
After 6 years of tinting the cars and also homes, shops and showrooms later on, I draw a line in my CV and decided to take it easy, focus on having a family and even working for someone else which I don't mind till present day, although I am currently thinking about new business/partnership whci is very exciting.
I was happy with what I've done in my life so far.
Got a property and invested money. I wasn't and I'm still not too greedy. Yes I would like to be a millionaire one day, but that wasn't the time for me.

UK adventure was nothing else than adventure, at that point I was settled and done OK so I decided to visit few mates over here. Were quickly I got a good job in I think still the biggest home improvement company after offering for a laugh my place in the line to a regional manage of this company while I was queuing in the bank.
I was making so much £££ that after 2 months I was promoted to assistant manager where I made even more £££. But this experience lasted less than a year after I decided to quiet because of stupidly long working hours which made me a lot of money which I couldn't spend.

After that I was looking after 8 difference hotels across London, almost AtoZ maintenance.

After 2 years me and all the guys across UK faced a redundancy, company decided to give away all maintenance related services to outside contractor.

I was kind of happy even if this happened few days before Christmas as my child was due to be born in next couple of months, so it was like a unlimited father's maternity which helped me spent a lot of time with my little one which was a best possible thing. Thanks to hard work, savings and good skills in fixing electronics I managed to stay away from the benefits and other handouts, I was actually making more money from home back then than any other full time job in the past.

In the meantime I was doing some extra H&S courses to help me getting into local government, property services dept.
Soon after passing all my exams I got a job with my local government. It wasn't the best position, but I was prepared to start at the bottom of the ladder as that's how sometimes it is in life.

Till now, after 5 years I'm still working for a local government as a site manager now and enjoying what I'm doing. This is due to position being slightly renamed and reformed which offers my fair amount of power, say and variety of things to due across each week, anything from budgeting and finances to getting my hands dirty which is what I like.

I've got variety of skills, from manual ones, technical to management.

I like fixing electronics a lot, not an expert in everything hence I undertake only the ones I'm confident with, but sometimes I do take on new challenges.
See attached few photos of what I did this weekend for example.
I go through few smartphones almost each week which all come from friends and family. That's purely because I love doing this, fixing stuff, making it look better, full refurbs. Plus I save plenty of £££ to the owners at the same time and I just can't sit still and do nothing or just watch TV, I was even washing my car few days ago at 9pm, pitch black, only because I couldn't just sit and watch TV.
But don't take me wrong, i do like to have a lazy moment from time to time
Anything from water damaged phones to phones run over by a car.
From time to time I will repair some TomToms, rebuild a laptop or a PC, full software install as well, do a reflow on a motherboard's graphic chip, tablets, anything just to keep me busy.

I do like spending a lot of time around the car, mainly cleaning it, but also making it looks better or fit new stuff, not much of that recently, but I do have few retrofits and new installs lined up which I absolutely enjoy.

Other than that I love a good laugh, not always everyone gets it, but thats a different story. I will always tell you how it is, I wont tell you stuff which I don't believe in only because it sounds better. I'm a straight forward guys. I will help anyone as much as I can, no matter what it is as long you didn't ''upset'' me in the past as I do judge people within few seconds and if you cross the line with me thats it. Some people are not the biggest fans of these sort of way of living, but you know what, it works for me very well, I would rather have a smaller circle of quality mates/friends than a massive bunch of people you can't trust. Plus weirdly I am very good in judging people within seconds, sometimes it takes few months or years for them to show the real side, but they get there eventually.
One thing I definitely don't do, I borrow money to people or from people or banks, I pay only for the stuff which I can afford. I'm not a bank to lend money, unless its a family, as usually money can be the nasty part of a friendship problems and I would rather not experience any of that.

If I do get to watch TV, I like watching clever/fascinating stuff plus I'm a big fan of racing, especially F1. I watch every practice session, interviews, press conferences, pre race build ups, you name it. I don't like superbikes tho.

I like the smell of petrol and anything what runs on it, from cars to petrol blowers

And I'm a proud owner of a fantastic 8, jest, it's only 7.3, but well looked after and superb mechanically, due to replacing stuff before it breaks which is kind of a problem I have, but one day, if I decide to give her away to a good home, which is hard as I'm attached to her even if I could have a better and newer model, she will make someone very happy.
The money I spend on this car a year, overall running cost inc all the extras, in excess of over 10k it's stupid and not worth it for some, but I LIKE IT , and that's what matters to me, doing in life what I like.

The End

Thanks
Marcin

[The_Laird]

Wow, Marcin, I've read shorter books!

Fascinating tale though - must catch you at the bar on the next meet to hear more.

[ScottD3]

Damn Marcin.
Nice little(ish) bio.

You like doing all the bits that I like doing but with a little bit more education than me.

I'd try anything at least once to make sure I can't do it.
If I can't do it then I'm happy to pay someone to do it, otherwise I'll do it my self.

Not found much I can't.
Welding is the one thing at the moment but I only had one chance to try it. I'll try again when I get another chance but that time I might try tig welding over mig.

This weekend I stripped my clone trooper helmet and start fitting LEDs to make it glow.


Needs a few more round the back, little less voltage to dim them down and correct routing of the cables.

The wife has challenged me to make our advent calendars out of wood this year.
Looking forward to that.

Back on subject I guess.

I'm 32, work in IT and I hate it.
The job is boring, no prospects and its pretty much dead but due to my own fears and insecurities I'm unable to venture out of my comfort zone and look for something else, so I'm here till forced out or I nut up and move.

Been in IT since I was 17 on and off.

Pre college I wanted to be a mechanic, I had a passing interest in computers. My parents convinced me to go for a career in IT. This decision was aided by my grandad who bought my first PC. I went to college and did a 2 year course in IT.
From then till now I've tried different jobs but always went back to IT cause I found it easy, slightly interesting and the money was good (back in the day).
Spent my college years fitting kitchens, contracting and working for my friends firm.

After college I spent several years contracting, between contracts I would take pretty much anything that would bring in money to fund my need to ride my motorbike every waking hour (average 30k a year over 3 years).
I've done warehouse work, cashier, making house alarm, epos field engineer, general field engineer, cake maker and dismantling BMWs.

About 6-7 years ago work was drying up at the dismantlers, I was not doing well generally or looking for work. The girlfriend got offered a promotion to assistant manager but it meant we had to Plymouth.

Me out of work, house payments started to mounting up, we decided to move.
Spoke to my friend who I bought the house with and we agreed to sell it soon as possible so we got no ties.
That never happened and all went to pot but that's a different story.

We moved to plymouth. Sarah was assitant manager for a year, her manager moved on and she got promoted to store manager. She was store manager until 3 weeks ago when the company went into administration.
I bounced from a 12 months IT support contract, to a rolling laptop repair contract and finally to my current roll of 2nd line support which I've been in for the last 5 years.

In the time we moved to plymouth we've got married and bought our own house. Which is nice.

Interested to see what the next chapter of our lives have to hold.

[IT]

Originally Posted by M-A8

And I'm a proud owner of a fantastic 8, jest, it's only 7.3,

How big??...

[tintin]

Dyslexia rules K.O…..

[chucklestinlegs]

My working career started around 13yr old when in started working on the local ice cream vans which I was earning £6 per day working between 12 midday usually until 11pm.

Loved the job very much as im defo a people person and enjoy having the craic with different people from all walks of life.

When I left school in 1984 I had a mechanics job lined up but on the spur of the moment I knocked it back and decided I wanted to work with my father in his window cleaning business, stupidly thinking it was easy.

my 1st winter working outside putting my hands in frozen water all day soon took the shine off things but again I was meeting people all day so really enjoyed that side of things.

When I was 18 I was going with a girl who's family had a disco so started working behind the bar to help them out.

I loved working in pubs and ended up in Putney in South London running my own in 1989 and then went on to get a job in the famous Gretna Green hotel as trainee manager.

Didn't last too long in the hotel, think I was more homesick than anything else and decided to come home and started back with my dad cleaning windows.

Over the years iv managed to form good relationships and pick up good work all over central Scotland, We do a good few car showrooms which are pleasing to do because of the ability to get in and get a feel of the latest models.

We now also do local housing association work which is mostly gutter cleaning which is a lot easier than it was years ago running up and down ladders all day, now it a giant type of hoover which we use, which is connected to aluminium poles which can reach up to 40ft from the ground.

Its a great machine and saves so much time and also the boys that work for me are safe on the ground and not up the ladders.

Im usually up at 5am but finish early afternoon, when ill maybe have an hours sleep on the couch with my blankey

I'm now 45 and in a good place with my partner Michelle, who i'v been with for the last 6 year. Got engaged last October but no set plans for a wedding

As Bugs Bunny says, " That's all folks "

[snapdragon]

I work in IT too, at a College mostly networking, infrastructure, some Mac & Windows server and VMware stuff.
I had a lovely job since 1998 at a creative campus running all of the IT of 200 Macs and ~150 PCs with one member of staff. It was all photography, digital imaging, music, video production, press, art & design, architecture etc...
We knew everything like the back of our hand and everything there we setup or procured ourselves over the years.
I had found my niche and was set up for life - then a couple of years ago, the sector went to pot due to various cuts and we merged with several other colleges and now it is terrible and I really hate it and my technican got made redundant and I am all over the place at 14 campuses now.
Just hoping for a pay off really to fund a D4 purchase

[M-A8]

Ian, haven't you heard the latest news?!? 3.7 is the new 7.3
This statement is not doing very well on this forum tho

Scott, I do like this helmet a lot, it looks cool. Is there more plans for it??
And similar like yours, I'm not afraid of new challenges, I rather get quiet excited when I get to do something new.

I do like dismantling stuff especially if I can make it better and then put back together.

After few days of reading all your stories guys I came to a conclusion: We've got here such a great bunch of guys with huge experience in so many sectors that I wont be surprised if WE, the A8 Parts Forum Team, we will make the history in about 10years ---> Yes, we will send the first A8 and S8 on the moon and we will have plenty of fun out there

Below it's what I did last weekend.

[IT]

Respect.... Anything that needs soldering to that level of precision I'd lose patience with by the second leg...

"I'm alright with soldering, providing I can use pvc tape and cloth tape to cover it up and make it look pretty lol"

[moltuae]

Originally Posted by IT

IT - Yes, computing. Started in 1995 at the ripe old age of 17 in a basic helpdesk job and moved onwards and upwards. Took a bit of break in 2007 and started the whole A8parts car dismantling business for something completely different, but other than marketing and procurement, I mainly did the IT side of things.

'95? ... young whippersnapper!

I've been in IT all my life too, though I was 17 in '87. Electronics design and embedded programming are my specialities (something that started as a hobby when I was about 8). I design stuff and invent (and have a few patents to my name), but my daily work is good old IT support; mainly supporting businesses, but with the occasional residential customer.


Oh, and yes .... My S8 is my IT support vehicle







EDIT: I always assumed you ran/owned a8parts/Prestige; is that not the case?