Got a job, now...jobs?

[ionicle]

right, as you may, or may not know, i got my job at mcdonalds

i have some lousy shifts...

tomorow, 10 - 4

wednesday 5:30am - 2pm

thursday same ^

friday 4pm - 3am

saterday 2pm - 7pm

and i get sunday off

and thats money for me, which is good

but i started thinking, thats 170 quid a week, or 340 quid bi-weekly, when its paid, thats 680 a month, or 8160 a year..

ish

thats a hell of a lot of money..

more than i've ever seen

my bank statement usually goes 30 in, 30 in, 30 in, 30 in, 80 in, 160 out..

160 being my phone bill..

30 being my ema, and 80 being my saved up spending money that my gran still gives me (20 quid a week, even tho i'm 18 (i'm spoilt ))

is working at mcdonalds really that bad

i aint been for my first day yet

but still..

maybe i should just pack in college, and work there full time

it would save a lot of time, hastle, effort...etc..

atm i'm between my first and second years on the Btec national ICT practitioners software development course

i wanna work in computer hardware if anything, but that was the only course that even touched on computer hardware..

at uni, it looks like its just software software, and more software

networking is good, but i mean proper hardware, like amd, intel, nvidia, ati, hardware design...

like electronics..

i dont think i have the brain for it

but..

what does anyone think?

mcdonalds, or a proper career?

 

[TopSecret]

I know one thing...........next time I am in Brid, I'm coming for a freebie burger

 

[ionicle]

LOL

cant do that, i'd get fired..

if i so much as nicked a fry i'd get fired...



they're rather tight bout those things lol

where do you live anyway?

 

[TopSecret]

aww, nowt better than a freebie Big Mac, they taste better when they are free

I'm from Donny mate, go to Brid quite a bit.

 

[Kerotan]

Mate use mcdonalds as a stepping stone by all means, but don't let it be your actual career. I think you should stick to your college- it will be useful in the long run.

Sure £8k seems like a lot now, but believe me you would not last a couple of weeks in the real world on that amount of money- try getting your own flat, paying for food, leccy, petrol etc with that money and you would not be able to do it.

If you become an IT support technician etc you can expect very reliable work, as we all know computers always break, and you will have a rewarding job which you will enjoy and find challenging. Stick it out for now and you will look back on mcdonalds as a summer job, not a serious career choice

 

[ionicle]

ahh cool, last time i went to donny i was on the train, heading to sheffield for a day out....last summer methinks lol

and mcdonalds seems good for the moment, but...hmmm......

 

[TopSecret]

Kerotan's right mate. The way to go is education. McDonalds is an OK job if you use it as a stop gap, it's better than doing nothing. The money may seem like a fortune now, but when you start thinking about getting your own pad, it wouldn't leave you with much to spare at the end of every month after the bills were paid.

Apart from lower management, there isn't really much chance of career progression with McD's either. IT is the way to go nowadays, and if you have the chance of gaining some valuable qualifications and skills go for em!!

 

[ionicle]

hmmm...

but i'm not as good at ICT tbh..

i'm okay with the building, overhauling, and rebuilding, and reinstalling and upgrading of physical systems, then basic software stuff...but thats it...

 

[WC Annihilus]

Can always learn, hmm? But what is it that you enjoy? I personally think that for a job it would be better to do something you enjoy rather than make tons of money. A lot of hobbies can be turned into careers

 

[Bungral]

I can vouch for what's been said.

I left school at the start of year 8... About 12 I think that made me. I had a year and a half of doing nothing with no learning what so ever. I then started doing some tuition in Maths and English and only took 1 GCSE and at roughly the same time I did the ECDL course at about 15 - 16. I knew barely anything about computers at that point. Hardly used them.

Did a couple of Pitman expert courses in Word and Excel and did an NVQ in Admin while earning about £80 a week and then a Modern Apprenticeship in IT while doing Admin work on about 12k a year. Got made redundant from that job at about 19 I think and then 2 weeks later got Mumps and then Glandular Fever so was out of commission for about a year with no job.

Was hard to get a job with a year long gap on the CV at such a young age but got a chance working in HR with Hounslow Council as a temp on about 14k.. I was temping there for about 18 months and finally got offered a contract with the Council, albeit a year long contract as there was a recruitment freeze on. Bang up to 19k and all was good until recently when about 400 people got made redundant including my supervisor. I'm not overworked but earning more on around 23k. In two years gone up 9k but I'm not that happy there as it's such stress now.

Saw an IT Support Officer job advertised on the Council Intranet and decided to apply. I have no experience in IT and it wasn't exactly a junior role. While I hadn't done exactly what they asked for in the job specification, I just applied things I've done in other jobs and in my spare time that show I can do those things. 153 people applied and some a hell of a lot more qualified than me and to my surprise the offered me an interview a couple of Fridays ago. Went there not expecting too much so was nice and relaxed. I felt the interview went well but again wasn't expecting to get the job over so many people. On the very next Monday morning, I received a call at work offering me the job. This was only about 2 weeks ago now.

Sorry to go on but I just wanted to say that while it can seem impossible or you may feel you couldn't get a certain job, it's always worth putting in the time and effort on a good application and just trying your luck.

I was running out of time to get into IT as I wouldn't have gone to College to get the qualifications and IT Junior roles pay very little. Saw the right opportunity and went for it. I mean I left schooling with 1 GCSE...

If you show your enthusiastic and capable and come across well then even if you haven't got the experience, you'll still be in with a shot.

/life story...

 

[Kerotan]

That's inspiring stuff Bungral, cheers for taking the time to post that... get my A-level results next Thursday so it's great to hear that you've made an amazing turn around in your life from that 1 GCSE

 

[ionicle]

hmm...

problem is i dont know what to do tho

i tried to vary my subjects i took at school as to not cut down my options asmuch as if i focused on one specific thing

like in GCSE level, i did business studies, history, geography, ICT, electronics

aswell as the compulsery english, maths, science, pe, re

then for AS level i took physic's, and history, with General studies and FSMQ, only passing the latter two

i'm now at college

doing this Btec

and i did key skills in level 2 english

got a pass in that

its really annoying on application forms where it asks education and gives a tiny box, then previous employment, and gives a massive one...

cos i have to write really tiny for education, then do a big N/A for previous employment

problem with me is, i dont know what i want to do

i have no career in mind

i wanna try some things

....

 

[ali_james]

I've stuck my self out in the horrible world of work over the summer to try to pay off my student account overdraft. Somewhat unsuccessfully but I think the experience has been worthwhile anyway.

Given that there are few places stupid enough to give me a job for 3 months before I go back, I hit up some agencies to try to get some kind of work. I didn't know what I wanted to do and really this has taught me exactly what I don't want to be doing for the rest of my life. I've had 3 different jobs, all in different bits of manufacturing industry so far. One making the insides of showers. The second making bubble bath. And the third, putting stuff in boxes which has probably been the best of the lot and I should be sticking with 'til I head back.

None of them have been that exciting, all reasonably satisfying though and at about £6 an hour pays well enough on a full time week. However I'd hate to be stuck in any similar job for longer than a few months. So really I guess even an awful job is good experience at the end of the day. I have no idea what i want to do when I graduate, but certainly working in a factory is a no no. Better I find out now than in 3 years anyway. I hope this will help me study harder and be a better student and all that. Which it really should...

Best of luck anyway mate. Keep up the college whatever, its better to have a qualification of some kind rather than reflecting on a year you've ended up wasting. Applying for any jobs, I'd try to make up for a lack of experience by showing a real willingness to learn and show how the skills that you do have can be adapted to meet any challenges that you'll face.

 

[ionicle]

hmm

had my first day

enjoyed it mentally

physically i'm dead from getting up at half 8

and tomorow i start at half 5 :|

physically, i'm drained, exausted

but it was good work tho

 

[-VK-]

Ionicle, do you know I had very similar thoughts to you a few years back.

I was at school doing my A-Levels and was going through some traumatic times (Saw a pedestrian get hit by a motorcycle at 60mph...) couldn't concentrate at school and hated it. I stuck with it and managed to get some pretty reasonable A Levels, nothing to shout about but they're there.

I worked in Domino's Pizza for about a year and a half (So, pretty similar to McDonalds then!) before getting into retail, into a temping job in BT doing data administration, before being offered an opportunity to prove myself by my manager (Work hard, get rewarded with opportunity to work harder).

This involved relocating an entire office of 45 people from London to Bradford, the logistics of moving the PC's, hiring new staff and training them, hiring two managers and training them and ensuring that a pipeline of work was cleared prior to launch day. I worked hard, succeeded and it gave me confidence to try something new.

I got into recruitment, working 12-15 hour days more often than not 7 days a week, getting paid for the standard 40 hours.....recruitment is hard sales, so pretty much the more you put in the more you get out.

Then I did a complete flip about and landed myself my current job working in the IT industry.

It's like those adverts on TV, Impossible is Nothing (Adidas??). I also knew very little about PC's and I still have a lot to learn, but if you're willing to work hard and listen to people you can get where you want to be and I'm sure people here will be happy to help in any way they can with advice.

Cor, my longest post ever. xD

-VK-

 

[ionicle]

hmm, i dunno what i wanna do though

the things that interest me:

cars

pc's

computers

geography

science

space

so...

 

[-VK-]

Hey, who really knows what they want to do? Why not try lots of different things...remember though you have to learn to walk before you can run. Or should I say, you have to do crap jobs to get to the good ones.

Get your education, it's what another couple of years at most? Work McDonalds part time and then see what happens. No reason to rush!

 

[ionicle]

hmmm......

any sugestions?

 

[mrapoc]

Im on that same course as you, some parts were hard but i refused to settle for less than my best

I dno what im going to do later on, and like you i adore the hardware aspect. think of it this way...average it jobs go from say 20,000 to 55,000 £ a year...thats average

you can go up to £80,000 a year if you persevere and the top jobs are over 100,000 a year

if you have ur mind set on hardware, why not a local repair service/store? heck i even kinda started my own due to the lack of shops around here

 

[Dav0s]

I've stuck my self out in the horrible world of work over the summer to try to pay off my student account overdraft. Somewhat unsuccessfully but I think the experience has been worthwhile anyway.

Given that there are few places stupid enough to give me a job for 3 months before I go back, I hit up some agencies to try to get some kind of work. I didn't know what I wanted to do and really this has taught me exactly what I don't want to be doing for the rest of my life. I've had 3 different jobs, all in different bits of manufacturing industry so far. One making the insides of showers. The second making bubble bath. And the third, putting stuff in boxes which has probably been the best of the lot and I should be sticking with 'til I head back.

None of them have been that exciting, all reasonably satisfying though and at about £6 an hour pays well enough on a full time week. However I'd hate to be stuck in any similar job for longer than a few months. So really I guess even an awful job is good experience at the end of the day. I have no idea what i want to do when I graduate, but certainly working in a factory is a no no. Better I find out now than in 3 years anyway. I hope this will help me study harder and be a better student and all that. Which it really should...

Best of luck anyway mate. Keep up the college whatever, its better to have a qualification of some kind rather than reflecting on a year you've ended up wasting. Applying for any jobs, I'd try to make up for a lack of experience by showing a real willingness to learn and show how the skills that you do have can be adapted to meet any challenges that you'll face.

ive been thinking the same, im working at wetherspoons over the summer to make some money for uni, and i just wonder how the hell some of the people do it as their only full time career job. its a great stop gap job for sure, but a career? you have to wonder why some of these people have no ambition.

ionicle, you can go furtehr than maccy d's lol, but make sure you do your education because at some point in your life you will ocne again be between jobs, and any qualifications you have will help you when applying for the new job, even if it isnt IT relatd.