General Chat

My love of architecture comes from my Dad, but the best thing he ever gave me was my love of dogs. My Dad had an ugly brute an English bulldog and I have always said if you could love a dog that ugly you love dogs. Nebby used to live with my gran after Dad got married as he was old and grumpy aswell as ugly :-D. But as a nipper I loved him.

My dad’s first job was with the Bank of England as a statistician but they wanted to know what people had done apart from the degree. What set them apart from the other applicants and my dad told them about the letter he had written and the fact that he had spearheaded the campaign to get Arthur Montford elected rector of Glasgow university.

I can't say that I got any of my jobs as a direct result of someone championing me.

My first full time job was teaching and I got it because I had the qualifications, wanted a job and was available to start at the beginning of the January term ...... not many teachers are looking for a position then!

Almost 3 years later and in a different country, I got a job in research because one of my future employer's idols was the professor of the department where I did my Honours degree, though he was NOT one of my referees nor was he asked to write a reference ......... just the mere mention of his name was enough.

The thinking was rather strange ............. employer thought my professor was absolutely brilliant, ergo anyone who had studied with him must be brilliant.

He was a brilliant guy, but that didn't mean his students were also brilliant!!!!

About 18 months later, I got my second job in research because my future employer joined the university just 2 months after we had arrived there, got friendly with my husband and at lunch one day asked OH how he had found his Research Assistant because he'd had no responses. OH asked him what he was looking for, and the story I got was that OH's mouth dropped further and further open as the guy reeled off every single thing that I was qualified to do.

OH just told him that he might want to talk to me, and gave him our phone number.

The clincher was that at at my interview, it turned out that one of his idols was the Senior Lecturer in the department where I'd got my degree. The difference was that he didn't think that made ME brilliant, but that I'd would have received good basic training in the subject.

I stayed working there for just over 30 years, although I gradually moved out of doing research to writing and editing.

My gran married a bloke just to give my dad a father's name on his birth certificate - so he could join the Fleet Air Arm as an officer.
The adoption certificate has gran living in Cornwall and her husband living in Devon - and dad joined the Service as a rating - out of principle!!!
Dad wasn't going to have his 'success' determined by someone with politically opposite views to him!
Similar thing happened to me when I started work in Portsmouth Dockyard.
Dad's stepfather (a Lt. Commander in the Navy) had an unusual name - which I inherited - and this was noted by the Dockyard, who asked if I was related to this bastion of incredibleness (with totally politically opposite views to me) I had never met him - he died before I was born - but they never asked if I actually 'knew' him.

What they did ask me was: 'Are you a member of the Communist Party'?
'No' I replied, 'I'm a member of the Workers Revolutionary Party'
...so I was employed in the Secretariat, dealing with secret messages, in a small office with 5 really boring people...
I soon asked to move to the vacant receptionist job, dealing with 'Dockies' - much more fun!

The irony is, that my ex got a job as a blue collar worker at the dockyard at the same time as me.
His father (rather than an adoptive grandfather I had never known) was a Lt Commander too - and more incredible than my adoptive step grandfather, but their name wasn't unusual, so no-one 'clocked' the link.
Ex got a job as a general labourer.

The making of my dad were three little words. For whilst he got a third at university because he didn’t try when asked what else he had done. My dad spearheaded the campaign to get Arthur Montford elected as rector of Glasgow university and credits this with his future business success. What do others credit their success to in business or just in life?