|
My Early Career
My first foray into the world of work was retail, a Saturday job that turned into a summer job... and one that I stayed in for six months - because I liked earning money and decided that I'd prefer to get my A Levels at evening class than at sixth form.
I worked in a chemist, where I developed my customer service skills along with an inquisitive nature - on more than one occasion I recoiled from giving a customer their prescription after I'd looked up the medicine they'd been prescribed in the big reference book that lived in the pharmacy.
After six months I moved on to what must have been the most boring job I have ever done. I started at what was then Guardian Royal Exchange Insurance in 1988, working in their fleet insurance department, then moving to the personal motor department where I spent most of the day issuing green cards, amending car and address details, and filing things in the wrong place.
I was bored rigid, and the job prospects weren't that impressive. I had been studying A Level sociology in my spare time at Suffolk College but being fresh out of school and only 17, it didn't really go according to plan and I didn't keep up the studies.
I was also part of a voluntary project in my spare time, called 'Need to Read'
which involved me teaching young adults to read and write. I was paired up with another 17 year old - a boy I knew from school who was really keen to improve his literacy in order to get promotion at work. We worked well together and he did actually achieve a promotion during that time.
In early 1989 I applied for a job in the civil service, which at the time was considered a good employer, and was taken on as an administrative assistant in Ipswich County Court. |
