robin1234

Ach I'm retiring in two months time so don't give a monkeys for A levels, degrees, qualifications, CVs, résumés, making nice with bosses, or any of that shite.

SultanOfSwing

Do you plan to go out with a bang on your last day?

Pulaski

No kidding, I now do a job that did not even exist when I got my degree, and got into the field based on experience I got from an assignment I was given by a previous employer. It was an interesting assignment, but not one I asked for, sought out, or even knew was possible, but it was interesting and eventually very useful, changing my career for ever.

SultanOfSwing

Yours sounds a bit more exciting than bookkeeping . I did change my career path though, from civil service to private sector/accounting. Never thought that's where I'd be when I was 18. Good thing is, I'm also learning about the landscaping business as well, as that's the company I work for, so I could, theoretically, venture into project management down the line.

The more shows like The Universe I watch on the science channel, the more I realise that I probably wasn't cut out for long-term academia anyway. I'd have quite liked to have been a physics teacher, though.

Sally Redux

Pulaski

That is one thing I have said since I was a small child - I don't want to be a teacher!

SultanOfSwing

There are good reasons not to be, certainly. Although, teaching the A-level students who are in your class because they want to be would be worth it.

Pulaski

My experience in the physics lab was later another reason to not want to be a teacher - several of us, who did want to be there, used to bait* one of our physics teachers because we realised he didn't seem to fully understand the subject he was teaching, and that was just at O level!

* Meaning, we keep asking technical questions until he said "Well, you don't need to know about that."

SultanOfSwing

Ah, well that's not good when the teacher is out of his depth like that.

Pulaski

Luckily he wasn't teaching A level physics when I took it.

Sally Redux

It can be hard to get science teachers and they make non-specialists double up. I think in recent years they've been offering incentives to get teachers in shortage subjects.

Teaching can be great when the kids are into it and hell when they're not. It's got so much more bureaucratic now as well. I don't envy them.

Englishtart

Good for you Robin!! Got any plans?

robin1234

That's a funny emoticon. Since a party is mentioned, I naturally assumed the little homunculus was projectile vomiting now I realise it is a noisemaker!

robin1234

Yes.

1. Four week holiday in England in the spring
2. Back to the homestead for leisurely gardening season
3. Another lengthy UK vacation in the fall
4. Rinse and repeat

robin1234

I have a good friend in her mid-forties who is a museum curator and has been struggling job-wise for years; just got a job as a middle school science teacher and she absolutely loves it.