Story of my Career…so far!

The Story of my Career

…so far!

Four days before my 13th Birthday I began working part-time in a local café – The Penny Farthing. I actually worked on and off there for 11 years. I worked there before and after school and at weekends. By the time I was 14 I was the Saturday cook in the kitchen. Can you imagine a 14 year old running a kitchen in a café these days?

I learned a huge amount about time management, juggling conflicting priorities, finance, health and safety and so many more valuable life skills from this early age. Even now when I have a lot on I remind myself of how we coped with 12 full tables of people serving food and drinks at the same time.

Not only this though but two of my very best friends now are people I worked with then in that café all those years ago. When I took a gap year between school and university I worked here, when I was at university I came home at weekends to work here and when I was lost and confused after university I worked here. It was very much the centre of my stability for many years – so I never underestimate what having a safe, secure, friendly and healthy workplace can do for somebody.

However, never one to shirk a challenge I soon realized that in order to meet my goals in life I would have to work harder and make more money. During a gap year between school and university I worked seven days a week between the café and the supermarket next door, never having a holiday. I would babysit most weekends to earn extra money and once a month I would work a Saturday evening in the supermarket doing stock checks. It wasn’t much of a life for an 18 year old and when I look back this is the primary reason why I did decide to go to university at 19. It was a way of finding my path in life, a way out of the lifestyle I had but I didn’t go into it knowing what exactly I was going to do with my life.

Whilst at university I worked part-time in both the café and at a well-known card shop where I looked after the candle section. It was a city centre store and I was the store supervisor which was quite a responsibility at the time for a girl from a small village. Closing the store of an evening in the dark of the night in town centre was something I’ll never forget.

I also had to go abroad to work & study whilst at university as part of my course and this is when I started teaching English as a Foreign language. It wasn’t something I had planned on – in fact, I had spent many years adamantly denying that I would become a teacher! I hated the thought that the only position available to language students could be as a teacher and I wanted to do something altogether more exotic I think. The strangest thing happened however, and I started teaching here in the South of France 20 years ago and found that I actually really loved it. That was quite unexpected but was to become the real starting point of my career.  I definitely have a more open minded view of different jobs as a result of trying something I hadn’t expected to enjoy at all. It pays to drop your guard and be open to trying everything.

After university I really struggled and it’s something I think about often, one of the primary reasons for me starting C&E HR Consultancy in fact. I even wrote a little about this in my website About section… however after 5 years at university, two long periods of time in France working and studying and generally really enjoying my studies I found myself back in our small village in Scotland with absolutely no career path, no idea how or where to look for work and especially not with a degree in French! Career advice was non-existent at the time and I felt lost for a long time. I got myself a job as an Events Coordinator in a local hotel organizing conferences, group tours and weddings which was a really interesting job and to supplement my income I also worked part-time in the reservations department. I knew I didn’t really want a long term career in Hospitality but didn’t have any idea what I did want.

After a year of soul searching and trying to determine who I actually was I decided to become a TEFL teacher and not a high school teacher as most people would have suggested at the time. Being a TEFL teacher was the more exotic option for me and I could see it opening doors to the world. Something I learned promptly in life was that travelling was my ‘raison d’etre’.

So I went to Prague and did my certificate course returning to start my own business that same year. As well as my English teaching and translations services I also started my own franchise Language School called La Jolie Ronde in my local area teaching up to ten French classes a week to 3-12 years olds. I ran my language school for 3 years and learned all about Budgeting, Business Banking, Marketing and dealing with customers in this realm. It didn’t earn me a lot of money, and in actual fact I had to take in several other jobs at the same time to make ends meet but I will always clearly state that it was a necessary learning experience for me. I couldn’t see my own future, I couldn’t see an opportunity for me to use my qualifications and experience where I was…so I went out and made one!

I was working in hotel reservations in the mornings, teaching French and English every afternoon and thankfully, and very much out of the blue, I eventually started teaching night classes at the local college. This involved teaching English as well as English for the Hospitality industry which meant I spent a lot of time with students at two of Scotland’s foremost leisure hotels.

I had taken on a lot though and didn’t have any free time to myself, very little money to make ends meet and still no real career path in sight. One evening whilst sitting outside one of these 5* hotels, in the snow, eating a cheese sandwich before rushing to my next job…tears streaming down my face…I made a decision.

I quit my job in the hotel and decided I was going to reconsolidate. It wasn’t easy but I took on more teaching hours at the college and this was my absolute love. This led me to spend the summer in Barcelona undertaking my teaching Diploma giving me much greater credence in the world of language teaching therefore leading to more teaching hours.

Saying goodbye to one of my batches of students…

I enjoyed every second of teaching at the college. Until the financial crisis hit and it became clear, once again, that my future wasn’t safe. I was still teaching night classes as well as day classes, still using my weekends to prep classes and do 1-2-1 teaching and I still couldn’t really save anything. Something had to change after 5 years there.

Thankfully, by this point in time I actually knew what I was doing and what I was good at. My past experience had taught me what I could do and what I really didn’t want to spend the rest of my life doing. I was fortunate in this respect. I was still young enough to be able to make choices without huge repercussions on those around me. Would this have been the case if I hadn’t worked at all until after university? Definitely not…I would have been in a real pickle! Starting work so young gave me a massive head start in this.

I ended up, moving to Dubai where I spent nearly 9 years working for a big company there. My career path was accelerated at 10X the rate it might have been in the UK and I’ll be forever grateful for that. As a result of the work I was doing I decided to get my MBA and specialize further. People work hard there and it was the most satisfying time in my career without a doubt – working 80 hours a week in a highly pressurized environment really helps you to gain invaluable skills and experience. This is the reason why I am now what I consider myself to be…a Learning & Organisational Development professional.

There isn’t a single part of my working life that hasn’t contributed to what I do now. There isn’t a moment that goes by that I don’t draw on my past experiences. Even if you’re not doing something now that you had envisaged, or that really lights your fire – know that you are gaining experience and skills that can be used in your future careers and that nothing you are doing is a waste of time. I advise people to work, get a job, get your foot in a door because you never know where that door is going to lead. Try not to jump around too much though. Even if I wasn’t 100% happy where I was, I stayed and learned and got as much valuable experience as I could – I am a believer in consistency and playing the long game.

Gain skills, gain experience, meet people, network, understand yourself better…it will lead to something more if you want it to. Then one day you’ll be telling your story in the hope that it helps somebody else out there just as I am doing today.

If you would like to chat about my career path or get some ideas about what you can do in yours please feel free to get in touch for a free 30 minute discovery session with me here: https://calendly.com/candehrconsultancy/discovery-call

Gillian Cramb