Graeme Spice's personal Blog

My working life - The early years

I decided to leave school at 16, I got good grades but I was bored with formal classroom education and I managed to secure an apprenticeship at Fergusons, a manufacturer of Television and Video equipment. The factory site was in Enfield a bus ride from my home in Turnford, Herts. The first year there we worked in the training department learning basic toolshop skills such as welding, Lathe work, milling and Electronics. Apprentice salaries were not good (I earned £3415 a year!) but it still left me £60 a week for social funds. We also spend a day a week at College class room lessons, but learning practical stuff relevant for the workplace. I enjoyed it, but I was pretty crap at the mechanical stuff, liking and being better at the Electrical and Electronics I got an ONC in Mechanical enigneering and moved onto an ONC in electrical and electronics.

I met some really great people some of which I stay in touch with today including Ed Thompson who I had the privelige to work with recently in Project Management roles at Virign Media and Barry Roberts who I still keep in my network to name but two.

We not only worked together we partied together and our social group consisted mostly of people we knew from school or work. Underage drinking in Enfield Town folowed by a takeaway chinese on the bus home to Turnford.

Two years into my apprenticeship the companies fortunes took a turn for the worst. The factory was on a 3 day week to save money and we were at college 1.5 days a week meaning as a teenager it was kind of odd. We saw the writing on the wall and Ed had been applying for other jobs and recommended I apply to BT, where he also had an interview.

We both got offered jobs and I took my role in the International Fault Reporting Centre in Mondial House in the City of London on Upper Thames St. A cool location right on the Thames next to Cannon St Station. Ed took a different more local role but I've never forgotten Ed's suggestion back then built my career in Telecoms and IT, and while I've never told him it was instrumental in my life. A chance suggestion shaped the last 20 years of my working life.

Those early years were fun and exciting - as 16 year olds in an adult environment (we did placements in all the different departments around the factory) we had to grow up quickly and will never forget meeting some of my old school friends in a pub who had stayed in education and even at 18 thinking how immature they were compared to us. I sometimes regret not having pursued further education, so far it has never been a glass ceiling to my career progression so the experience I got in those early teen years I value more than any paper qualification.

My memories of my time at BT to follow!