Share Our Lives - Jobs that I have had.

Last year I started joining in with a lovely bunch of ladies with the Not Just A Mom linky, each month following a prompt and I really enjoyed it. Finding new blogs to read and writing about things which I wouldn't normally. This year the Not Just A Mom ladies are rebranding and it's now called Share Our Lives. There are new topics to blog about each month and I am very excited.

This months Share Our Lives prompt is: Introductions and Jobs you've had.

Hello there I'm Kim and you can read all about me on my About Me page and for once it's pretty up to date. hehehe I live in England which makes this linky so interesting as the majority of the bloggers are from America and Canada.

That's the introductions over with and I can get on about writing about the jobs that I have had which are very varied. 

My first ever job was a Saturday job at some riding stables near where we lived when I was 12 or 13 years old. In exchange for mucking out horses and grooming them I would get riding lessons. The stupid thing was I had my own horses at home and knew how to ride them but the grass is always greener and someone else's horses were always better. I learned a lot from that job. I certainly learned how to deal with difficult horses and ponies. 

When I was 15 I worked in a launderette folding clothes and I only wanted that job because I had a crush on the owners son. lol When I turned 16 I got an extra job, working in a Bookmakers/Betting shop. I was the cleaner. I would go in every evening after it had closed and tidy up and clean. The funny thing was that I was underage so when it was pay day I had to stand outside and get the attention of a member of staff to get my wages as I wasn't legally allowed in because of my age. It was a great little job and I loved my manager and one year ended up with a £50 Christmas bonus as one evening they had started cashing up and hadn't finished. There were bags of coins near the till, I phoned the manager and asked if I should put them somewhere safe. He could have lost his job if I hadn't have rang and said the money was left out.

When I was 18 I started working in McDonalds and the money was fantastic but I am sure they broke some laws about the hours that they had people working. There were many times where I was on the late shift finishing at midnight, not getting home until coming on for 1am and then starting work again at 6am. I didn't question it at the time. There was no set work either, one day I could be cleaning, the next in the kitchen and the next on the tills serving people. It was great for experience but there was little training. I was shown how to make a Big Mac once and just muddled through. Thankfully there were no complaints and the biggest bonus was that I would get a free meal each day that I worked. I stayed there for a couple of years.

I saw a job in a factory closer to where I lived and I had an interview and started the next day. It was making Black and Decker power tools. I absolutely loved that job. One week I worked 7am until 3pm, the next 3pm until 11pm and the next night shift 11pm until 7am. I made some fantastic friends and had such a laugh. Some shifts it didn't even feel like work. We had a target to work to and if we hit it we could just go for a coffee until the shift ended. I think if you asked me to put a Black and Decker Jigsaw together now I still could. hehehe I knew all the jobs on the assembly line.

The only reason I left Black & Decker is because I had my appendix out and it took me a while to recover after having a bad reaction to the anaesthetic. There was no such thing as sick pay as I was classed as a temporary worker despite working there for over a year. I soon got another job, a cleaner in a care home. I didn't last long as the manager seemed to take a dislike to me. I was expected to clean the whole top floor of the home in the same time as 2 other members of staff did downstairs with less private bedrooms to clean, less bathrooms and less used spaces, it was impossible. One day I was taken into the office by the manager and was given a talking to, she spoke to me like I was a child and said I had to work to the end of the week then I was sacked. I said screw that, I'm out of here now, you know where the mop is, do the job yourself. A month after I left the manager was sacked for many different reasons but one of them was being awful to her staff.

I wish I knew back then what I know now about the legalities when it comes to jobs and working. Unfair dismissal, working hours, reporting people who don't do their jobs properly and what training I should have had. Were there even the same laws back then in the late 90's/early 2000's?

Over the last 20 years I have been lucky to be in a position where I haven't had to work. Some people will say I am lazy and work shy but I had my girls, then they were diagnosed with their heart defects and Ellie had a lot of other problems. There were hospital appointments sometimes we were there twice a week and there were times when I was up and down to the school at least 3 times a week. I shouldn't have to explain myself but I feel like I do. I have really enjoyed being a stay at home mum to my girls and feel so lucky that I could be at home but they are 21 and 16 now and this part of my life is coming to an end. I have been looking for work and applying for jobs over the last year and as much as I love living where I do it is no good for finding work as the buses are not great and no one wants someone who's been out of work for the last almost 20 years. I have had a couple of interviews but nothing has came of them. I will still keep looking.

I am linking up with:

 Adrienne from Mom Life with Adrienne.

Dara from Not In Jersey.

Jen from Show me & Sweet tea.

Joanne from Slices of Life.

Sarah from Toronto Sam.