Commercial experience Up until about month ago, I had spent the last 6 months worrying about what resettlement course I should do (
Read my last BLOG on Course finding).
I spoke too a number of companies about what qualifications I would need to gain to make myself attractive to them. With most it wasn’t about my quals, their main concern was the experience that I had to offer.
This just added to the worry, not only did I have to find a course to do, I now had to contend with the fact that I don’t have any commercial experience.
I spoke to a consultant from Gemini about 6 weeks ago, about my quals, experience and how to take my transition forward. We formulated a plan and decided the best way forward, would be to secure a work placement.
I started a work placement 4 weeks ago just after I started writing these BLOGs, the work placement lasted 4 weeks and it was to shadow a team leader of a 4-man team working on mobile masts.
Cultural differences on the first morning · Time keeping
· No planner for the day/week
· We had to refuel van before we could start our first job
· Van not clean in/out
· Company tops not ironed one not even cleaned
· Equipment not looked after properly
Cultural differences on the first day · No urgency to get the job done
· Do the minimum in the longest time possible (to get overtime)
· Lack of communication before/during/after job and day
· No one knew what the next job was, so if the team leader had to leave we would of returned to the office.
Cultural differences on the second day
Had to go see the manager (ex-military). I thought it might be to talk about how the first day went.
In fact it was a complaint about a comment I made to one of the team.
It was raining and he wanted to sit in the van until the rain passed over. I made a joke about him being such a girl etc. He laughed, I laughed and the team laughed, happy days they do have a sense of humour I thought.
If the manager had not been ex-military I would have been kicked off my work placement. I had to write an apology to the team and team member and move to another team.
The Civilian experience I was lucky to work with in a team and at the lower management level, just learning about the Cultural differences would have made the work placement worthwhile. I think the positives make the cultural differences seem very insignificant.
A commercial company is driven by its budget and the profit as are the people they employ and like the forces it relies on its reputation.
What is important, you need to accept these differences at the same time never lose your standards. It is what makes you stand out and gets you a job offer a promotion even a bonus.
I can start in 3 months I take a10% lower wage, however I have been told that I will be earning 30-40% more by the end of the first year should I perform like I did on the work placement.