AMD Damo wrote:Well my life "starts" at the end of this year when I graduate from high school, but I've been half-arsing my way through high school and most likely won't go to University to do IT like I had planned a few years ago. I've had a job since 2006 doing the continuous replay for the Flemington Race Course. Might be trying to chase up a career in Auto after I finish school, who knows. I'm just floating along at the moment.
Well, its been three years since I graduated from high school, I gave up on the idea of getting a job in the IT industry after looking at the way the industry is here in Australia, it seems every man and his dog has a bachelor degree in some form of IT, so employers have a massive pool of people needing jobs to choose from, which means if you ain't the best of the best, no chance of getting a job. So I bludged my way through the final year and got a crappy ENTER score. I managed to get into Cert IV in Networking at a TAFE institute but I declined.
So I started looking at getting an apprenticeship, I applied over
http://www.seek.com.au and went to business handing out my resume everywhere, my first interview I scored was at a Diesel workshop in a Melbourne suburb called Thomastown, I went for the interview and basically the business owner, some old guy in his 60s asked me if I had any previous experience on the tools, I said no, then he just moaned about angry customers and that i'll end up with dermotitis and to call him back when I got my drivers license (I never called back).
I had no luck applying online and no one had contacted me back with my resumes, so I applied to do a pre-apprenticeship course in light vehicles (motor mechanic), basically it lets you complete the first year of an apprenticeship so you already know all the basics. I sat this test with a few other kids, which was a few basic maths questions and I passed very easily, they said they would contact me in about a month if I got in or not.
A few days later I went to "Autocentro" at Essendon Fields, which is a recent development of multiple car dealerships all in one main street, there was about 8 different dealerships there at the time, right away I went into Ford hoping I could get my apprenticeship there, I spoke to the service manager and they said they had no jobs going and would contact me in the future, never happened to this day, eventually I worked my way around to Toyota, where the service manager gave me the details of someone high up in the VACC (Victorian Automobile Chamber of Commerce.) which is a big automotive group involved in the industry, I thanked him and went on to the last two dealerships, Mazda and Honda, handed in my resumes and they all gave the same story about no jobs, we'll contact you when they come up.
I called up the guy at the VACC and he wanted to see me for an interview and to submit my resume on their site, I agreed and he set a date, I had to go to their office in St Kilda right in Melbourne, pain in the ass but I said i'd come. I got called up by the TAFE a day before the interview and said I passed and I got into the pre-apprenticeship and that they wanted to enrol me on the same date as the interview with the guy at the VACC. I said could we do it some time else but no the enrolement date was then, if i didn't go I didn't get into the course. I immediately rang up the VACC and spoke to the guy again, and he cracked it bad and basically bullied me into coming into the interview and to forget the course because it won't get me a job anyway.
I hadn't yet submitted my resume through their site so I tried to do that, but that part of their website was down with some sort of error, and I couldn't submit it, and it really annoyed me, especially after dealing wih the other guy. I rang him up again and he said just bring it in the interview.
The day of the interview I was still fairly annoyed, and after waiting around eventually he came and got me to talk to me, the first thing he said to me was "So, what do you know about our organisation, the VACC?" and I replied with:
"WELL I KNOW THAT YOUR F-ING WEBSITE DOESN'T WORK!"Bad move, it turned into a yelling match, and he said they'd contact me back in a few weeks to tell me if they'd give me an apprenticeship (lol yeah right).
The day after, Honda contacted me and they said they wanted to interview me for an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic, awesome. We organised a time and a date.
When the interview came, I made sure I dressed up in smart casual clothes, no jeans, styled hair, nice shoes and ironed shirt and dress pants, the interview was just normal questions about why I was interested in the job and since I have a year 12 pass why didn't I go to University (apprenticeships are usually taken up by high-school dropouts) and I gave my reasoning, they said they'd call me back when they interviewed the others.
A week later they called me back and they said they wanted me to come in for another interview, where they told me that I got the job, because I dressed a lot nicer and looked neater than the others and the others where overqualified for the job, they had a diploma in something else.
That was my worst mistake, taking up that job offer, the first two weeks where great, then another mechanic came back from holidays who started starting arguments and fights with me, at first I thought he was joking, so I started giving it back to him jokingly and he told the service manager about it, and I got in trouble. Then he'd always see what I'm up to and try start arguments with me around the workshop, trying to promot a reaction from me so he could go tell the service manager who would side with him because he had been with the company for over 10 years. It got to a stage where we both nearly punched the crap out of each other and after 6 months of copping **** from him I decided that it was enough and I'm looking for another job, I told a few friends and one had a brother in a high up position and they where looking for apprentices, as auto electricians though, which I wasn't too keen on but looking at the situation I was in, I took the job.
Nearly 2 years later, I haven't learnt anything about auto electrics and I basically get used for cheap labour to wash cars, unload 40 foot containers, and organise everything, because I'm an apprentice, they can pay me below minumum wage (which is about $15 an hour here in Australia) as of the last 2 weeks they put me in managing the store because our storeman left. I'm oging to finish my apprenticeship as I've only got 2 years to go, get my qualifications as an auto electrician (who funnily enough knows nothing about auto electrical) and then leave, I want to do continue and finish off my other apprenticeship as a light vehicle motor mechanic, or move on and try get into the mines as a driver/logistics type position while the resources boom is still happening and they're offering stupidly high wages for all positions ($115K plus 15% super for a freakin
truck driver).
So basically, the last 3 years I've spent going around in circles, people at work say I'm too smart to be here stuck in this crappy industry, and they know I have a good IT background through school and a highschool pass but I have no motivation or interest in IT anymore really, I just build the ocasional computer thats it, I can't bring myself to study my ass off like I used to during high school up until the last year.