#A-ZChallenge E for Employment

The Blogging from A to Z April Challenge is an annual challenge put out to bloggers to publish a post from A-Z every day in April, except for Sundays. April 1 is A, and so on throughout the month. The theme I have chosen for 2018 is The Story Of Me

I started working in a milk bar, after school, at age 15. I really enjoyed the independance that earning my own money gave me.  Even though it wasn’t much, it was enough to be able to buy myself a few extras that I couldn’t expect my parents to pay for.

The milk bar work was after school and on weekends, so in the school holidays I would always take on another job. Quite often, I’d be racing from one job to the other.  Dad would pick me up after the all day job, and take me to the milk bar, where I’d work until closing. Thinking back, finding these jobs was never at all difficult. It definitely was a different time back then.

On leaving school, I went to work in the office at Ibis Milk Products, the local dairy, and one of the biggest employers in Shepparton. It was a large office for a rural city, and I learnt much about farming, and the challenges it presents.

After my marriage, and very shortly after the birth of my second child, we established our automotive business, specialising in automatic transmissions, which were very new technology at the time.

When I think back, this was a crazy time with a new business, a toddler and a new baby. I handled all the admin duties and most days would be in the office trying to work while keeping the toddler amused and hoping the baby would sleep for a couple of hours until I had finished. Often at night, I would head off to the local TAFE college to learn about the new technology of computers that was about to hit. We were the first automotive business in Shepparton, to computerise our accounts system.  I remember the comments we received. Most people seemed to think we were crazy to get involved with computers. There was a lot of suspicion about whether a computer could be trusted to remember data about debtors.

This is the way my life seemed to roll along for a few years, especially after the third child came along. It was a very busy time and I’m really not sure how we survived it. Over the years, the business grew and became very successful. We were constantly expanding and employing more staff to keep up with the extra business that was coming our way.

In the 80s, we decided to employ admin staff, so that I could have a life away from the workshop. I did continue to work there, but my hours were much reduced. At the time, I was heavily involved with the local gym, so I studied and became a qualified gym and fitness instructor. Very quickly the gym offered me a position leading fitness classes and also working on the gym floor. I was also teaching water arobics and going out to football clubs for private fitness classes. Eventually, I became manager of the gym, a position that I held for about 6 years.

At the time, our business was growing very quickly and it became obvious that I would need to go back to being hands on every day, which I continued to do until we sold the business to my son, in 2001.

After moving to Bendigo, I eventually went back to working in automotive for a few years until I decided to buy a local cafe that was for sale. This was a huge learning curve for me. But I absolutely loved it. I loved the long hours, and the hard work. I loved all the people I was meeting. After two years, I sold the cafe, as it was time to move on again.

I thought that would be the end of being employed, and spent a short period of time in retirement. I was then very surprised to be offered a position at a local supermarket. So for the past 8 months I’ve been a check out chick! I know it sounds silly, but this job is a perfect transition to retirement. My employment is casual and there is a huge variation in the hours. While in retirement,I was offered a job as a Nanny to two adorable children, and this continues today for just a few hours a week.

Between these two jobs, some weeks I might work 15 hours and others I might work 30 hours and more. This gives me the opportunity to enjoy life away from work when the hours are light on or really throw myself into it on the busy weeks.

Please visit again to see my story unfold. 

Jennifer