M
Mad Hatter
After two months of being glued to this forum I've finally registered, Christ it's addictive!
Here's my background, it's a bit mad how it's turned out:
After leaving school despite always wanting to get a trade behind me, I took the first job that came up as you do wanting to get a few beer tokens in your pocket for the weekend. I ended up working for a sister company of Homelux designing the colours and extruding tiletrim for them in a Lab based job. I then moved onto a big FTSE 100 listed company and and after years of living the easy life(my mates call it Butlins) the chance of voluntary redundancy has come up and I considered taking it and giving myself a new challenge as I felt that I've gone as far as I can in that role, feeling stale and ready for a change. I enrolled on a tiling course before committing myself at work, I attended the course and really enjoyed it and saw tiling as something that I would enjoy doing as a job and I fancied the challenges that it would bring, I went back and asked for redundancy as if I don't make the change now I never will and this opportunity might never come up again.
The weeks have moved on and as of July 1st I'm on my own looking for work, I've got my business cards on order, compiled my list of tools I need and there is a good chance that I've got some sub-contracting work in the pipeline plus a family member who works in the building trade might have some work for me. It's time to start advertising to try and get some work off my own back! It's daunting thinking about going it alone and I'm going to get on a plastering course to try and fill the gaps during the quiet times when work is slow. I've got a mate who's an accountant so I need to sit down with him and discuss the accounts/tax side of things plus I need to contact lads I know who are self-employed to see how things should be done.
Despite attending my course I think I've learnt just as much from reading this forum and I think it's a valuable tool for anybody in the trade and it's certainly swayed my decision to have a complete career change knowing that experienced tradesmen are willing to offer advice with any problems you have. The flooring section of my course didn't get as much coverage as it deserved on my course and this forum has been a massive help to broadening my knowledge of that...thanks!
Lastly, if there are any experienced tilers in the Stockport area that need some help and could pass some useful experience onto me I'd be grateful to hear from you.
Here's my background, it's a bit mad how it's turned out:
After leaving school despite always wanting to get a trade behind me, I took the first job that came up as you do wanting to get a few beer tokens in your pocket for the weekend. I ended up working for a sister company of Homelux designing the colours and extruding tiletrim for them in a Lab based job. I then moved onto a big FTSE 100 listed company and and after years of living the easy life(my mates call it Butlins) the chance of voluntary redundancy has come up and I considered taking it and giving myself a new challenge as I felt that I've gone as far as I can in that role, feeling stale and ready for a change. I enrolled on a tiling course before committing myself at work, I attended the course and really enjoyed it and saw tiling as something that I would enjoy doing as a job and I fancied the challenges that it would bring, I went back and asked for redundancy as if I don't make the change now I never will and this opportunity might never come up again.
The weeks have moved on and as of July 1st I'm on my own looking for work, I've got my business cards on order, compiled my list of tools I need and there is a good chance that I've got some sub-contracting work in the pipeline plus a family member who works in the building trade might have some work for me. It's time to start advertising to try and get some work off my own back! It's daunting thinking about going it alone and I'm going to get on a plastering course to try and fill the gaps during the quiet times when work is slow. I've got a mate who's an accountant so I need to sit down with him and discuss the accounts/tax side of things plus I need to contact lads I know who are self-employed to see how things should be done.
Despite attending my course I think I've learnt just as much from reading this forum and I think it's a valuable tool for anybody in the trade and it's certainly swayed my decision to have a complete career change knowing that experienced tradesmen are willing to offer advice with any problems you have. The flooring section of my course didn't get as much coverage as it deserved on my course and this forum has been a massive help to broadening my knowledge of that...thanks!
Lastly, if there are any experienced tilers in the Stockport area that need some help and could pass some useful experience onto me I'd be grateful to hear from you.
