How did you get into HR??

I'm not quite sure how I got into HR!

My first career was in electronics, serving with the Royal Air Force (begun way back in 1963!), but then political changes screwed up the RAF career ladder so I left, intending to set up on my own as a sound-system designer (I play guitar and this seemed to be the best of both interests).

For a time I worked on electronics during the day and played guitar (mainly freelance or sessions) in between or at night, in a variety of styles, from Folk to Rock and Roll. 

The some clown decided that valves (like little electric fires in glass bottles that used to make amplifiers work) were obsolete and everyone would use transistors in future... until even transistors disappeared, first into "integrated circuits", then into "chips"... But by that time I'd decided that: a) Learning a whole new technology was boring, and b)  Sharing an interest with my then-new girlfriend (later my wife for 25 years and still a friend) was much more important than even guitars (a view revised in later life); so I applied for a job as an Ambulanceman. (What today would be called a Paramedic, but we were allowed to use fewer skills in those days).

About twelve years later, having moved on from the NHS to being Operations Director of an international medical rescue service (bringing old men with heart attacks home from far places in the summer and broken-legged skiers from the alps in the winter I realised that most of my time was now being taken up, not by para-medicine (small p) but in people-administration (collating skills, training and rotas of mainly NHS Dr's Nurses and Ambulance crew "moonlighting" with us) and sending them off to strange and wonderful places (including, for instance, Vancouver, LA and Tahiti!)

It was actually while lying under then wing of a chartered Lear-Jet, trying to find some shade on a red-hot Barcelona airport while waiting for a Spanish Ambulance to turn up with a patient (three hours late)  that I realised this wasn't really fun any more: I'm a people-person, not a business administrator. I was spending lots of time pushing paper and flying about monitoring our business but less and less doing anything (in my view) important.

So when there was talk of the company being sold (to a funeral director!) I quit.

That was in the early 1980's and jobs were fairly plentiful, so I "wandered about" (metaphorically speaking) doing some research and analysis into skills gaps and training needs for a Northern University; collecting qualifications in H&S and Business Management and eventually returning to the NHS to run a pre-DDA project placing people with Disabilities and Mental Health problems into (meaningful) work.

Collecting another post-grad certificate, this one in Health Service Management, I came across a course-segment on "Personnel" which grabbed my attention and fitted nicely with a whole lot of the stuff I was already doing (and had enjoyed doing for some time), so my appallingly short attention-span dragged me in the direction of a CPP.... and that was it.

That was now 26 years ago. ....and I'm still here!

Probably because we have such a wide-ranging profession with so many things to "get into", so I don't get bored; so many opportunities to exercise real influence, and sometimes "live on the edge" a little too; lots of challenge, lots of times when we can pull rabbits out of hats and rectify problems that other managers find intransigent and/or overwhelming, (o.k: I like showing off sometimes, it comes with the territory for any guitarist), and the really, really good days when someone says "Thanks" because you've helped, or treated them decently and fairly when they thought they were going to be "railroaded", or the MD has just noticed you've saved the company several thousand by resolving some dispute that looked as if it was heading to hit the fan....

Or whatever. 

But perhaps most of all because each day I still learn something new, big or little, and both as a consultant and thorough networking meet (or exchange views on-line with) some really good and clever people who believe in what they're doing (and only ever a few who I would like to sink teeth into).

....and what other profession would have me now I qualify as being a Grumpy Old Man as well? :-)

Peter.

I'm not quite sure how I got into HR!

My first career was in electronics, serving with the Royal Air Force (begun way back in 1963!), but then political changes screwed up the RAF career ladder so I left, intending to set up on my own as a sound-system designer (I play guitar and this seemed to be the best of both interests).

For a time I worked on electronics during the day and played guitar (mainly freelance or sessions) in between or at night, in a variety of styles, from Folk to Rock and Roll. 

The some clown decided that valves (like little electric fires in glass bottles that used to make amplifiers work) were obsolete and everyone would use transistors in future... until even transistors disappeared, first into "integrated circuits", then into "chips"... But by that time I'd decided that: a) Learning a whole new technology was boring, and b)  Sharing an interest with my then-new girlfriend (later my wife for 25 years and still a friend) was much more important than even guitars (a view revised in later life); so I applied for a job as an Ambulanceman. (What today would be called a Paramedic, but we were allowed to use fewer skills in those days).

About twelve years later, having moved on from the NHS to being Operations Director of an international medical rescue service (bringing old men with heart attacks home from far places in the summer and broken-legged skiers from the alps in the winter I realised that most of my time was now being taken up, not by para-medicine (small p) but in people-administration (collating skills, training and rotas of mainly NHS Dr's Nurses and Ambulance crew "moonlighting" with us) and sending them off to strange and wonderful places (including, for instance, Vancouver, LA and Tahiti!)

It was actually while lying under then wing of a chartered Lear-Jet, trying to find some shade on a red-hot Barcelona airport while waiting for a Spanish Ambulance to turn up with a patient (three hours late)  that I realised this wasn't really fun any more: I'm a people-person, not a business administrator. I was spending lots of time pushing paper and flying about monitoring our business but less and less doing anything (in my view) important.

So when there was talk of the company being sold (to a funeral director!) I quit.

That was in the early 1980's and jobs were fairly plentiful, so I "wandered about" (metaphorically speaking) doing some research and analysis into skills gaps and training needs for a Northern University; collecting qualifications in H&S and Business Management and eventually returning to the NHS to run a pre-DDA project placing people with Disabilities and Mental Health problems into (meaningful) work.

Collecting another post-grad certificate, this one in Health Service Management, I came across a course-segment on "Personnel" which grabbed my attention and fitted nicely with a whole lot of the stuff I was already doing (and had enjoyed doing for some time), so my appallingly short attention-span dragged me in the direction of a CPP.... and that was it.

That was now 26 years ago. ....and I'm still here!

Probably because we have such a wide-ranging profession with so many things to "get into", so I don't get bored; so many opportunities to exercise real influence, and sometimes "live on the edge" a little too; lots of challenge, lots of times when we can pull rabbits out of hats and rectify problems that other managers find intransigent and/or overwhelming, (o.k: I like showing off sometimes, it comes with the territory for any guitarist), and the really, really good days when someone says "Thanks" because you've helped, or treated them decently and fairly when they thought they were going to be "railroaded", or the MD has just noticed you've saved the company several thousand by resolving some dispute that looked as if it was heading to hit the fan....

Or whatever. 

But perhaps most of all because each day I still learn something new, big or little, and both as a consultant and thorough networking meet (or exchange views on-line with) some really good and clever people who believe in what they're doing (and only ever a few who I would like to sink teeth into).

....and what other profession would have me now I qualify as being a Grumpy Old Man as well? :-)

Peter.