Working in HR? If you could start again, would you?

My "first" career was in electronics in the RAF, after which I took some "time out" as a semi-professional musician and using those electronics skills to fix guitar-amps, electronic (musical) organs and disco-rigs. That led to a Christmas-day meeting with a trainee physiotherapist in a Folk-club (the Black Horse at Telham in Sussex) which led to a 2nd (real) career in the Ambulance-service, a wedding, three children and three grandchildren! A sojourn into private-sector international medical transportation was great fun and that was where the HR-stuff started, working around "moonlighting" NHS Dr's and Nurses shift-patterns, qualifications, organising people, interviewing etc. etc. Then it was back to the NHS for a while as a unit administrative manager at a physically disabled children's school/hospital, then running a multi-agency project placing people with disabilities into (real) work; just prior to the DDA becoming law. (Much more HR!) Funding changes caused chaos a month before the project's renewal, leaving sixty-some people with no support and me working 18-plus hour days trying to patch up the holes.... until stopped by a heart attack at 49.

A year of not being allowed to work, acquiring clinical depression, and studying (stress, depression and HR) led to career 3; HR "full time".

So I sort of staggered into HR thirty-some years ago, by default, wandered around doing it by accident for ten years, and then realised it was my job some time later.

Would I do it again?

Apart from the Heart Attack and the Depression (which lurks around permanently), I guess I would; but I feel I am better at it (if any good at all) for having been through the disciplined tensions of the cold-war RAF, the mayhem of my time as a musician (and yes, I still play too), the years learning about people in the worst hours of their lives during my time as an Ambulanceman; the humbling but rewarding years working with children and adults with disabilities and MH problems and, yes, I guess even learning about being one of those "patients" myself.

So would I do it? Yes.

Could I do it? I'd have to be bl**dy balmy!

But it's still fun :-)

"A year of not being allowed to work, acquiring clinical depression, and studying (stress, depression and HR) led to career 3; HR "full time"."

I would never wish that on anybody (except the HR bit)... but by 'eck we've been truly blessed as you've shared your knowledge and experience in this area (not to mention employment law in general). Thank you, Peter.

I can think of nothing polite to say to that Steve. But thank you, and all the colleagues who share their own knowledge and insights here.

Damn, that thing you got in your eye yesterday seems to have migrated to mine......

I can think of nothing polite to say to that Steve. But thank you, and all the colleagues who share their own knowledge and insights here.

Damn, that thing you got in your eye yesterday seems to have migrated to mine......