I trained in upholstery & antique restoration in my grandads business after I left school. I loved it but the money was rubbish and he let the business go to pot as he approached retirement, so by the time I was trained there wasn't really a business to take over.
After that I worked in a pottery. Again loved the job, the money was a bit better, but I got "promoted" to running the kilns & the hours were mental. It was 7 days a week 9 to 5, and then back again at 10pm till midnight to start the night time firings going. After 18 months of the boss promising to get someone else to cover weekends I packed it in.
Next I went into the building game for 8 years. Decent money, very little real work, regular hours, & quite an interesting job when you're not tied to one particular site or trade. I started as a groundworker, and ended up as a site agent,.. pretty good progress for a young fella. But then the recession came & even a couple of years before people actually realised that it was a recession the builders were affected. When the 3rd company I worked for went bankrupt in 3 years, and the father in laws round was getting too much for him to handle with his failing health, it seemed like natural progression to start cleaning. My dad is a shiner too, and I'd worked with him in school holidays as a kid, so already had the skills,.. The only regret I had was wasting all those years on other jobs,.. I should have gone cleaning windows straight from school. :
