This post is based on an article I wrote for the 2022 Q3 edition of the Institute of Water magazine
My story
I was inspired to write this article by the quote, attributed by some to Jane Austen: “It’s never too late to be what you could have been”. This might seem strange given that by many standards, I’m successful: Academic Director and business owner, holding two Masters degrees, and being financially secure. Yet my career could not have got off to a less promising start.
Pride before a fall?
Success at school, like winning the school chemistry prize two years on the trot and playing for the football first eleven freed me from earlier bullying (lesson: those who can do, those who can’t try to drag down others) and, I though, set me up for a stellar university degree.
University offers three things, the chance to learn, to play sport and to meet new people. Suffice that, free from the rigid disciplines of school, I was great at the two that don’t get you a degree.
I didn’t realise then but this failure, which was entirely my own fault, would be a monkey on my back to years to come. I saw others with degrees getting interviews and jobs I couldn’t and had to live with this. However, I did know that I had to regroup and make the best of the situation,
Fighting back
I got a job as a trainee laboratory technician with Anglian Water, arguably a pivotal moment in my career. Anglian culturally understand the value of developing their people and duly sent me off to college where I gained a chemistry HNC.
An OK laboratory career followed, gently progressing over 15 years to be the Analytical Quality Control chemist for my lab. Happily, this unremittingly pedantic role (don’t ask) required project work, which was much more to my taste.
Happily, in one of Anglian’s increasingly regular re-organisations I escaped the lab to take on the newly created role of Field Scientist, responsible for managing water quality within a distribution system. This was much more like it.
As a trained scientist I was able to understand the needs of large, as in multiple oil refinery, customers and advise the local operational staff. Even better, as a new role that nobody really understood, it was one I could mould and shape rather than just following the recipe.
Looking forward
With my confidence recovering I figured that I would need more than an HNC to progress further and went into my annual appraisal with a request for support to do an OU degree. And came out with the offer of doing the Water Engineering MSc at Cranfield University. I didn’t know whether to feel elated or petrified…
Getting ahead
With the MSc under my belt, at the age of 40 I had effectively leapfrogged those who had been more diligent at university, and interviews and job offers followed. I ended my AW career running one of their most technically complex treatment works supplying north Lincolnshire and a raft of major industrial users on the Humber Bank.
Imagine, though, if I’d previously given in and settled for a routine lab job?
Into the unknown
Around this time, I had the experience and skills to leave the mainstream water industry and join EU Skills, the Sector Skills Council for the gas, electricity, waste management and water sectors, initially as a Lifelong Learning Manager, but being promoted to Head of Research within six months. Transferable Skills, anyone? And for those interested, I was now well ahead of my peers in both job status and pay.
Back to school
Post Anglian, I rapidly found that my hard fought for MSC had no value outside the water industry, and that I would need to do an MBA. Happily, I was able to get credit for my existing certificate and diploma of management qualifications and did a year at the isle of Man International Business School to get this. I was 49 when I graduated.
Post EU Skills, aged 54, I started my own labour market intelligence (LMI) consultancy. With immaculate timing, I launched my business on the Monday and banks crashed on the Thursday, effectively killing the LMI market.
Regrouping again
Ironically, the only work I could find was doing training for water companies through a number of training providers. This arrangement freed me from having to source work and allowed me to concentrate on being the best trainer I could be. I’m still doing this today, not because I need to, but because I enjoy helping others gain useful skills and qualifications.
Dr Bob?
Recently, aged 66, I started feeling that I was stagnating professionally and academically, but I wasn’t sure what to do about it. I had always fancied the idea of being “Dr Bob” and being financially secure enabled me to enrol as an aligned student on the Water-WISER programme at Cranfield University.
Not bad for someone who blew their university opportunity.
UPDATE 25/05.2023.
After a year on the Water=-WISER programme it became apparent the a nominally part-tome programme was going to be a full time commitment for the next five years.
Remembering that I had just moved back to Norfolk to spend more time with my wife and family, this wasn’t a great thought. After discussion with my (brilliant) PhD supervisors, I withdrew from the course.
Not wanting to abandon academic learning totally, I have signed up for a two-year part time MA in education and pedagogy. this will more than keep the brain ticking over, and a hat-trick of masters degrees is not to be sneezed at.
What if…..
I’d been more diligent at university? I’ve often wondered about this, and the short answer is that I will never know for sure. Perhaps I would have built a brilliant career on a different path, or maybe I would have ended up in a production lab doing routine tests.
What I do know is that I am really pleased with where I’ve ended up.
What’s stopping you?
So, what’s stopping you having a go a becoming what you always wanted to be? Life’s practicalities like family responsibilities and money play a part, but many times the biggest barrier is us. We all, me included, are all too ready to doubt our own abilities and compare ourselves unfavourably with our peers. Just remember this: those peers are doing exactly the same.
Have a plan
Becoming what you could have been is destination, not. I recovered, and more, my position by a series of steps over a number of years. I did this my having a destination and a plan.
My plan was simple – become really good at my current job and then move on. Be clear, such plans have an element of luck, like the right opportunity coming along at the right time.
But what I found is the more you prepare by way of learning new skills and giving that bit extra, the luckier you get.
JFDI
Just Flipping do it. Yes, do get advice and recruit allies, but above all else, give it a go. Please, just don’t be the person that is stopping you from becoming the person you could have been.
Over to you
If you have a thoughts on this post, or would like to share your story, please leave a comment below.
Best regards.
Bob.
