December 19, 2020
Author
Sean
I recently came across the following quote “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” ― Maya Angelou This is my new goal in life. Not to conform to be normal, but to be amazing and I hope to inspire you to be amazing too.

Feeling Manly - Fixing Things

I have always found that, when I've completed some fixing type task, a bit of DIY, I always feel just that little bit manly.

Why it's quite strange is that I didn't start my work life working in an office. I started by doing things with my hands...

When I left school

When I left school, so many years ago, I started work in a YTS in the building trade. 

For those that don't know, YTS stood for Youth Training Scheme. Now, I can't say when they stopped doing YTS (or maybe they renamed it). What I can say is, that, I started one at the end of June in 1986 - just a couple of days after my 26th birthday (everyone getting calculators out to work out my age??).

I applied to 2 courses at the time, one in computing and the other in general building (I say general because you learnt all aspects of building from plumbing to brickwork and beyond).

I chose building because some of my friends back then were also doing the same course. I honestly wished I had waited out on the computing - but my history in that is a different story that starts several years after this.

Anyhow, back to the story. I started in a YTS on building and proceeded to spend the next 4-5 years working in a few areas of the building trade. After that, all finished (was lots of hard times back then for companies) I worked in a factory or two. 

My story of very manual work started to end when I started working in a computer shop - but I had spent several years up to that point working in roles using my hands and fixing or doing things.

These days I tend not to - unless it's a bit silly money to get someone to do for me.

Fast forward to today

So today it was down to one of those things. Last week the element went in our oven. Before just thinking of buying another, I decided to both check how to replace it and also phone a few repair shops.

The part on the very large online retailer that begins with an A and end in n come to just £9.99. The repairers wanted 10 times this amount to do a repair... Mouth Open Wide.

So, £9.99 lighter, 20 minutes of work and the oven was working again. Made me feel good to actually do something again. My wife referred to it as making me feel manly - which I liked.

The faulty oven element after I replaced it

So, today I accomplished something....

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Author
Sean
I recently came across the following quote “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” ― Maya Angelou This is my new goal in life. Not to conform to be normal, but to be amazing and I hope to inspire you to be amazing too.

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