Adam Gill

Starting out as an apprentice wasn't easy for me, largely due to my struggles with anxiety. Those cold dark mornings catching two buses. I had real anxiety about missing buses which kept me up at night and it is only later in life, in my thirties, that i have come to realise that a. this is a real thing and b. it is very common. More about anxiety at a later date.

Being an apprentice meant that i left school on a friday, a child. On the monday i started work, as a...child! 

Our career's advisor had "prepped" us for college life / work life and i can tell you it was completely and utterley nothing like what i was told. For me personally it was horrendous. For the record, i had an amazing first boss and one that i still think of regularly and fondly. He taught me so much and shaped the design draughtsman and eventually technical manager that i have become today. I still often wonder if he'd be proud of me today even though i work for someone else now. The company that i worked for was a great company and it is only now that i realise how lucky i was to have worked there.

It still remains that i spent the majority of my apprenticeship feeling sick, tired, nervous and for want of a better word, anxious.

It was a shock to the system and one that i wouldn't change for the world. I got educated and paid at the same time. I got real world experience. I attended design meetings, firstly with my boss, but then at the ripe old age of eighteen i attended design meetings on my own. (That one deserves its own article at a later date).

My earliest memories of worklife include filing, filing and more filing. Paper cuts gallore and then the occasional foray into learning AutoCAD and how to draught. My mentor spent many hours teaching me design, detailing and draughting skills.

I quickly got involved with the "office banter" and have always had quick whit. My sense of humour has always been a mask. Hiding my true emotion which is usually awkwaardness and anxiety.

One of my first mentors / colleagues literally made me feel scared to come to the office at times. I very much doubt he realised, or cared, but the fact remains that on ocassion when i got on the bus to go home i would be shaking and on the way back in the following morning i would be sweaty and anxious.

The most positive thing about my apprentice years of my first job was the education and learning how to work in the office environment. College wasn't something i found easy. Not what i learned, but concentration levels (i am now on a waiting list to determine if i have ADHD which i am completely convinced of). However, i passed my way through college and worked my way up at work. Firstly to fully fledged draughtsman, then to project draughtsman. 

After my four years of college ended i moved from the draughting office and into the technical office. Moving departments, teams and managers was the best thing for me and i really began to flourish then.

It felt like my initial education prepared me to become a true professional and express myself both as an individual but also through my work. 

My new role was technical consultant this involved making and receiving a lot of calls, in the region of twenty to thirty per day but then also do take offs (quantification of products), detailed designs, calculation work and prepare technical packs. It was hugely enjoyable for me and i had started to find my groove.

This blog will start here. My initial experiences. How these experiences made me feel and how i dealt with them. 

I will also create and upload tools for you to download and make use of.