Direction
I had always known that I would join the army and it never mattered what branch I joined until I spoke with a Sgt from the Royal Artillery at the careers office.
He was a Gun number one (team leader for about 5-8 soldiers who would fire and operate a cannon). That was what I would be I thought, the fact is, I have never served on a gun. I served my entire career within the Command elements of a battery (Sub Unit) working on Communications & IT.
There has always been direction in my life; little nudges here and there and snippets of advice have just refined that direction.
When you’re in the forces, everyone is in the same boat as you. No one has experience of civilian life. No one is able to nudge or offer any advice that can refine that direction.
A natural direction for me, but who cares
I feel the best direction to take, would be as an H&S advisor within the Telecommunication industry.
I have a number of Level 4&5 management and telecommunication quals and H&S quals etc, which I have gained whist serving plus a number of key skills that I can use in most areas.
What course should I undertake and who with?
Most of you will know that there are 000s of companies all trying to tap into resettlement monies, that people like me have to spend when leaving the forces. How many of these actually care if I even need their course or could pass their course?
I have spoken to over 30 companies that I have thought about of using. 30% of these all went on about how to get work rounds, to get all the monies available to me, to pay for their Course.
Nearly 70% of the 30 never even asked about my background or what I planned to do, to see if their course was even relevant to me. I wonder how many of the soldiers that I had a duty of care for, were robbed of their resettlement.
About 15% of the 30 showed any real interest and half of these pointed me in the direction of another company. This is how I would like to run a company, with values and standards. I will always refer and recommend these 15%.
It’s about time a Duty of Care was provided for life for ex-forces personnel.
We don’t even need to worry about finding employment, mortgages we don't even work out bills such as council tax and other finances as it is all done through our pay. I have not even sat through a formal job interview.
Am I just being naive?
We Forces personnel are wrapped in our own little bubble and protected from all this and much more. A 3 day transitional brief is far to shot.