Alright, if everyone else is chipping in;
At school I had a part time job in a plastics moulding factory which put me off the idea of anything like factory work ever again (too boring) and another making fences (I've never trusted "pretreated" timber since).
On leaving school, I trained as a metallurgist, spent 6 years working on tool materials, 20 years in marine corrosion and the last couple in the wear resistance of tool materials (back where I started), who knows where I'll go from here.

Walrus