BS: Possible careers you turned down

Subject: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Donuel
Date: 29 Jan 23 - 02:45 PM

I recall turning down ground-floor opportunities in companies not yet formed like Weight Watchers, dating services, and hydro acoustics. Other established jobs were at CIA, and teaching.
I ended up doing the least lucrative but enjoyed it.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Helen
Date: 29 Jan 23 - 03:07 PM

I turned down the opportunity to train as a lawyer. I don't think I would have enjoyed it.

I tried a lot of different career paths, enjoyed some of them but strangely enjoyed the last job the most, not because it was in a nice, quiet office, but because it fitted my skill set, was interesting and it contributed positively to society.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Jack Campin
Date: 29 Jan 23 - 09:10 PM

Plant physiologist. I think I'd have liked it.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Charmion
Date: 29 Jan 23 - 10:05 PM

Glamorous pop singer. The guy pitching the great opportunity was just a little too shifty about the eyes, and besides had lousy taste in tunes. He liked my voice, but he wanted to dress me up as Olivia Newton John … No, thanks.

I finished uni instead.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 Jan 23 - 11:02 PM

Geologist. The geology professor I worked for as an undergraduate work-study student for two years always hoped I'd do something with it, and he would have supported me with great references and such, but I moved into interpretive naturalist work. I used the geology, but also biology, botany, natural history, and more, using all of them but mastering none.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 07:14 AM

what we say no to is as important as what we say yes to but then life happens and we go with what we have.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 07:25 AM

I went to my uni specialists for info on what I could do instead of the Civ Eng course I was on. After a load of tests to see what I was good at they just said that I would go far in anything that I found I liked.

I didn't find anything that I liked, obviously!

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 09:23 AM

ha ha ha.:) A man before his time.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: The Sandman
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 09:32 AM

I turned down a job as a tea taster

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 12:27 PM

I turned down a job as a salesman for Radio Shack. My ex convinced me that I was getting better income on unemployment benefits. So I kept looking for jobs, and found one that I kept for 30 years. And I've been living off the pension from that job for 20 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 12:57 PM

They asked me to play Robert Retford in a biopic but I was too good looking

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 01:03 PM

When I was about 17 I was the Saturday lad at Victor Value supermarket in Radcliffe. The store manager, seeing that I was good at boning out bacon and ham, and that I was running the cooked meats section efficiently on the busiest day of the week, promised that he would train me to be an assistant store manager, after which the world would be my oyster. Of course, I'd have to leave school more or less there and then... I told my mum and dad that I had chosen that career path. Naturally, they were incensed. Anyway, I went on a two-week school holiday to Italy. When I got back I found that Victor Value was gone and that Tesco had taken over. I never saw that manager again. So my parents were right...

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 01:10 PM

Retford; In addition to being an ancient market town and infamous Rotten Borough, 'Retford' is known as being at the centre of Nonconformism, with the origins of the Pilgrims, Baptists and Wesleys being in this area. It still has some nice old Georgian buildings though.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Charmion's brother Andrew
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 03:55 PM

Publican. Two friends and an agent tried to get my wife and me to buy their pub, a cozy affair in Ottawa's Sandy Hill that was frequented by faculty and students of the University of Ottawa. It was appealing at first blush, but I realized that it was like running a farm and would have been nigh on impossible to get time away from it. The real deal-breaker was the arrangement in the lease with the landlord, who wanted a percentage of the sales. I already knew that the landlord was difficult (I had heard tales from the current owners). It was not too hard to walk away from that one.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: pattyClink
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 09:07 PM

Floor trader at the options exchange. Possibly my most expensive error.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Donuel
Date: 30 Jan 23 - 09:34 PM

Arghh, I forgot I did work at Bear Sterns briefly. They actually taught criminal tricks of the trade.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 06:58 AM

Stone cutter for tombstones, janitor in a hospital, bookstore manager, author, career military, teacher from elementary school to university levels, policeman, mortician (yes, really) libraria…no, I did that one for 40+ years.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Senoufou
Date: 31 Jan 23 - 11:37 AM

While at Edinburgh University, I took a holiday job each summer at the Royal Infirmary as a temporary auxiliary nurse. I absolutely loved it, was never squeamish and enjoyed tending to all the patients (I was mostly asked to wash them, change beds and empty bedpans etc.)
The sister in charge of the ward told me I'd make an excellent SRN, and I was so tempted to chuck in my University course and enrol for training as a nurse. But my father exploded when I told him,and insisted I continue with my studies then do Teacher Training.
I adored teaching too, so all was well.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: meself
Date: 03 Feb 23 - 03:44 PM

As I recall, I had to fight tooth and nail to be 'offered' anything in the way of employment, so I never turned down anything ... except .... when I was about 22 and playing in a pub, an amiable Chinese guy of my age, who would come there with some friends, proposed to me that we open a restaurant/pub together, and I could supply the entertainment, along with half the financial investment. The idea of doing the kinds of thing he was doing - borrowing vast sums of money, making real estate deals, hiring contractors, halting construction, re-starting construction, re-negotiating loans, and laughing about it all - well, he might as well have been asking me to join him in building the first moon colony .....

And then, a couple of years later, there was the retired ship's engineer, an Afghani, who I would drink with, and who hinted broadly, that if I were really that interested in gun-running and sinking ships (in insurance scams) introductions could be made. I didn't pursue that one either.

Oh, all the "what-ifs" ... !

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Bill D
Date: 05 Feb 23 - 12:44 PM

When I was looking for jobs in 1971, I took the FSEE exam... and was offered 'something' in the US Postal Service... in Dallas. Turned it down, as I knew I'd get in trouble voting in Texas.

I had a job as a Bean Counter** once... I suppose I could have kept it, but...





**cycle inventory at Stoke-Van Camps cannery.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: keberoxu
Date: 05 Feb 23 - 12:53 PM

The summer of 1987 was spent as an apprentice accompanist/répétiteur at the Merola Program of the San Francisco Opera. I was offered a job immediately following, in the autumn and winter, touring with a small opera ensemble out of the Merola Program across the country, playing the orchestral parts on the piano while the singers sang the entire opera with minimal props and costuming. I had seen a tour performance in New Mexico where I lived, so I knew what was being offered.

I turned it down, saying that the summer had worn me out, and that, exhausted as I was, I did not belong on the road grinding out tour performances. The company was unhappy as they had liked my work as a rehearsal pianist very much. But it takes more than a summer working in one spot, as I did, to prepare for life on tour.

So the tour went on without me and I never worked in opera again.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 05 Feb 23 - 01:14 PM

Great story, Keb!

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 05 Feb 23 - 01:52 PM

In 1965 I was offered a contract to join The Ivy League, who had just had a No.2 hit with ‘Funny How Love Can Be’. In between their lead singer, Perry Ford, and their manager approaching me at my band’s Friday night gig at Lincoln Co-op Ballroom, and Tuesday evening when they came to my folks’ house to sign me, my dad had managed to talk me out of it, and I turned them down.

Often wondered what my life might have been like if I’d had the confidence to ignore my dad’s advice and sign the contract…

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: The Sandman
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 03:58 PM

Their last gig was playing at Pontins, a difficult one, I am sure it would have been exciting in the first few years, however it was a big compliment to you that you were asked

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Joe Offer
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 08:51 PM

I spent eight years in a Catholic seminary, and I was bound and determined to become a Catholic Priest. But I also wanted to be a husband and father, so I left the seminary and found work as a government investigator, a job I hated. I retired twenty years ago and became a music bum - a job I love.

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: JennieG
Date: 06 Feb 23 - 10:49 PM

I could have been a prima ballerina, if only I had learned how to ballet......

Subject: RE: BS: Possible careers you turned down
From: Donuel
Date: 07 Feb 23 - 07:24 AM

ha ha
There are many doors of opportunity put before us but only our own passion can open the door of choice, even if it is a means to a different end. There are many rudderless sailors out there as well as the unfortunate who have only the choice of survival.