Fat Pants: Epic Win, Or Epic Fail?

[Fixed Pants™]

Trial day in Evans Cycles tomorrow They're recruiting at the end of the month so i might just be leaving school and starting full time work

[Mark W]

Trial day in Evans Cycles tomorrow They're recruiting at the end of the month so i might just be leaving school and starting full time work

Literally, the worst idea ever.

[Davetrials]

Literally, the worst idea ever.

you mean quitting your full time education/future to be a spanner monkey isnt a good idea

*SHOCKER*

[Fixed Pants™]

Not entirely. I'm failing this year, again, anyway... Even my 6th form manager (who is safe as f**k, and definitely knows what he's doing) is willing to help me get a job n stuff.

It's pretty good, i cba to write out all the good things 'cos i'm lazy, but it's good. And biking is my passion, so why not do something i enjoy? In life, i want things to be fun/at least not the kind of job i go home and feel like never going back to work again, every night (if you naa mean?) And f**k it, if i don't get an extra grand or two a year 'cos i'm not doing something boring as f**k, i don't care.

Wow that was a load of shit. But i expect you get the general idea. All work, all play.

EDIT: On an angry note, when the f**k am i gonna get my tomorrow we work DVD? It's gay waiting...

Edited April 16, 2008 by Fat Pants™

[Mark W]

Speaking as someone who's worked at an Evans store in London, and as someone who's worked in a smaller, independent bike shop, there is no "play" or "fun" in working for a large corporate bikeshop. Evans isn't fun. It's largely pure hassle, having to use a f**king archaic computer system to help deal with mentally handicapped customers who just want the cheapest hybrid they can find. If you're a mechanic, you'll be assembling bikes all day, by which I mean you'll be dialling in brakes, sorting out stems + bars, and running the pre-sale checks. That's it. Just that, repeated 20 times a day.

You may not enjoy education now, but it leads to other stuff later. Working at Evans leads to nothing - it's shit, it doesn't make you like bikes more (In fact the opposite - at the end of the day I'd want nothing to do with bikes at all), and it has virtually no career prospects, which, if you're bitching out of actually learning stuff, you'll need.

[Davetrials]

Ive worked in like 5 bike shops, and every single one has left me wnating to kill my self or the next person who gave me a bike to touch, u may not feel like that atm, but try fixing f**ked bikes that just dont want to work like they shud for 40hours a week.

[N.Wood]

My Evans store was a laugh, though some of the time it was utter shite, with people coming in telling me they want to spend £100 on a full sus to get them round town, then arguing their case when I tell them thats really not what they want.

But there isn't much future in Evans, I used to laugh at the Keyholders who thought they were the shit because they had 'authority' over me, then I'd go back to my nice life at uni and spend the money I earnt on going to the beach and bike parts while they earn £20g for the rest of their lives.

Oh well, at least you get to knock off early if you've built all the bikes you need to?

[Fixed Pants™]

I currently work in Halfords, and have done for 8 months now, building SHIT bikes 9 hours a week, fixing SHITTER bikes in the same 9 hours, i get retards come in all the time. I'll be working with a good mate, we'll have laughs. It's laid back in the Victoria one, i don't mind being around bikes because even from when i was about 10, i fixed everyones bikes on my road when things went tits up.

No career prospects... Cytech? I learn workshop safety in Cytechs, that could lead onto car mechanics because of the headstart in workshop safety. I could be a mechanic for a track team. Become workshop manager/similar, maybe even be manager of the store (not ideal though, more of an academic thing). I really don't mind working with bikes.

And who says i can't go to college a few years down the line when i'm fed up of it, and get a proper (shit, behind a desk) job when i realise not everything in life is gonna be fun.

The thing is, people are telling me nothing in life is fun, but my mentality towards that is 'it may not all be fun, but i'm sure as hell gonna do my best to enjoy most of it'.

[Davetrials]

This is the stupidest thing youve ever done ever

cytech

LMFAO

cytech is bollocks, i "cytech trained" and it doesnt get you jack shit, except priority over people who dont have when applying for another job as a spanner monkey in an other bike shop

if you do this, im gonna break you down at every given opportunity.

[Mark W]

I currently work in Halfords, and have done for 8 months now, building SHIT bikes 9 hours a week, fixing SHITTER bikes in the same 9 hours, i get retards come in all the time. I'll be working with a good mate, we'll have laughs. It's laid back in the Victoria one, i don't mind being around bikes because even from when i was about 10, i fixed everyones bikes on my road when things went tits up.

No career prospects... Cytech? I learn workshop safety in Cytechs, that could lead onto car mechanics because of the headstart in workshop safety. I could be a mechanic for a track team. Become workshop manager/similar, maybe even be manager of the store (not ideal though, more of an academic thing). I really don't mind working with bikes.

And who says i can't go to college a few years down the line when i'm fed up of it, and get a proper (shit, behind a desk) job when i realise not everything in life is gonna be fun.

The thing is, people are telling me nothing in life is fun, but my mentality towards that is 'it may not all be fun, but i'm sure as hell gonna do my best to enjoy most of it'.

It's pretty unlikely you'd be able to show your mechanicing prowess by having to build 20 Dahon folding bikes every day. Similarly, most car garages want you to do an apprenticeship with them, so you'd be basically back at square one anyway. Seriously, I know about 6 or 7 people who I hang out with a lot who are mechanics at Evans, and it's not really the hands-on, enjoyable bike repair experience you might think it is. The independent shop I worked at was good, Evans was not. You literally just open boxes and build up semi-complete bikes all day. It's wank. Being manager's not much better. I'm pretty good friends with two managers from Central London, and it's a lot of hassle for relatively little reward, and it can only really be used to give you potential management experience when you get a job somewhere else.

Going to college and getting qualifications doesn't = desk job. Being store manager of an Evans most definitely does though. My manager spent most of his time in his office having to deal with paper work. If that's your bag, go for it. It definitely wasn't for me, which is why I left. I got on really well with all the people who worked there, and we had a laugh, but the overall job just fully got me down. I would honestly rather work at a a Hellfrauds than at another Evans store. If you aren't enjoying your Halfords job, even if you're working with 'a mate', you still won't enjoy Evans. Evans = Halfords, just way more corporate shit to deal with, from what I can tell. By all means do it part time, but full time is a bad idea.

The thing about going to college now is that it's free. In later years it won't be. Judging from the way you handle money, you aren't going to be saving up a lot of money, so it'll be hard for you to get the funds together, and you also run a huge risk of just getting stuck in a dead end job. I know you're going to say "That won't happen", but I've seen it happen plenty of times before.

[Fixed Pants™]

I do enjoy working at Halfords though, but i don't think i could go full time there. The guys i work with currently are awesome so i enjoy it even more, and not one of them i knew before i started working there. Literally every person that works in Bromley Halfords, i've become friends with and not just 'cos we work with eachother. I've already got a good mate working with me, and the rest of the people who work there are apparently cool too. There's a lot of fun to be had, even the workshop manager rode bikes down the stairs n that.

I can see where you're coming from, because yes, i do spend all my wages as soon as i get them, but that's because i only get 200ish basic, with Evans, i'll be on 1160 a month i think (think that's after tax) so i will hopefully end up putting a good 100-200 quid a month away.

What's your definition of a dead end job? Surely it's the same thing as a career? It's job that you're gonna be stuck with for the rest of your life, amirite?

EDIT: And seeing as i'm gonna be getting stuff on trade, i'll be spending loads less on bike parts.

Edited April 16, 2008 by Fat Pants™

[Mark W]

Eating Oatibix > Going over the same stuff again and again.

[Revolver]

What's your definition of a dead end job? Surely it's the same thing as a career? It's job that you're gonna be stuck with for the rest of your life, amirite?

a career is a path that leads you to a succession of jobs that lead towards however far you want to go.

A dead-end job is a job that has no promotion and generally leads nowhere in terms of more work.

But the most important thing to remember is, work sucks.

But Time=money, and work is the only thing that makes time = money.

[Mark W]

I'd just see if there was any route to getting a decent qualification doing something you enjoy (And by enjoy, I don't mean "fixing bikes"...) that you could do as an apprenticeship, a HND, GNVQ, degree, A-level - anything. Just find something you enjoy doing and go with it. Literally anything. I'm never going to pay off my photography degree loan, but I don't give a shit because I'm f**king all about photography at this stage of my life. That attitude's beginning to pay off. Getting yourself f**ked in the world of full time work that young, and f**king up your FREE education is a really, really bad idea. Just aim a little higher. If you enjoy working on bike, what do you enjoy about it? Do you like trying to come up with ideas for new parts? Why not do product design or something similar? If you enjoy working with 'hands on' shit, why not try becoming a welder or something along those lines? Something where there IS scope for you to improve yourself and your work, and give you way, way better job prospects than just sitting behind a till at Evan having to alter the entire spring/summer clothing racks just because there's so little to do in the store your manager's giving you shitty jobs (One of the guys I was working with had to clean the UNDERSIDES of the steps leading to the lower part of the showroom), or just having to f**k about building up crappy bikes all day. I found that working on top of the range bikes was often a joy, where you actually had problems you had to solve, things to do, where everything was well made so it wasn't pure f**king hassle. If we're talking below £400 complete bikes, you're not going to get that. Because of Evans f**king extortionate pricing scheme for repairs, you're pretty unlikely to get much to do apart from fixing flats. Most people seem to go to smaller, independent shops just because they undercut Evans by so much.

My idea is that work doesn't have to suck. Generic 9-5 jobs seem to be, on the whole, pretty waffer, so I'm trying to do something else with my life. I'm trying to enter a hugely competitive market which isn't really going to give me fame and fortune, but it's something I'm passionate about, and now is the time in my life (and everyone's lives, basically) where you've got no financial commitments (e.g. mortgages) or anything like that, so you may as well aim high and see what you can achieve. Evans IS a dead end job. You're not going to be head-hunted by a vastly superior setup to work for them (as you might be in other less dead end lines of work), they seem to enjoy shifting their upper levels of staff around so your 'nice' boss could suddenly be replaced by a f**ktard (happened to my friend) but if you end up getting into that echelon of their staff you're liable to get dicked around too. You're not going to realistically earn any "real" (Cytech honestly doesn't mean much) qualifications that could greatly improve your job. etc.

P.S. Have you checked with your Mum to see if she's going to want you to move out/pay rent when you start earning over a grand a month, or whatever it's theoretically going to be?

EDIT: Oh, and http://www.style43.com/news/2008/04/16/tom...work-park-edit/

[Caleb]

pretty waffer

Thats pretty much made my day haha, havent heard that word since i was 12

[Fixed Pants™]

P.S. Have you checked with your Mum to see if she's going to want you to move out/pay rent when you start earning over a grand a month, or whatever it's theoretically going to be?

EDIT: Oh, and http://www.style43.com/news/2008/04/16/tom...work-park-edit/

I'm not planning on this being a life job anyway, 'cos i probably will end up in a shit desk job that pays the bills anyway. but why not have a nice, fun job when you're young? (I know that kinda sounds like i'm changing my tune, but it's all different variants of it)

Yeah, she knows about it. She's gonna lose 300 quid a month child benefits (yes, she does work, and no, we're not pikey scum) so i think i'm gonna have to pay her like 150 or so a month?

And it better be out next week.

[Mark W]

It's about potential.

[Token]

I think you should take it Fat Pants, we all know your going to be on here in a few months complaining about how repetitive your job is, how you've got to pay your mum rent but you spuffed all your money on a motorised water pistol an worrying you've got another girl pregnant by licking their ear. I just look forward to saying 'We told you so'.

[Mark W]

I'd just see if there was any route to getting a decent qualification doing something you enjoy (And by enjoy, I don't mean "fixing bikes"...) that you could do as an apprenticeship, a HND, GNVQ, degree, A-level - anything. Just find something you enjoy doing and go with it. Literally anything. I'm never going to pay off my photography degree loan, but I don't give a shit because I'm f**king all about photography at this stage of my life. That attitude's beginning to pay off. Getting yourself f**ked in the world of full time work that young, and f**king up your FREE education is a really, really bad idea. Just aim a little higher.

My idea is that work doesn't have to suck. Generic 9-5 jobs seem to be, on the whole, pretty waffer, so I'm trying to do something else with my life. I'm trying to enter a hugely competitive market which isn't really going to give me fame and fortune, but it's something I'm passionate about, and now is the time in my life (and everyone's lives, basically) where you've got no financial commitments (e.g. mortgages) or anything like that, so you may as well aim high and see what you can achieve.

Key points.

And like I said, work at Evans won't always be 'fun', if at all. Again, this is from the experience of someone who's worked there, and who is still in contact with all the people I worked with, and the people I know from Evans London Bridge, Fenchurch Street, and... I think the other dude worked/works at Canary Wharf. But yeah, it's not really 'fun' for any real length of time, especially when you've got nothing to aim for. Why not avoid the "boring 9-5 desk job" route by actually making the most of your education now, instead of just going "It's too hard" or f**king about and not doing the work? I was in your exact same situation, I just wanted to quit A-levels mid A2 year and just go to Bristol or London and work in a bike shop. I'm so, so glad I didn't. I know other people who'll remain nameless who quit their education to do a very similar thing, and it's just never really worked out, and they're stuck going from shitty job to shitty job 'cos they've got no qualifications worth anything, and didn't push themselves when they were young and had the chance to make a difference to their lives.

[Fixed Pants™]

I know other people who'll remain nameless who quit their education to do a very similar thing, and it's just never really worked out, and they're stuck going from shitty job to shitty job 'cos they've got no qualifications worth anything, and didn't push themselves when they were young and had the chance to make a difference to their lives.

Too late, i raped myself in the face at my GCSEs, failing my BTEC pieces of shit, didn't do coursework for Maths resit so i'm gonna fail that.

On the application form, 'personal statement'... Ideas on how to sell myself please?

[yoyoyo]

On the application form, 'personal statement'... Ideas on how to sell myself please?

Anything and everything positive you can say or make up about yourself.

[Mark W]

I walked into the Evans I wanted to work in, just spoke to them, they gave me a form to put my details on and said "When can you start", so I don't really know about that.

It's not too late to make the most of the free (key word ) education you've got now. Having to pay to do college courses and stuff like that is really, really expensive if you're outside of the free education period, so make the most of it. If you want a decent future in life, put the effort in. Don't just "Not bother to do the coursework", you're literally only f**king yourself over later on in life. You WILL look back at it and regret dicking about and not giving yourself more prospects for the future.

Just turn over a new leaf, get focussed and just put some effort in.

[Haz]

Fatty, I won't lie, as I'm not experienced as half this forum.

But you're just the average 16/17 year old who wants to chuck it all in and do what you enjoy. Which is good, it shows you are passionate and enjoy what you do. But it won't bring in money you need to live how you do at the moment.

If you think you are going to bring in ~12k a year a live as yu are, you're sadly wrong, especially in London, you are wrong. If you want to carry on with your passions, this really isn't enough. It seems to me like you've got your feet running round a revolving door. RC cars, bikes, cameras, potato guns, you've got it all. You seem to really enjoy yourself, which is great. But as soon as you move out you will find it really hard, a car, a house, tax, bills, they really do add up.

At least get A-levels or a B-tec. A-levels for me were one of the lowest points of my life so far, I didn't enjoy it at all. Yeah, sure I saw my mates every day, but, I didn't enjoy what I was doing. You may love cycling forever, but you'll also want to be able to enjoy that time you do spend cycling. But you, unfortunately, and trust me on this, can't live paycheck to paycheck.

OBM has said a lot of things I 100% agree with, and partially because I enjoy Uni so much, and have such a good life there, but also because I have experienced them. I would party every day, every night, working in Tesco full time, if I could. But it won't get me anywhere on my own, I see that now, I wouldn't have a camera, a car, a bike, maybe even a home in the town I live now, if I didn't aspire to more.

What Mark, I think, is trying to get at, is that just because life is sweet now, it won't always be, and you need to be ready for it, whatever happens next.

[Fixed Pants™]

But it's too late, I'm in year 12 now, on my 2nd chance and now it's gone. I got 1 C in my GCSEs. I'm not exactly gonna be able to do A levels then go to uni so i can get a posh fanny of a job am I?

yoyoyo, such as? , i'm a bit stuck, i usually need a start to get the juices flowing.

[Mark W]

f**ks sake... You don't have to go to uni to get a "Posh job". You need virtually no qualifications to get into some college courses, such as vocational courses and shit like that. Talk to a careers advisor, call LearnDirect, call whoever, I don't give a shit.

What I'm trying to get across to you is that just because you've been f**king lazy and can't be arsed putting in work, you're not totally f**ked yet, but if you go and work in your Evans utopia (It really isn't that good. Seriously, f**king listen to what I'm saying), you ARE f**ked. There is nothing after it. Why have working in a f**king awful chain store be the pinnacle of your career? If you want to work in a bike shop, work in a good independent store where you might actually be able to make a difference, not just being a tiny cog in a massive corporate wheel.