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Whats the best choice for my career later in life?

I'm currently working as a PSV mechanic only 2 years served but they still have me ripping hubs off and changing pistons and the likes. I am very interested in joining the REME I'm struggling to decide whether to join as a VM or a recy mech. I was wondering which will get me better quals for my career later in life and also how much of the frontline I'd see in each. I'm not flapping about being in the fray I just want to know what I'm getting myself into when I sign up. Thanks in advance for any helpful replies.
 
They are all GCSE's I assume, are you doing mechanicky qualifications at the moment?

If you are I would suggest that you finish those before you join and in the meantime go and join a reserve unit to find out about the working environment of a REME mechanic

As an FYI: A lad I got to know at Polytechnic/university was working as a part-time mechanic in Castleford, Yorkshire. The rest of the time he started out doing an HND in mechanical engineering, when he got the HND he transferred to the second year of the degree in mech eng and once he got that he applied for the army and MI5. He ended up in the army as an officer, a good one by all accounts because he started out with oil and grease under his finger nails.

In short: The more qualifications you get the better off you will be and the more opportunities will present themselves.
 
Good advice Effendi, lots of paper with seals is the way to go. Personally I have found that the Engineers that started as Artisans are better than those that didn't, they understand the process. I taught my pupil engineers that they do not do the job, their function is to make life easier for the Artisans.
 
Good advice Effendi, lots of paper with seals is the way to go. Personally I have found that the Engineers that started as Artisans are better than those that didn't, they understand the process. I taught my pupil engineers that they do not do the job, their function is to make life easier for the Artisans.
Yup. I've run a few companies and I've always been very aware that my job was to make sure the photocopier had paper, tea and coffee in the kitchen and pay in people's pocket.

They're the ones doing the job, I'm just the guy that made sure they had the resources to get on with it.

Slightly simplistic, but the general gist of it. I was also a resource, with experience and authority.
 
Ditto, my job was largely recruitment and "roadblock removal".

The metric I used for my performance was "if I can pay my guys/gals a hefty annual bonus, I've done my job well".
 
One of the last sections I took over was from a dark green, he used to send the foremen to main office for signatures and sat on his arrse playing computer games. Unfortunately I lost my Red Ticket and had to leave. The section ran like clockwork.
 
I'm not doing any qualifications at the moment it's a shit place that I work they wouldn't send me to college and I just want to get out of this gaff and travel I was just wondering if they'd take me on with just GCSEs and experience. It said on the website that I could get an engineering degree and a HND whilst I was serving can you still do that or do you just plod on doing the same old?
 
I'm not doing any qualifications at the moment it's a shit place that I work they wouldn't send me to college and I just want to get out of this gaff and travel I was just wondering if they'd take me on with just GCSEs and experience. It said on the website that I could get an engineering degree and a HND whilst I was serving can you still do that or do you just plod on doing the same old?

Honestly, if I were you I would gently be looking for another job and tell the new job that you want to go to college. Alternatively as the man before me said "Look at evening classes". I did the city and guilds welding because I fancied learning welding, no other reason, instead of sitting in front of the telly. From september until the following may (8 months) I spent tuesday and thursday evenings at the local college learning how to weld and getting a certificate - even though I did not need them I even received a couple of job offers to go be a welder.

Get yourself off to your local college, speak to someone about starting evening classes in september. It ain't like school, they treat you like a grown up, they know you have a life so they also try not to give you any homework.

Go do that evenings and go join the reserves now to have that well and truly kicked off by the time you start college. Seriously, it sounds like we are nagging, but most of us have been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Between the reserves and college you will meet people, do things and probably even pick up a different job to the one you have.
 

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