Father's Day Special! Gwen talks to her Dad about his job working as a manager in a shop, and what he wanted to be when he was growing up.
Gwen's Dad teaches her that sometimes, knowing what you definitely don't want to do, and running away from that, can lead you towards the thing that you end up loving!
Visit our website for past episodes and to find out what's coming soon: https://gwengetstowork.com/
Produced by Enigma Records: https://enigmarecords.co.uk/
Father's Day Special! Gwen talks to her Dad about his job working as a manager in a shop, and what he wanted to be when he was growing up.
Gwen's Dad teaches her that sometimes, knowing what you definitely don't want to do, and running away from that, can lead you towards the thing that you end up loving!
Visit our website for past episodes and to find out what's coming soon: https://gwengetstowork.com/
Produced by Enigma Records: https://enigmarecords.co.uk/
Have you ever been asked, what do you want to be when you grow up?
Gwen's Mum :Gwen Gets To Work
Gwen :I talking to people to people, and they like talking back to me. At least that's what I think. One day I asked my mum, how do I know what I want to be when I grow up? My mum said, if I interview people about like their jobs and things like that, I will find out and, like, the view or the people who are listening, um, you will find out too if you don't know. Let's get to work! In this week's episode. I am talking somebody very special and it's coming out a day earlier because it's Father's Day, and I interviewed my dad, a retail manager. And I hope you enjoy it because I enjoyed interviewing him. Hello.
Gwen's Dad :Hello, how are you?
Gwen :Good. Ah, shall we get on with the questions?
Gwen's Dad :Yeah, that'd be great. I'm really looking forward to this.
Gwen :Happy Father's Day.
Gwen's Dad :Thank you!
Gwen :Now on to the questions. When you were little what did you want to be when you were a kid?
Gwen's Dad :When I was a little boy, I wanted to be a footballer, professional footballer. I fell in love football soon after the 1986 World Cup which was in Mexico.
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Gwen's Dad :And my abiding memory of that was not really watching any of the games but running up and down my living room, chanting and celebrating and annoying my uncle and dad.
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Gwen :What do you do now?
Gwen's Dad :What do I do now? I'm a retail manager. So when I was, when I finished university, I didn't know what I really wanted to do. So I came home and I didn't really want to come back to Reading at the time, but I was, as I went to University of Manchester and I loved it in Manchester, but I, yeah, I needed to come back home and try and find a job. So I did various office jobs and various factory jobs. And then my dad, basically I work for the Prudential for about eight months, and they were an insurance company, probably longer than eight months, actually. But one day, I just decided that I wanted to quit as I didn't really want to work in an office. Not that there's anything wrong with working in office. It was an insurance company. And my job was to order files for people. And I found it very, very boring. And I was surrounded by people that were 20/30 years older than me, and that had been their one job. So I was adamant that that wasn't what I was going to do. So I just quit my job. And I didn't have anything else to go into. So I just did what's known as temping. So various bits of sort of short term jobs until I kind of worked out what I wanted to do and then my dad said he would find me a job working with him. And I thought that was the last thing that I wanted to do. So I applied for a part time for a Christmas job at HMV just so I could tide over the time. I guess, keep keep my dad away from me off my back. So I applied for that and I loved it so much. I was working with people, like minded people, and I got to, you know, listen to music all day, and chat to people my own age, which I loved. And then it had a very good social scene afterwards. And I loved it so much that I stayed after; I was lucky that they were, they offered me a job after the Christmas period, when things went a bit quieter. And yeah, before I knew it, I was at work there for the best part of seven to eight years. And I was fortunate enough to be able to travel around so I worked in many different locations, and ended up working in London, which was very fun. And then joined my current company.
Gwen :What if you couldn't do this, the job that you're doing now, um, what else would you do? But before you answer, I would guess, a famous footballer?
Gwen's Dad :If I was good enough, that's what I would have wanted to do. Yes, you know me too well. I don't know if not a footballer if I had any choice, and it wasn't directly to do with being a footballer I'd have liked to have been a football journalist or a sports journalist. So writing about the current affairs, or current football or sports news.
Gwen :What do you do normally all day?
Gwen's Dad :What do I do normally all day? It depends who you ask. A lot of people would say I just sit behind the desk, tapping away on a computer. My day is very, very varied depending on what's happening. So currently in this current predicament it's been very, very unusual in that I've been working from home. I've been on lots of conference calls and lots of phone calls, talking to people and talking to my team, making sure they're all right. Basically, overall, my job is twofold. It's to make sure that I make my team have a happy job, and a happy life and then and also that I make customers have a happy time, and that they love their products as well.
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Gwen :Adding on to that question,well, sort of, what do you eat and drink at work?
Gwen's Dad :What do I eat and drink at work? Oh, that varies as well. So a lot of the time, um, there's times when I bring in sandwiches and I bring in food from home, but then also we do things like when it's busy and at certain times of the year we provide food for the team. So we also, we do special cuisine and days around the - nice drink - days around the - is that alcohol you're drinking in there?
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Gwen :Er, a different type of cauliflower.....cordial I mean!
Gwen's Dad :Cordial, not cauliflower.
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Gwen's Dad :Yeah, no, different different types of food. We do, we provide like smoothies for people. We provide breakfast we do things like donuts, we order burgers, chicken wraps.
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Gwen's Dad :Many different types of food that we have at work. Are you licking your lips the thought of eating a doughnut?
Gwen :Sounds delish. What is your favourite bit about the job and your least favourite bit?
Gwen's Dad :Oh, that's a good question. My favourite bit is that I get to work with such cool people like the team that we have are the most inspiring people that I get to I get to work with on a daily basis and no two days are the same. The second part, I guess, what's my least favourite bit is not being able to make some people happy. So I think with the place I work currently has, you know, very high standards and sometimes it's hard to meet the demands of either the team or or a customer, sometimes on the rare occasion, so when that does happen, it's not very often, you can't make somebody happy. So that's never nice is it, when you can't make somebody happy?
Gwen :Sounds a bit sad, but also happy.
Gwen's Dad :Ha ha. Doesn't happen much.
Gwen :Nah.
Gwen's Dad :Yeah.
Gwen :If you had to choose, well, if you had to tell people, five different jobs to do, like five different, you know, like, you know what I mean.
Gwen's Dad :Careers?
Gwen :Yeah.
Gwen's Dad :So what I would recommend, if I was talking to a younger me, I would say, learn a trade or do something practical so I'd have loved to have actually learnt how to be a plumber or an electrician or in some regards because I'm, I'm terrible at any form of DIY or, or any sort of manual labour i'm not very good at and I wish I was. So a carpenter, electrician, a plumber, that type of thing would have been great. I would recommend for somebody to, for you to, work in a factory, even if it's just for a couple of weeks or months so you have the experience of doing it. I would recommend working in an office so you would know what it would be like working behind a desk all day. Then I'd also recommend doing something like, when you when you are old enough and generally people work in retail initially when they first leave school as a part time job, so I'd recommend that because that will be able to give you a taste of whether you want to work with the general public because if you work in an office or factory then you don't do that. What else, I recommend that you are a professional footballer, as you say Gwen, or boxer. So I think you've got some fighting spirit inside you. Um, so how many we up to is that four?
Gwen :I think well..
Gwen's Dad :Electrician, plumber or carpenter; office worker; factory worker; shop worker; and then, let's say I'd love, why didn't you become an artist or an actress? So something creative.
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Gwen's Dad :That's five.
Gwen :How many was that? Five, yeah.
Gwen's Dad :I put about, gave you about 15 different jobs you could do there but different types.
Gwen :Have you got any Fatherly advice for me?
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Gwen's Dad :Fatherly advice is, yeah, is do something that you love. Don't settle by doing something that you don't particularly enjoy or follow a field that you don't enjoy, because that will make you unhappy. There are lots of people, life's too short to do the job that you don't like doing so yeah, follow your dreams, and you can achieve anything and do anything.
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Gwen's Dad :And don't let anybody tell you you can't.
Gwen :That reminds me of a question that I asked someone else which I want to ask you. Do you have any funny stories?
Gwen's Dad :Funny stories from my work?
Gwen :Yeah,
Gwen's Dad :I think I've told you about this one before. Many, oh god you've put me on the spot, many, many funny stories. I can't really tell you one that I've had recently in this recent place / with my most recent place of work but in my job - when I worked my first job - was working in Toys R Us. And we used to have motorised scooters that we sold in the in the shop. And what we used to like doing when the store was shut, was getting in the motorised scooters, which were designed for kids, kids of your age or younger. We used to get in them as adults and then race around the store.
Gwen :Yeah I remember that
Gwen's Dad :We used to knock over the toys and knock over the streets but we keep going because we'd want to win the race. So that was fun.
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Gwen's Dad :I think you would like you would like working in that job. My job at Toys R Us was great. I really enjoyed that when I was younger.
Gwen :Yeah. Who pays you because you would think your manager would pay you and you're a manager, a retail manager.
Gwen's Dad :So yeah, I don't I obviously don't pay myself. I work for a big corporation. So so the company pays me rather than me as the, as the boss. So it's not like it's not like mummy who is her own boss, and who pays herself. I work for a company. Who pays you?
Gwen :Ummmmmmm!
Gwen's Dad :Do you get paid?
Gwen :No!
Gwen's Dad :What advice would you have for me?
Gwen :Errrrrr. This is hard!
Gwen's Dad :Okay don't worry about answering that, what five jobs would you like to do?
Gwen :Well, I have so many different jobs. I want to be for the past. But if I had to pick five, I would either be an actress. Definitely not a singer.
Gwen's Dad :Why not?
Gwen :I don't know. That also makes me think of MMA fighter.
Gwen's Dad :Yeah.
Gwen :According to the boxing gloves. Ah, maybe a fashion designer. I'm not sure. But...
Gwen's Dad :Would you like to be an artist?
Gwen :Yeah. And, explorer.
Gwen's Dad :Yeah that sounds cool.
Gwen :I have so many.
Gwen's Dad :You're still very young.
Gwen :It's hard, when you're young, it's hard to choose which, um, you know, like, jobs you want to choose.
Gwen's Dad :Yeah.
Gwen :You know that sometimes girls have different things they like to boys? If you were a girl, what do you think you would like to be when you're, if you wanted a job? Five things. It just popped into my head!
Gwen's Dad :I think it would have been the same thing. Okay. And that's one of the questions I was going to ask you is, do you feel like your career is going to be different as a, your working life will be different because you're female, as opposed to what it would be like if you were male?
Gwen :If wait, does that mean that I say does that mean, should I tell you the five things that if I was a boy?
Gwen's Dad :Not things, I just wondered if you think that you are going to do a certain job because you are a woman rather than you know, because you're a man?
Gwen :To explain it, I would probably, yes, because if I was a man, I would probably, and I would love football like you which I probably would, I'd probably be a footballer or something like that, or try and get a job for you know, um, but according to I'm a girl or when I'm a female, uh, I will probably want to be something you know, like, sort of girly or something like that. Not to be you know, like..
Gwen's Dad :Yeah. Yeah, I mean it shouldn't make a difference should it whether you're a lady or a man? You should be able to do the same job.
Gwen :Probably just be, you know like a model or something like that instead of a footballer.
Gwen's Dad :Okay. Quite gender specific.
Gwen :But that was actually a really hard question, because it's in the middle. I don't know if I would say yes or no.
Gwen's Dad :No, yeah. In your podcast you've interviewed many people.
Gwen :Yeah
Gwen's Dad :And the majority of them have been ladies.
Gwen :Yeah.
Gwen's Dad :But they've done some incredible jobs you know so you would have thought would be traditionally would be a male job like president you would think would be a male job and it's greata that it's a female and, you know, you've interviewed a dentist, an actress, a teachers, a boxer, you know all jobs that men and women can do so you shouldn't limit yourself because you are a lady.
Gwen :But the question that you just asked me was sort of a no sort of a yes.
Gwen's Dad :Yeah, no, I understand at the moment it might feel like that way.
Gwen :Yeah. Well, would you pick between that yes or no? Or in the middle?
Gwen's Dad :Ah, would my job have been different if I was a woman? No. Don't think so. I probably won't be so football obsessed.
Gwen :Yeah I know what you mean.
Gwen's Dad :My mum's been very sporty. So your nanny's sport, isn't she? So.
Gwen :Yeah.
Gwen's Dad :I think that's, whereas my dad wasn't particularly sporty at all. So.
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Gwen's Dad :It I think I get that from my mother rather than my dad.
Gwen :Do you ever do any, you know like in Toys'R'Us when you said, do you ever do like before you go you you like, do any little cheeky things or do you? Well do you ever go on the phones? You know like at certain times?
Gwen's Dad :Yeah you do all of those sort of silly things. We used to play with the toys, used to play in the computer games when I was at Toys R Us so, quite cheeky little games and play with each other and then a lot of the time you just try and amuse - because it was a part time job and I knew I wasn't going to be there forever I tried to make it as fun as possible and I used it more to socialise with people rather than to do any sort of serious work.
Gwen :Oh yeah. What do you get to wear?
Gwen's Dad :What do I get to wear for work? So I get, I have a uniform as the, as a T shirt that I have to wear but I can wear jeans. I predominently wear jeans and either trainers or shoes.
Gwen :Do you wear, like when I go to work you're normally wearing that, you know I'm trying to explain the jacket but it's like that black jacket.
Gwen's Dad :Yeah, sometimes you can wear a zip up top.
Gwen :Yeah, over your T shirt.
Gwen's Dad :That's a uniform over the T shirt, but that's only predominantly in the winter.
Gwen :Ah, well I actually think that's it!
Gwen's Dad :Thank you. Do you know, do you have any idea from... I know asked you the five sort of careers that you want to do ... what's been (apart from me being your favourite interview, obviously), what has been your favourite interview so far? And why?
Gwen :I've sorty of said little different things in different podcasts, different episodes. But it's, it's too hard. I've loved all of them.
Gwen's Dad :Yeah, that's a good answer.
Gwen :All of them.
Gwen's Dad :All of them. Yeah, that's good.
Gwen :Yeah, they're all my favourite.
Gwen's Dad :And who else? What else have you got lined up for your, for interviews?
Gwen :Uh, I think we're gonna do, you know the, Polly?
Gwen's Dad :Yes.
Gwen :Yeah. We're doing a Greek philosopher, Ben.
Gwen's Dad :Wow.
Gwen :Well, we've already interviewed him, but..
Gwen's Dad :That's coming out soon is it?
Gwen :That's coming out after yours. Yeah, we're doing um, Jemima.
Gwen's Dad :Fantastic.
Gwen :The bee, you know, keeper. We're going to the hives to see her bees. Whic his exciting.
Gwen's Dad :Fantastic, that is exciting.
Gwen :I think we might be interviewing..we're gonna do James, you know the jazz piano.
Gwen's Dad :Jazz pianist, yep.
Gwen :Yeah. After that. Um, a few months later, we'll probably do a, you know like a jazz music person. A classical guitarist.
Gwen's Dad :Cool.
Gwen :Hard to say.
Gwen's Dad :That'll be interesting. Is there any dream person you'd like to interview?
Gwen :Like famous people?
Gwen's Dad :It can be a famous person if you want, doesn't have to be famous. You could do your grandma or nanny, what it's like to be a mother. That's a full time job.
Gwen :Yeah, probably isn't a dream one. But, if I could I would probably interview myself.
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Gwen :And say "Gwen"!
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Gwen :But I couldn't do that. I actually don't know.
Gwen's Dad :Have a think, and next time let me know.
Gwen :Ah. How about The Queen?
Gwen's Dad :That'd be a good one. Yeah, that'd be a dream person to interview.
Gwen :Maybe but, um, might be a bit hard to get in contact with her.
Gwen's Dad :Yes. Okay, well, I better let you go then should I? It's your bedtime.
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Gwen :If you want to, sure. Have a nice day. Well, tomorrow day. Oi!
Gwen's Dad :Okay. All right, then. Well, I'll see you later. Love you. Bye.
Gwen :Bye. In next week's episode, get ready for your mind to be blown. I'm interviewing a Greek philosopher or a classics fellow. If you're wondering what a classics fellow or a Greek philosopheris, a greek philosopher or a classics fellow is a person who knows all about the gods and things like that. So, get ready for your mind to be full with facts. Transcribed by https://otter.ai