The experience of a lifetime – and a lifetime of experience

The experience of a lifetime – and a lifetime of experience

As a boy in 1951, Peter Tracey sailed across the North Sea with Chris Ellis who, nine years later, drew on this experience of sailing with young people to found the Ocean Youth Club (now the Ocean Youth Trust).

Peter has therefore been convinced of the value of OYT South’s work for longer than anyone else now living.

People frequently describe their voyage as “the experience of a lifetime” but the question often remains: what next? Maybe you have completed a voyage and had a fantastic time, but afterwards you’ve still got an education to complete, exams to tackle, decisions to be made, a job to find, and a place in the world to establish. Peter has drawn on a lifetime of experience to offer his own personal thoughts to young people who have sailed with us and are thinking about next steps.

Are You Looking for a Way Ahead ?

Whether you are still at school or have left and are uncertain what to do next, here are some tips which may be useful.

1. With luck, you have just had a week with OYT South and we hope that this has shown you a side of life you did not know existed.
2. Only a few young people really know what they want to do with their lives. So don’t worry, get involved with other things which will broaden your life further.
3. For many of us, any job, however menial or boring will help you to understand the world a little bit better (and put cash in your pocket).
4. Try to find a job where the others smile and are friendly.
5. Find a company which treats everybody equally, whatever their sex, colour or other orientation may be.
6. Aim to work for someone who  encourages you to search out what you are good at.
7. Talk to the others about their work and their lives, what they enjoy and what they find hard.
8. With luck, you will find that you are better at doing some things than others. For example, you may find that you are very practical, good at mending a motorbike but not so good at learning other languages.
9. What really suits you will only emerge with time. Climbing a management ladder may not be the best way forward. For example. a brilliant toolmaker may not be a good manager and may lose job satisfaction after being promoted. A difficulty here is that it is hard to know until you have tried.
10. It may take some time, even years, before you find out what you are really good at. So do not hurry.
11. At  the same time, do not stick in really boring jobs where the rest of the workforce are miserable and uncooperative.
12. Take up every opportunity given to you for training even if it is not directly in your line of work. Learning expands the mind. At Nissan in Sunderland, production line workers can get training in flower arranging paid for by management.
13. Trust throughout a business is very important. If you can trust your management to do their best for you, they will trust you to do your best for them. Good companies with unions which work cooperatively for the benefit of everybody are fine. But beware the few whose unions have restrictive practices.
14. An apprenticeship is a great way forward if you can get one. It will give you  both a technical qualification and practical experience.
15. If you already have A-levels, university may be the next step.
16. After you have been to university and have a particular specialism, try to broaden your experience. You never know what other skills will be needed in the future.

A very brief summary of my experience

I started as a student apprentice in a large engineering company, working 6 months at the local technical college followed by 6 months in the company for 4 years. With that I got an HND in electrical engineering. Management at the company was poor. There was nobody who  I could look up to and I felt that I was being sidelined. So I got a job as a sales engineer in a small manufacturing company. The boss was great and listened to my ideas. However there were other management problems at the company and eventually I was told that it was probably going to close.

I had been living on a houseboat for 4 years and so had saved enough to buy a part of the company which saved it from closure. We made lots of changes and we were soon profitable..

Two years later my wonderful boss, now partner died of cancer and I was able to invest the rest of my savings in the company.

We had some good inventions which were very profitable and the company grew rapidly until we had a team of 165. We were always self financing and exported half our production.  A part of our management philosophy was to emphasise the importance of training and trust.

Because of the trust they had shown in me I then gave away my controlling shareholding to my team. Eventually the company was sold but all my team benefited financially. 20 years later, 40% of my old team still worked there.

We had all won.

Peter Tracey