I didn't really have a plan - I just keep going 'hey I wonder if i can...' and then trying to find out.

School was pretty much a non starter as my parents kept me off a lot of classes - we were rural and I was the eldest - so I was needed at home.

I started out at 16 as a hairdresser but turned out to be a bit shite at it so cycled through some less interesting but very well paid jobs in factories, cleaning, dishwashing etc then wanted to do something more important and started volunteering for a couple charities then from there taking small gigs in community organizing, peer education, youth work etc - but kept losing more long term salaried jobs to people with an education so went off and got onto a college access course, then Highers then did a BA. During all this I picked up jobs in call centres etc to pay bills and ran a charity shop. After finishing uni I spent about 8 months in various call centres - including one where I was advising people on their benefit claims and another where I was selling elderly people windows - before taking a job as a support worker for adults with learning disabilities. I'm pretty happy with this - and will be for at least a year I'd say as this is pretty varied and new support users are always appearing with new and interesting needs - but I've still got a few jobs I wonder if I could do and want to try.