My dad is currently working his way through the end of his probationary period with the police. For 12 hour shifts my dad is part of the team that guards a nuclear site. The 12 hour shifts can be gruelling on him but it's rare that he complains. He's always said that he'd work at Tescos (British supermarket) if he had to, to support his family. To be honest, me and my dad are a little too similar so we tend to butt heads every now and again. But, almost every moment of the day, I can't help but be in awe of what he is and what he represents. The man simply doesn't stop.
Before he got the job in the police, he completed his full 24 years in the army- rocketing through the ranks and achieving the highest possible rank for an enlisted soldier (WO1 if I'm correct?) by the age of 36 whilst all his peers didn't achieve this until their early 40's. In his final few years, he was in high demand to over see a team that was placed far away from us. But, given that me and my siblings were only just getting used to our new home (we moved a lot), we decided this once to not move with him. This pushed my dad to the limits, he couldn't bare being away from us all. Because, despite him working full time since he was 16, he's always known that this wasn't the most important thing. My dad has always told me that the way in life is too, 'work to live, don't live to work'.
And so, when his job was done and he had finished his 24 years, he decided to leave. This is despite a brigadier hand selecting him to do this job and recommending him personally to be put through and become an officer. And my dad might just have done it too, but they played around with his family and put strain on us and he wasn't having it.
So that's my dad, he only had one day of official unemployment between officially being released from the military and being accepted into police training.
He also enjoys 'dad jokes', re-telling us useless facts he's learnt and just generally being the kind of person that if I could be a fraction of, I'd know that I'd done alright. He's the funniest guy I know and also the hardest worker I know. He's actually due back from his shift in a few hours. And sorry if this sounded like bragging or something, but someone has to brag for him.