It's ironic that I decided to start this blog today because this morning when I took that brief look at Facebook on my iPad soon after waking up, and tapping that little red new notification button at the bottom of the page I was met with a reminder that it was 10 years ago to the day (22nd January 2010) that I was offered that first job at McLaren Automotive in the UK.
I remember the phone call as if it were yesterday, I was standing on the first tee of a golf course in Kent with my stepdad Ken and one of his golfing buddies. It was freezing cold, gloomy and muddy and I hadn't swung a golf club in months!
The caller was just the junior recruitment specialist in the HR team but his words took my breath away. I was being offered the opportunity to join McLaren, the Formula One team I had watched on TV since I was a child. I remember physically shaking with excitement when it was my turn to step up and hit my drive. Needless to say I sliced it out of bounds, but nothing new there!
I had found out while casually searching for jobs online a couple of months before that McLaren was in the process of developing a mid-engine road car to compete with the likes of Ferrari and Lamborghini, they were hiring for lots of engineering and technician roles. The role that I walked into was as an Electrical Technician in the Product Development department.
Theoretically I was pretty well suited to this having worked as a Diagnostic Technician with Mercedes-Benz and Nissan, I guess I fitted the profile of what they thought they needed, but reality was quite different once I got started. But more of that to come!
