Accidental Career Success at 50 Plus
By John Harrison
I've had a pretty chequered career over the last 35 years. In fact you would be hard pressed to call it a career. As I left school with few qualifications in my pocket, my parents explained to me that there was no future in those computer things I was interested in and an exciting career as an accountant awaited me.
Well, we differed on that and I drifted into sales as so many do. I can't say I enjoyed sales much but I was moderately successful at it. I won't bore you with the full details of my CV; I had a couple of businesses that ended in disaster, climbed the corporate ladder a few times and slid down the greasy pole again until I just couldn't take it anymore.
By this time the computers (remember, they would never amount to anything?) were taking off and the wonders of the internet had begun to arrive. So, equipped with a PC in the back bedroom and a couple of ten week evening courses at our local university I embarked on a new career offering computer training and web design.
I knew I could design web sites that worked technically and were actually interesting so a major advantage over the 'geeks' who created web sites at that time.
One thing led to another and then the dot com boom started. Well there I was in an ideal position to take advantage of this new wave. Enough knowledge and skill to control those geeks and an idea that was a little ahead of it's time.
A great business plan
We needed funding and off we went to the venture capitalists with a business plan and asked for £250,000 to bring the idea to market. Came back with nearly a couple of million in our back pocket!
Heady days, indeed. I turned down a cool million for my shareholding, which I suppose was the biggest mistake of my life because just months later the bubble burst. What had easily come had gone and we found ourselves in a smaller house, mortgaged once again and with a bit of money in the bank to tide us over until I got something new off the ground.
As well as computers, I've always been interested in gardening and I took on a couple of allotments around the corner where I could escape to grow vegetables. I discovered I was pretty un-employable. Hitting the big five oh with no paper vocational qualifications and a CV that didn't fit the expectations of any employer I approached. I even applied for a low level job running a web site for a large nursery supplier. You could almost hear the laughter when they looked at my age on the CV.
Number one on Google
Well, I started a web diary to record my successes and failures on the allotment and much to my surprise it began to get popular. I'd only put it online as a hobby but it must have hit a nerve.
One day my wife called across from her computer and said "Look at this, we're number one on Google for allotments!" I knew we'd arrived. My hobby site was now serious and this was rammed home when I had a phone call from the BBC asking for a comment about a plague of slugs.
Next thing was a publisher asking me if I would be interested in writing a book about growing vegetables. Well I've never written a book so it took a lot of thinking before I said I'd give it a go. They even sent me an advance and a contract but I didn't have the confidence to spend the advance. That went into a deposit account because they could have rejected the book and asked for their money back.
Well, long story short, I'm now a published author; book available, as they say, in all good bookshops and online. I've even been sounded out about a TV programme! So, here I am at 50 plus with a success on my hands and it's not anything I planned or expected. I'm not getting rich, but I am keeping my head above water as they say.
So, if you find yourself unemployed and pretty unemployable - don't despair. It's amazing what can happen. You have to wonder what surprises the next decade will bring us all.
More Information
John Harrison is the author of "Vegetable Growing, Month by Month" and runs Allotment Vegetable Growing the most popular web site for allotment growers.
Copyright © John Harrison 2008
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