Before i start; I must admit the amount of awe of some of the people involved in edgeryders instill and inspire within me. I have been lucky enough to have already met some of them, and i hope to meet many more.
i have never created anything, and i have never had an idea that will change the world. but together we just might.
hello my names @thejaymo, and although i have only live 26 short years on this earth, this is my ryde so far.
when i was 8 i was outraged by the braer oil disaster in scotland and spent much of my formative years at school involved in the ‘environmental club’.
when i was 14 i joined a punk rock band - everything i have learned about community and the way the internet brings people together i have learned from the DIY punk rock scene.
when i was 17 i nearly died. this moment in my life was a turning point. i was diagnosed with crohns disease. and since then rely heavily on state to essentially keep me alive.
when i was 18 i went to university to study Philosophy of the Arts. and studied an amazing liberal arts degree coving aesthetics (my dissertation topic) politics and culture, classical philosophy and many more amazing topic whilst there i was involved in the students union and represented students with disabilities. i ran for vice president of welfare in my last year on a hard left platform and only just lost - it was a popularity race.
the climate camp movement during the 2000’s and all those involved have had a great influence on my life. since leaving university at 21 i have worked in a bookshop, was a longterm member of the precariat pre-2008 crash (luckily), but now i work as a technical project manager for a multinational company in the HR sector delivering SAAS solutions it has become clear to me that our way of life is unsustainable, and building resilient communities is a priority. what model is used however - i am here for that discussion.
Communities - A loaded word
Hello @thejaymo, and welcome to Egderyders. There is a great discussion going on here about resilience here. It is quite long and branched out (about 50 comments), but one of the subthreads is about the communities vs. state dimension of resilience. Some people are pro community, but others (notably hexayurt in this comment) claim that only a state can achieve the large-scale spreading of resources to pay for capital-intensive health care (say, heart surgery) or for caring for people with disabilities. So, resilient communities or resilient states? You are welcome to contribute to that discussion. Can I ask you a question? In this story there is an unexpected happy ending, in which you moved from vulnerability and precariat to what looks like a middle class job. How did you achieve this one? Is there anything others Edgeryders could learn from you in this respect?
Happenstance
hi Alberto, thanks for the links: have been lurking around for a long time. thought now it’s probably time to start contributing… yes, the end of the story has had quite an unexpected ending (so far) .
in mid ’08, i took a job as a spreadsheet monkey copying and pasting 8 hours a day at the business i work at, about 10 mins walk from my (at the time, barely affordable) flat. after surviving the first round of redundancies that came in early '09, i was promoted to project manager, then later team leader of the project managers in my department, and then moved diagonally up into the ‘technical solutions’ department i now work.
i certainly have been lucky that my company practices what it preaches (it’s a ‘talent management’ company) and they put a considerable effort into developing/offering opportunities to its employees (which i am grateful for). this has allowed me over the last 4 years to obtain promotions/diagonal moves through the business. originally techincal, role my company recently had a merger and reorganised, as a result my department shifted one foot sideways from a project managing and delivery into more of a consultancy role.
the key thing i think this brings to edgeryders is both highlighting change, and flexibility within businesses.
the company i work for has not stopped evolving / developing and changing in the short time i have worked for it and shows no sign of slowing down. this rate of change with its willingness to expend effort to develop employees and ‘take a chance’ on people has been a key driver in allowing me to get to where i am today.
believe me - sometimes when i think about it, i have moments of shock at how far i have managed to come in the last 4 years. especially when i think back to how things were 5 years ago. i am however very lucky that the beginnings of all this started pre-crash. had i not left my job in the bookshop when i did, life would be very different for me now i’m sure…
the idea
I think that all the experiences of your “ride” or of everyone’s ride could help a person understand its results and its past, in order to develop and work on a better future. The point is that everyone’s “ride” is different and may contain some common elements that could be founded in our life events. From here whe may not talk to a mentor or go to a life coach, because is better when you realise what was and what is happening with you, THink that You got the power to transmit something quite interesting about a sensitive subject.