
How I Became a Locum!
It all started in 1991. I have been at my new firm for about 2 years.
The people were nice and polite, the work was challenging and therefore okay, but I had already started to get “itchy feet”. I had realised that being in the same place indefinitely was not for me.
One day a friend called me. ‘Why do not you think about becoming a locum, you get to travel around, you meet new people and the money is pretty good .’I gave it some thought over the next few days. I decided to take the plunge. I have always liked to live my life slightly on the edge of my comfort zone. Not being married or having kids at that point in my life made it easier although I did have a mortgage. I also had some savings, just in case. I signed up with a couple of agencies, handed in my notice, and eventually settled upon a 5-week assignment with a firm in Birmingham, which needed a hand before their new head of department joined them which was due to start a week after my notice period ended so I had a few days to adjust, a habit I still maintain to this day.
The hourly rate and the start date were agreed and I drove down there on a Monday morning wondering if I had done the right thing. Apart from anything else, I had never been to Birmingham before and these were pre-satellite navigation days, but I had left plenty of time to get there, allowing for traffic jams, and the probability of getting lost, and eventually found the office car park.
In those days, computers were rudimentary and inductions of the sort we have today were non-existent, but I remember one of the departmental partners showing me around and introducing me to the staff, after which I went to my room and started to look through the files.
The first day of my new working life had begun…
#nomad