[WillowTheWhisp]

Isn't it amazing how we all seem to be able to tell people what to avoid?

I would say avoid banking. When I first went into banking it was supposed to be a career for life and no-one was ever mad redundant. Ah those were the good old days when it was the personal approach. We knew all our regular customers by name and could remember their account numbers even if they couldn't. Granting loans and overdrafts was a matter of skill and judgement not a case of pushing a few buttons on a computer and seeing what it added up to. Nowadays it's all about selling people things they don't really want or need, and profits and targets. I remember an old manager of mine once saying that there was a difference between selling and marketing. Marketing was finding out what people needed and then seeing if we had the product to suit their needs, selling was finding out what we'd got and making as many people as possible have one regardless of their wants or needs. He said if we ever stopped marketing and started selling it was time to quit. He didn't need to bother about deciding to qut though, so many banks "downsized" and offered tempting redundancy deals to those who were disillusioned by the trend. I was glad to get out. Maybe they aren't all the same but the change of attitude and philosophy just didn't go down well with me.