Joe Blog(g)s
Hello everyone!
For those of you who I haven’t emailed yet – I’m Joe.
I joined FLP in June this year as a trainee paraplanner (or "technical support"), after a gruelling ten months in a warehouse. Pre-that, I graduated with a degree in Media and Communications, which I thought meant I’d end up writing about sport all the time – not writing post annual planning meeting suitability reports.
I did spend three years in financial planning before university doing administration, so I do have some idea about what I’m doing, despite the dramatic shift.
Proving that like a true FLP-er, I am also keen on mountains.
A bit about me:
I’m very much at the “what does this mean?” stage of paraplanning, but I’ve come to accept that confusion is just part of the learning curve. Thankfully, Kate and Rebecca haven’t got sick of me asking “what am I actually doing?" multiple times a day yet.
I’m naturally quite curious, or nosey, and enjoy understanding how things work – even if, again, I have to pester everyone ten times before I can do it alone. But so far I’m a big fan of all the colour-coded spreadsheets and that very specific satisfaction you get when filling in a report, much to Kate’s disgust and Rebecca’s delight.
Joining FLP has been an unexpected change. After three years doing admin, I believed I never wanted to step foot in an office again, yet nearly four years later when the opportunity to sit at my desk in my room on a laptop came about, I moved like a whippet to leave the warehouse as soon as possible.
A few things I’m working on at the moment:
Learning the ropes: Right now, every day is a school day. I’m back in the trenches – absorbing everything I can about financial planning, paraplanning, compliance, and any other terms getting flung my way.
Supporting the bosses: While I’m not quite ready to do everything totally by myself, it brings great satisfaction finishing a report and being told there’s no errors. While I’m a little way off being able to crack on independently all day every day, being able to take miscellaneous bits and bobs makes me feel useful and satisfied with my decision to give this a go.
Getting qualified (eventually): In an ideal world, I will prosper and be moulded into a paraplanning butterfly, being able to do things alone and not need to jump into a Teams meeting or poke my head round the office door every five minutes. The plan is to have some of my first exams (or just one) done by the end of 2026. I’m still learning to crawl but ideally I’ll be up and running soon.
And a few things on a personal note as I have spent most of this coming across as a very confusing person:
Do more things: This year something I am keen to try is Doing More Things. A lot of my early young adult life was during covid or its fallout, meaning I had no real university experience, no in person lectures, no socials, no living in halls, I can count on one hand how many times I went to a club - not that I want to do that now at the massive age of 25 but still, I do not wish to waste away. Whether that is communing with nature or spending heinous amounts of money getting from Cardiff to London to watch Tottenham play dreadful football, these things are on the list.
Learn how to explain my job to friends: Nothing against my family but my friends are my favourite people in the world, yet I have no idea how to communicate with them. Every time I say I’m learning to be a paraplanner, one of them asks what that is, and I have to stare blankly at them while figuring out the right way to explain it. As of writing, I have been doing this for three and a half months, and have not yet given anyone the same two answers. This is probably the task I should have as a top priority. I do know how to do my job I promise.
I’m so excited to grow with FLP, learn from the brilliant people around me, and one day be able to talk about DB transfers without blinking.
Here’s to the next chapter – and to understanding more than 50% of what’s going on by this time next year.
Wish me luck!
Joe