Tayo Bashar Alao

My name is Tayo Bashar Alao and I am in Birmingham and I work with Jaguar Land Rover as a production operative.

Yeah, basically I do lot of things but I'm gonna break it down.

I literally fix the brake pipes on the car, I fix on the deployable side steps on the car. Deployable side steps is literally, you know when you open your car there's a thingy that comes in that helps you step on the car, that's what it means, that's what deployable side step means.

And also glazing, glazing means cutting off your screen, let's say the windscreen of a car is broken or let's say the back screen or side screen, any screens on the car is broken. What I do is I cut it off and I replace it with a new one.

So that's what I do, that's what happens in my day.

I work with different kind of people. Let me talk about the deployables, I mean the steps that you go into your car. We have to be two on that. I'll do it the right hand side where somebody else do the left hand side, obviously.

If you fit in a bracket for the safety also, I do the right hand side where the other person do the left hand side obviously.

So I work with a guy named Gini, he's a Pakistani but he was born British, he was born in this country. So he's a great guy basically and I also feed the break pipes. He does other things.

So I got Jason, so he's a cool guy also, he does different things also. So you fit in the sound deadening, the sound deadening that is what helps the speaker of a car.

So we got guys doing different things basically. So I work with loads of people like I would say five to ten people, yeah.

So we're doing a specific thing on the car at the same time, so different people with different jobs to do, so that's literally what we do.

That diversity is the best thing about my job because we've got, I would say, yes, diversity for me because I've got different people, different colour, different races and there's nothing like racism over there. We are accepted.

For me example, I came from Nigeria. I came into this country three years ago and I blended and integrated so fast whereby the people around me, my colleagues and locals, they took me in as they see me. There's nothing to complain about.

So I would say diversity is the best thing about my job because I'm always happy to be there since I've got no one to, how would I say, frustrate me or make me feel less than myself.

So diversity is the best thing about my job. Yes.

The hardest part of my job to work is to wake up in the morning very early because we've got three shifts.

I've got morning shifts. We have to wake up at 6 am. No, we have to resume at 6 am. So you have to wake up early. I wake up 4 am every day to go to job.

So even on nights, we work night from 8 pm the night to 6 in the morning. That can be exhausting because it's long hours. And days also, which it will start by 1.30 to 8 p.m.

So I would say for me the hardest part of my job is going to work because it's so tight.

It can be very hard to stand up from your bed, especially on morning shifts. So that's the hardest part for me.

Yeah, before I came into this country, I was back home. I studied, personally, I studied aeronautics engineering. I'm an engineering student. I've got a bachelor's in aeronautics engineering.

I've involved myself in different things back home in Nigeria. I've worked for the Air Force, I was doing aircraft maintenance. I did, I was working at, what's it called, air traffic safety.

I did that also. And also I found myself, especially in, project management also. I did project management.

So these are different companies because my first job, which is the aircraft maintenance, was like an internship. So I did that for one year. I moved to university, I had to work with the air traffic safety guys and learn a lot of things.

So from there, so looking for a job, my dad helped me get a job at a very respectable company back home, whereby I was working as a facility officer on the facility manager.

So literally what we just do is look after buildings, focus on the buildings, check out the buildings, plans and everything. So literally just about buildings and maintenance, HVAC system.

So after that, I found myself in the UK. So I came to the UK in 2023, like I said, and my first job, I was doing freelancing. I was training AI online. I did that for free until I got the Jaguar Land Rover job.

So I've been with Jaguar Land Rover ever since 2023, December 2023. Yes, that's what it is. So it's not been much of a thing but it is, I've been to different roles. I've been to different roles.

To be honest, to be fair, when I came into this country, I was trying to go into aircraft maintenance over here, but I figured I've got to do some, what's it called, licensing over here because it's UK, it's got its own rules, it's got its own regulation and everything. So that would cost me a lot of money, in which I have to raise for. So my plan is still to go into aircraft maintenance.

I got into JLR and I love what I'm doing, so I'm thinking, why do I still need to go continue my education. But I really want to because there are some jobs in Jaguar Land Rover, I applied for recent jobs.

I'm trying to apply to that probably to get into maintenance because literally I have a passion for maintenance since school time so I'll be looking up to that.

So my job right now doesn't really relate to what I studied at school, but I'm just doing it because I'm actually loving the job to be honest with you.

That is me being at the facility management company back in Nigeria.

I wasn't expecting that move for me because it was so different to what I've been through. I've been into engineering, I've been into maintenance, I've been into different things but that was so different so I would say that is the most one. That is the most.

I got a new experience, I saw new things I never knew. I had new ideas, I developed new ideas, you know, and so I would say that's the most for me. The facility management is the most, yes.

I've got friends over here that came from Nigeria. It's hard for you to be like an engineer or an engineering student from Nigeria, coming to the UK and get into the system and it's really hard.

So, but other things I noticed is if you studied medicine or you studied nursing, it's easy for you to integrate into the system over here because if you come into this country as a doctor or as a nurse or as a nursing student it's easy for you to get jobs.

It's not easy as an engineering student, it's not easy as maintenance, it's not easy as anything else except for healthcare.

So I would have advised myself to go for nursing or for doctor because to be honest with you, I came into this country and I was expecting a lot because I had bigger plans but a lot of things happened.

It was like an heartbreak because I came into the country applying for jobs, applying for jobs, I keep getting loss of opportunity, even though I've got experience and it doesn't really matter.

So that's what I would say, that's the advice I would give to myself is to study different things. If I had known I would come to the UK apparently.