Jens Ole Mortensen

My story - the long version

I was born in a residential neighborhood in Struer in 1970. My father is trained as a carpenter and has worked as a carpenter, joiner, and building joiner for many years, and my mother is office-trained and did not work outside the home after I was born.

I have two younger brothers, born in 1972 and 1978. Around 1974 my parents, my youngest brother, and I moved out of town to what at the time was considered the countryside. So I was largely raised in rural surroundings, although today the area is almost part of the town.

I spent a lot of time on the neighboring farms, where it was natural for children to help with the work that needed to be done. Otherwise, we were outside playing and doing things that many would probably consider both dangerous and risky today, but back then it was simply boys playing. At home, helping out was also part of everyday life. My father has run a carpentry business and a joinery workshop since we moved out, and there were tasks you were expected to take part in.

When I was about 10 to 11 years old, you were given a choice: if you didn’t want to work at home, you had to find some other part time job, because you had to do something. Doing nothing wasn’t an option where I come from. So I started working at a nearby chicken farm after school until dinner time. Over time I was given more and more responsibility, because you grow with the task. Eventually I often had the weekend shift, responsible for roughly 135,000 chickens, and that sometimes meant getting up in the middle of the night and going out to the farm to restart the old backup power generator if the electricity went out. It was an older unit (I believe it came from an old power plant or perhaps a lighthouse, I can’t quite remember), but I clearly remember it had decompression valves and had to be started by hand crank. That can be quite a job when you are still a young teenager.

When I got home, I had a workshop where I built and repaired many things. I was probably around 12 when I got my first moped, and I started a small side business repairing mopeds, lawn mowers, and other equipment. The money typically went into tools and parts for further work. We were often 4-5 boys who, for several years, spent much of our spare time tinkering with anything we could get our hands on when we weren’t in school or at work.

School was not what interested me most, and that likely meant I wasn’t always where I was supposed to be or doing what I should have been doing. I was from the countryside and perhaps spoke a slightly different dialect than people in town.

Due to how the school districts were drawn, the boys I had known from early childhood went to the country school, while I went to the town school. Reading wasn’t one of my strengths, and it didn’t really capture my interest. Still, things went reasonably well, even though I hardly ever did homework during my school years.

School wasn’t really a success for me. Later, I came to the conclusion that much of what I didn’t learn at school, I would have to learn as an adult. It wasn’t the easiest path, but it was necessary to move forward, so I got started and have continued to upskill in several phases over the years.

In 8th grade I got a new teacher who could see potential in me, even though I didn’t prioritize school. From time to time she would stop by my small workshop in the evening when she was out walking her dog, and we built a good relationship. Around that time I had started working for a bicycle dealer in the afternoons.

The bicycle shop was run by a man who worked at a slaughterhouse during the day and ran the shop on the side, so it was only open for a few hours in the afternoon. At first, we sold bicycles and did bicycle repairs, and I worked there after school. I helped both in the workshop and with sales.

After about three months in 9th grade, my teacher and I could see that school wasn’t good for me, and that I wasn’t good for school either. I had read about the option to work instead of attending school, as long as you remained affiliated with the school, and I raised the idea with my employer. I got both him and my teacher on board, and my teacher was a big help because she also convinced my parents that it was the right solution.

That meant I ended up running the bicycle shop on my own and managing both the store and the workshop full time. I also helped expand the offering so we sold mopeds, moped spare parts, and serviced them in the workshop.

When I wasn’t at work, I continued working in my workshop at home. Among other things, I started building machines for my father that he used in production at the joinery workshop, and I did some electrical work under the skilled guidance of my father’s electrician.

Over time I wanted to move on. I got a job as a workshop assistant in the toolmaker department at Bang & Olufsen (B&O). I was there for a period and then completed an EFG foundation year. After that, I started my apprenticeship at B&O in the toolmaking department.

After finishing my apprenticeship, I worked briefly as a toolmaker, but quickly switched to welding and later moved into metal fabrication. I worked at a metal shop where I picked up a few regular customers that I, in practice, took care of.

At one point there was a quiet period, and I decided to strengthen my skills. I attended welding school for about nine months and earned most of the relevant welding certifications.

For a period I mainly worked as a certified welder, and I later became self-employed with a small fabrication and machine-building business, including an attached plumbing division. Eventually the finances ran out and the business could not continue.

After that I worked as a welder, metalworker, and machinist, among other places at a shipyard. When things were quieter again, I took crane certifications and a forklift certificate. I had operated many kinds of machinery already, but I wanted to have it formally in place.

After that I operated a truck-mounted crane for a period and later a mobile crane for a couple of years (around two to three years). But at some point you’ve had enough of being away from home for around 200 days a year.

I then had a short break where I dealt with some health issues and realized I probably shouldn’t continue doing heavy physical work at the same level.

Later I joined Twinca as an operations manager, and after a couple of years I became the IT-responsible operations manager with responsibility for IT, support, and the development of hardware and software for mink feeding systems. I traveled quite a bit around the world as an expert in the area, and I also programmed the first Twinca dumpers using Curtis controllers.

That came to an abrupt end in 2020 when mink production in Denmark was shut down, which may have represented around 75% of our customer base.

After that, I began building my IT and programming skills through an Academy Profession programme (AU). I completed all the individual courses, but I did not complete a final project, because at that point I had gained the knowledge I needed to move forward.

Following the shutdown, a special “mink scheme” was established, allowing people to retrain while receiving unemployment benefits. In practice, it turned out the scheme did not apply in the same way if you had a CVR number, so my support period was much shorter unless I closed my business. Instead, I chose to go full-time self-employed, took the IT work I could get, and in some periods supplemented with practical trade and garden jobs while studying.

That brings me to today. I have a broad technical background and have worked with IT for many years. In parallel with my day-to-day roles, I’ve run JOM-IT since 2009, delivering IT support/consulting and development. I’m also continuously learning and upskilling. It’s a necessity in IT and software development, and I find it both exciting and challenging.

Since March 2023 I’ve been part of an IT department in a larger company, and from 2024 onward my work has increasingly focused on more advanced IT work and development, primarily C#, SQL, and PowerShell.

Outside of work I’m active in shooting sports (clay targets and rifle) and volunteer as a clay-shooting instructor. I’m also active on the board of a hunting association (shooting range).

What’s the point of sharing all of this? That you can do what you set out to do. It’s a question of effort and determination. Even if things don’t look promising at the start, you can always change direction. I try to live by the principle that “everything is possible; it’s just a matter of effort.” And remember: experts are often the people who have made every conceivable mistake and learned from them. I benefit greatly from having grown up with the mindset that there’s nothing you can’t do. The impossible just takes a little longer.