It's all about me - work

What has happened to me in the last three years? I did end up being made redundant from JC Decaux in London. It all got a little bit messy towards the end, but life turned out alright as I took up a job offer as factory manager at one of my suppliers. They were based in Portsmouth and was a printing and graphics company. I started with them on July 1st 2009 and ended up staying until September 2011. Maybe staying isn’t the word, surviving probably being more appropriate. The job was interesting and exciting to start with, but the longer I was there the more I learnt that it was a most bizarre organisation. It was owned by a paranoid manic depressive who was completely irrational. He steadfastly refused to invest in the company which meant that the machines were kept running by a combination of bodging and luck. The directors all hated each other and were regularly at war with all of us caught in the middle. The staff on the whole were competent and good workers, but there was very little motivation in the place due to the owners attitude.

I ended up doing several roles at the company (many at the same time) including running the factory and running accounts for Sunglass Hut and the National Trust. Those were enjoyable sides to the role as it allowed me to deal with people and solve problems which I’m good at. Looking back the experience was very tough and included me being accused of sexual assault by an employee I took on and then fired due to incompetence. However I’m very pleased I toughed it out until I found a new role as it has given me a very good and solid base from which to build my career. During my term there I learnt a huge amount about employment law, learnt to manage shop floor staff (whereas before I’d been used to London office staff), learnt to ignore unreasonable crap being thrown at me and toughened up a lot. Every job I had been in up to then was measured in levels of success. This job was all about degrees of failure. I think my percentage of failure was quite low and I am proud to have lasted longer than almost everyone else who historically did that role. In life what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and that adage could have been written for Gardiner Graphics!

Staying on the employment theme I am now working in graphics but for a vehicle repair company. Once again I am running a part of the organisation, but this is one with a structure, a proper IT/MIS system, motivated staff and the resources to get the proper equipment to be able to do the job correctly. I am pleased to say that since joining the turnover has doubled and we are now consistently making a decent profit. When I joined it was a stated goal to achieve £50,000 per month in turnover and that had never been done (the monthly average was around £30,000). We are now consistently in the £60,000 + levels. Other elements of the company have been through a tough time in recent weeks, but we have been left alone which to me confirms we have done a good job.

The best aspect of work is that I am enjoying it most of the time. I have a long commute each day (80 miles), and that does wear me down a bit, but I look forward to work most of the time. This week has been a bit quieter, but this is the first time in 9 months that has happened. The people working for me are good and do a good job on the whole. I am still learning about this aspect of graphics and that is also motivating. The money is better and the potential is there to progress both financially and from a business perspective. I am not coming to work wondering who is going to be bullied that day and whether I’m going to be threatened with being fired again.