.....I almost joined this telecoms company in May 1986 before I joined the other one where Connie and I met but it was conditional to work every Sunday so I turned them down at that time. The salary I was being offered now was improved from that time and, as I was now saving up for a deposit on a house, I needed a steady wage. I was also tiring of moving from job to job. However, the Sunday working still stood and to rub salt in the wound they made my start date a Sunday.
My time working on the trade counter was unhappy. I had no affinity with selling goods but steeled myself and got on with it. It was during this time in April 1990 that the notorious riot at Strangeways prison started. The building I was working in was less than half a mile from the prison and I was working on the counter on the Sunday morning when the riot started. On that morning I was making feeble attempts to sell novelty Mickey Mouse telephones etc against a backdrop of helicopters in the sky above and a huge media contingent on the doorstep. It was only much later I realised how serious it all was. For the next 3 weeks I carried out my arduous tasks whilst listening to the rioters shouting their demands from the prison roof in the middle distance.
By May 1990 the weather had warmed up and my blood pressure was rising on the trade counter. One day, the sales director called me into his office. I sat down and he proceeded to tell me I wasn't dressed smartly enough (It was hot on the counter so I used to roll up my sleeves and loosen my tie), that I wasn't pro-active enough selling goods and then gradually assassinated my character. I had made him aware at the interview that I had no sales experience but it didn't stop him taking me on in this role so I now assumed he had regretted his decision and that he was now going to show me the door. Surprisingly, he then said he felt I did have some skills they could use and would I be interested in moving into their customer service section dealing with returned faulty goods etc. This was perfect as this was very similar to the role I had with their rivals around the corner so I sold my soul and accepted his proposition.
There was a lad already working in the customer service role. I had got on really well with him so I assumed I would now be working with him. They wanted me to finish off the week on the counter. It was during this time the existing customer service lad stopped as he was passing me one morning and shook my hand. He wished me all the best and told me he had just been sacked. I was stunned and felt terrible. They had sounded me out first then shafted him. For a day or 2 after this I was so upset I considered leaving the company. I spoke to one of the other managers about my concerns and he just shrugged and said "that's business, you'll be better at the job than him".
The building we were working in was a Victorian death trap that must have had multiple health and safety failings and plans were already in place for the company to move to a brand new leased building in Salford Quays. This move took place in August 1990. Much to my displeasure we had to move everything ourselves in hired vans. The new building had been designed very much with a hierarchy. The sales office was modern, spacious and airy with large windows. I was placed in what can only be described as a bat cave. No natural daylight and prison like walls. I wasn't complaining though (for a change!) and I was mostly just left to get on with my own work.
Over the next few years I became really settled in this job. I did, however, start to take on the complexion of Dracula. One particularly good workmate at this time was Phil Baxter. We had a shared love of the same genres of music and used to frequently chat about our favourite bands of the day (Nirvana, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, The Pixies and so on). Phil and I used to see many live bands together at venues such as The Witchwood in Ashton under Lyne. On one occasion he persuaded me to see one of his favourite new local bands called Family Bam Bam. On that night the audience was virtually outnumbered by the band and they actually started asking us what we wanted them to play!
Gradually, the Sunday working was reduced to fortnightly, then monthly and by 1995 it was scrapped altogether.The company was growing rapidly and now had a far bigger turnover than my previous employer in Cheetham Hill. New staff were recruited in all departments and part of the reason for scrapping Sunday working was that many potential new employees were turning down roles due to the conditional Sunday working (as I had done in 1986). Of course, I was happy with the new working arrangements as I had been working up to 50 hours a week but still felt some bitterness that the "new order" had brought this about and the existing staff prior to the new influx were never fully rewarded for their loyalty and hard work in growing the company to where it was then.
In 1997 my department moved out of the bat cave into an adjacent leased building, connected by a newly constructed walkway. The department now employed 8 people and my manager asked me to take on more of a supervisory role. This did not work out for various reasons which I do not wish to divulge at this time(when I'm rich and famous, I may spill the beans) but I stayed fully committed to my work here until 2003 when I departed. This period in this workplace from 1997 to 2003 is worthy of a book all of it's own but will have to be shelved for now. After my resignation, and after 13 years of blood, sweat and tears at this company, I received a 2 paragraph letter thanking me for my services. I wasn't expecting a gold watch but did feel used and very bitter for some time afterwards.
After a couple more stop start jobs I decided I would like to try driving for a living so in I found a job delivering bread and cakes for a catering firm in east Manchester. When I attended the interview I was astounded to find they were working out of exactly the same unit where I worked in my first job in the telecoms warehouse back in 1985. My mind was all over the place and at one point I even became quite emotional as I could still picture my late friend and mentor Mick Gaskell stood in this very same place 18 years previously. The day after the interview I was up at 3am as the first deliveries had to be in Hull for 6am. I was paired with another driver who would be "showing me the ropes". He drove us to Hull in a clapped out old van with no shelving for the goods we were transporting. We also had deliveries in Grimsby and Scunthorpe. This driver was a rough and ready bloke with tattooed, nicotine stained fingers. As we were racing around the north of England, the manager continually rang him on a mobile phone asking us to pick goods up from places such as Sheffield which were nowhere near where we were at the time.The driver explained this was normal and something I would have to get used to. On one delivery that first day, we were delivering cream cakes to a well known hotel chain when the driver noticed some of the cakes had come loose in the back of the van. I said "I presume we'll have to take these back". He said "No, watch and learn". He then plunged his filthy, nicotine fingers into the cream cakes to straighten them up and try and make them look like they hadn't been rolling around the van for the last few hours. I was mortified.
That first day we didn't get back until 5pm so we had been on the go for 13 hours. This wasn't how it had been described in the interview! The next day I was sent out on my own and was in Hull for 5.45am. My first delivery was to a police station which we had delivered to the day before. "Nicotine Fingers" from the previous day had told me if there was no one to take the delivery then I was to leave the boxes by the back door.There was no answer at the back door so I did just that. I struggled on then later I got a call from the manager on the mobile phone they had given me asking what I was playing at. He said the boxes I had left at the police station had caused a security alert and they had to seal off part of the building. I told him the driver from the day before had told me to leave them there but he was raging and yelled "NEVER DO THAT AGAIN !" down the phone at me. When I got back around 5pm I was exhausted so parked up and went straight home. I managed to complete the next day relatively uneventfully but did manage to get lost several times (pre-SatNav of course).
It was now weekend which gave me a bit of time to think whether I wanted to put myself through this. I arrived in the depot in the early hours of Monday morning to be told I would be showing another driver the round that day. The blind leading the blind ! The newcomer sat in the passenger seat whilst I drove us to Hull. He was an arrogant know-it-all, criticising my driving and putting the world to rights with his nonsensical views. By lunchtime I'd had enough of him so suggested he drove. After another 13 hour day I realised this job was ridiculous so went to see the manager to tell him this wasn't for me and I wouldn't be staying. I also decided to leave with a parting shot. I felt I wasn't to blame for the security alert at the police station and that it was "Nicotine Fingers' fault so I told him about the "filthy fingers in the cream cakes" incident. The manager was disinterested in this and simply sent me on my way.
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