Your War Stories (sorry - Work Stories)

[macafee2]

My work career is probably quite ordinary.
I left school with no qualifications. Quickly got an engineering apprenticeship. I think the company made train door controls for the London Underground, Ranton and Co but I cannot find any details. I spent a year at an engineering training centre (Hector) in Feltham West London. Some of the metalwork skills I learnt then I still use many years later. At the end of the year the apprentices were made redundant. I went to work for my dad, he and his business partner ran Hamrax Motors in Ladbroke Grove. I was not right for the business and the business was not right for me. My mother knew someone that helped ex servicemen get jobs and he sorted me out an interview with the Post Office, later to be broken up and I was with BT.

1st year I did internal construction putting in new telephone exchange's. My claim to fame, one of a few claims, I took British Airways phone system down by accident.

I was moved to to a role in the local Telephone Exchange but for the first year it did not go well, I made mistakes. It then all slotted into place, I stopped making mistakes and became the team leader responsible for the installation of Private Wires (point to point cctc's) and telephone lines. I went to college and became a Technical Officer. I joined the emergency call out team and could be called to go to any telephone exchange in West London any time of the day or night. Many exchanges I'd never been to. I became one of the go to call out engineers. A run in with a manager and I was redeployed. My head was not in a good place and I could not do the new role, I could now. I moved to a new role but still not in a good place and struggled. I was given a new role, working by myself and this was the road to recovery. Via my hobby of Scalextric I learnt some basic programming skills and got to talk to other people that helped me learn and I started writing small ad hoc programs for work, some of which people came to rely on. I moved to a new role, it was brilliant to start with, going from telephone exchange to telephone exchange dealing with security, health and safety etc etc but this turned nasty. I suffered bullying from a contractor but my management supported them not me. A change of manager helped and the contrator made a massive mistake and had to leave but the job was not what it as and I was, along with many others redeployed.
With no role for me I spent 6 months at home on full pay and then 6 months on a project. It was put to me that I take a call centre role. As I knew quite a bit about the process I was good at it. The team changed roles a couple of times and my simple programming skills were put to good use not only for my team but others as well. I became a team leader again and also a work a holic. A heart attack was the beginning of the end for me, I became un-disciplineable (made up word), I was stripped of the team leader role, went part time and then took voluntary redundancy.

My time with BT/Openreach was chequered, I would often put my head above the parapet and escalate "problems" up the management chain even if it meant going to the CEO. I took on a number of roles that were not mine to do, to make the job better and because no one else was doing the "job".
I should think management were please to see the back of me, I have no regrets. Like Frank Sinatra sang, I did it my way.
There was heart ache and tears during my 35 years with "BT", sometimes I was treated badly and sometimes with respect.
If something was wrong, it needed fixing. If the customer rang with a query I did my very best to get the answer, this is why I am so hot on customer service.

Having left/retired from BT I got a zero hour job at Southampton Docks putting new cars on ships for export and taking new cars and vans off. I have driven more Rolls Royce, Bentley and McLarens then a lot of people. A house move meant I had to give that up.

If you have read to here, you must be bored by now

macafee2