I read in the papers last week that the company where I had worked for twenty eight years before redundancy and retirement had been bought out.


This presumably will lead to many more redundancies as the new company merges jobs together, etc. It lead to me to reflect on how, with so few skills I had managed to convince some one I was an asset for all this period.


It all started in 1978 in an engineering section of the company. I worked for a guy whose only interest in life was work, unfortunately he had a heart problem and the last time I saw him he was on a stretcher being wheeled out the office by the ambulance men, for some reason he was still giving me lists of things to do as he went. Surely at some point you must realise that there is more to life than this. The worst news, had he known it, was that at that time I hadn’t invented the Black Book so everything he told me was forgotten within minutes. I am glad to say he did recover although not in time to work with me again. But as far as characters go, he counldn’t hold a candle to the guy at the other end of the office, he murdered his wife.
Now I know I go on about Christine sometimes but that was a little extreme. Rumour had it that there were too many salads for tea but I don’t think that was true.


But four years after I joined this section a notice appeared on the board.

The engineering department is to close and I had a choice, redundancy or a job at head office in Hull. I took the job.


So now I’m at Head Office working on budgets on main frame accounting packages and looking at the introduction of PCs. This was were I got my introduction to computers and IT people which became much more of my life later.


But then somewhere about 1987 another notice appears on the board.
Head Office is to close and be moved to Wakefield. I again have a choice. Redundany or take a job in Wakefield. I took the job. Can you spot a theme developing here.


I didn’t stay in Wakefield very long before the Region Accountant for the Hull Area spotted a good thing and he knew I was essential to the smooth running of the regional office based in Hull. A good move I thought as I still lived locally.


Just to show what a good judge of oportunities I am, only a couple of years later a further notice appears on the board.

The Hull Regional Office is to close and be merged with the Wakefield office. I have a choice, redundancy or go back to Wakefield to work on projects. I took the job. Have you spotted the pattern yet.


So back in Wakefield I get my first involvement in projects. The first thing I look at is the development of a new system that should have been completed but has stalled. With all my experience of two weeks working on projects I suggest they scrap the last two years work and I start again from the beginning. I was pretty sure the pattern would continue and a redundancy package would be forthcoming, but no, for some unknown reason they agreed with me and I started travelling around the country and working away from home. It was during this period that I met Richard and we became colleagues and good friends working together on major projects and developing the art that is the Black Book.


Then one day a notice appears on the board.
The Wakefield office is to close and be transferred to Leicester. I have a choice, you got it, redundancy or a job in Leicester. I took the job.


So now I am working all over the country but with an office base in Leicester on a new a business development project trying to create a new income stream. After two or three years and with no clear profitability forecast the company gives up the struggle.


A notice appears on the board.

The new business development project is to be ceased. I have a choice! Hang on: the redundancy bit’s there but no job offer. So there it is. I survived four redundancy packages only to be hit by the fifth but being at an age when I had already thought about getting my pension forecast from the government just maybe I wasn’t too distraught. It does seem odd though that everwhere I went was closed down, surely it wasn’t all due to me!


So taking the package plus early retirement I leave the company after 28 years and set off eagerly to spend some time at home.


But that was before I had begun to appreciate the changes required to accommodate life with Christine 24/7. But we now have more than six months under our belts and are still happily spending our days together doing ‘we’ things. A fact, I am sure that is more down to Christine’s diplomacy than me having made changes.


At the moment life’s good with the family over for the summer. Alex has very quickly come to agree with her mother that I am turning into Victor Meldrew. But of course I don’t believe it!