Wait – time warp moment again. Before getting into my time in Asia, I just want to hop back and mention my visit to the USA – and an important friendship that was to develop from it.
With Fibresand building a reputation in the UK, and Denmark and Luxembourg heralded a huge success, my boss’s attention was drawn further afield, and he turned his attention to the west, and the huge market of the United States of America… Continue reading
So, I felt I had finally arrived – from lowly lab technician in a third rate foundry to qualified quality / health and safety manager, fully qualified quarry manager, self taught IT “consultant” and now, esteemed international Fibresand engineer. And my horizons where about to become yet even broader…
Continue readingPart four of the saga of my career reads a little like a great classic. The next few years were going to see some exciting changes and even more exciting prospects.
Continue readingSo this was my new life. QA manager for the group (two quarries, a brickworks and an asphalt plant), health and safety manager for the same departments, editor of our company newspaper “The Sand Martin” (a real writing job!), social club organiser, and now – globe trotting technician / engineer. How far I had come from that tiny, dirty lab in the foundry, and not a coal mine to be seen…
It’s a question that is often asked once a year – where were you on the day of the world trade center attack? September 11th 2001. Many people will always remember where they were. My friend for instance was in a plane over New York at the time, and was diverted to Maine and holed up in a hotel for three days as all air travel was banned. I know exactly where I was… and it remains as vivid today as it did back then. Continue reading
Today I am recalling an event that changed my outlook on life slightly. And made for a great funny story for years to come. If I’ve told it before, I apologise…
It’s around 1986 and I’m telling my story of how I worked my way up the company in different roles. Let’s continue.
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We pick up the story where I left off last time in Phoenix Rising…
In 1980, only three years after starting work after leaving school, I was moving into my next position with the Mansfield Sand Group of companies – Specifically Mansfield Asphalt.
Ha! It’s times like this I know I should have been an author, but I just can’t retain the thread of a story long enough to get it down on paper. Not that this post is about my writing. It’s just that I’ve impressed myself with the title. Which incidentally bears little relevance to this post. And thankfully absolutely nothing to do with Harry Potter!
As our children grow up, I think adults are guilty of many things – over indulgence, lack of attention, asking their opinion over everything, not asking their opinion enough, leaving them to their own devices, pushing them in directions they don’t particularly want to go, low expectations, high expectations, growing them up too soon, not growing them up at all.
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45 miles to empty tank... 