The Man in the 'Nearly' Suit

For your delectation and delight, here is this month's article for the Derby Telegraph which appears in today's (Wednesday, 26th July, 2017) edition.  If a link appears for the article on the Derby Telegraph website, I'll post it but in the meantime...

If you find reading the text in the photo a bit of a pain, here it is in all it's glory:

In these enlightened times, when casual dress is often the recommended work attire and offices are more likely to have a table tennis than a boardroom table, it's difficult to remember just how hierarchical the workplace used to be.  This occurred to me, the other day, thinking about my time at Wesley's in Victoria Crescent, Burton in the 1970s. 

You see, there were people in suits, usually male, who were the management and others in overalls who were the workers.  Then there was me.  I'm pretty sure that the people on the 'shop floor' at Wesley's didn't really know what to make of me.  Was I part of the distrusted 'management', or was I one of the workers?

To be fair, I was never too sure myself, largely because I was actually unique.  I was the only male clerical worker in the company.  I didn't wear a suit, because I only had my one 'made to measure' three-piece indulgence from my first job, which was only suitable for high days and holidays and would have looked distinctly OTT in a work context.  However, I did feel as if I ought to wear a suit, so I got as close as I could with a brown sports jacket and some brown trousers which were nearly, but not quite, the same colour.

The confusion about my managerial status was also compounded by the fact that, when all of the Departmental Managers were called to the General Office for morning and afternoon tea, so was I.  However, the really confusing feature, and the only occasion when I came even close to being part of 'the management', was when it came to stocktaking.

Stocktaking took place twice a year, usually on a Saturday when the factory wasn't working.  The system was that the Head of Department for each area counted the various piles of stock in his (and it was always 'his') department.  He then completed a three-part form which showed what the stock was and where it was but only put the quantity on the top sheet, leaving the other two parts with the stock.  Then a second person would come along, count the stock again and put their total on the second part of the form.  Parts one and two would be sent up to the Managing Director's office for him to compare the totals and the third part would remain with the stock to show it had been counted.  Fascinating, eh?  I was never entrusted with the initial count, I was the follow-on. 

The best part of this arrangement, however, was that you were assigned a gopher! You see, it was never expected that members of management would be required to clamber over stacks of paper reels and suchlike.  That would never do.  Instead, each stock-taker had with him one or two lads from the warehouse gang.  It was their job to clamber over the stacks, count and report back. 

The beauty of this was that you stood a better chance of tracking down exactly where stuff had been stacked (especially if you had a friendly 'gopher') because they had, in all probability, been part of the gang who put it there in the first place.  The other benefit was that the warehouse lads knew if the stock had been there since God was a lad, and therefore the total hadn't changed in decades.

I couldn't help feeling more than a little awkward about this arrangement.  It made perfect sense for some of the more venerable managers we had in the company, who really couldn't be expected to indulge in the mountaineering antics required in some parts of the warehouse, but I was about the same age as most of the lads in the warehouse, and considerably younger than some.  I therefore felt rather guilty as they climbed up the stacks, with commendable agility, whilst I stood a discreet distance away from all the dust and cobwebs and inscribed the figure they came up with on the form.  It was a dirty job, but somebody had to do it!


You can find this story, and a whole heap of others like it, in the new bumper collection of 'nostalgedy' stories "The Things You See..." available now on Amazon.