The "when to get stuck in" debate

There is an old saying that you should never go back in life, but with many of the team isolating or recovering from COVID-19, that is exactly what I found myself doing.

I went back to when I started the Autogem business 25 years ago, when getting into a container and doing some good old fashioned manual labour used to be just another day’s work. Despite its exhausting nature (we are talking exhaust clamps after all), there was still a real sense you had earned your daily bread at the dinner table.

With backorders rapidly building, our warehouse manager isolating and record goods inwards compounding the workload, the operations team needed extra help and fast, so I regressed to my roots in order to help out.

It was back to the good old days; picking, packing, making space, booking goods in, Saturday warehouse shifts and the much dreaded 40ft container hand ball offloading. If you have ever run a marathon and you spot that final mile marker..... that is what unloading a fully stuffed 40ft container feels like... your energy wanes the deeper you get into it but the sheer delight when it is finally over results in some socially distanced fist bumps but no medal this time despite the pb.

I have never been shy of hard work. Actually that’s not strictly true as I was a terrible student (I hope my kids aren’t reading this!), but the age old management debate had begun once again.....

“We need you upstairs, not downstairs”

“Your time is too valuable”

“That’s beneath your pay grade”

But I came to my own conclusions about getting stuck in…

•  It kept me connected - to our people and our latest processes, dare i say with a chance to review both
• Lead by example, the phrase: ‘I will never ask you to do anything that I wouldn't do myself’ came to mind
• It gave me a chance to clear my head of the relentless ideas and thoughts assaulting my mind.
• Manual labour is good for you! I know we are encouraged to educate ourselves away from the more mundane and repetitive tasks but one can still be proud of a day's work, especially when you ache all over for the following week.

My father spotted me, exhausted, smiling away with a twinkle in his eye he said “I’m glad to see the stench of money hasn’t gone to your head or your heart my son.”

So as I finally drove home after a very physically hard couple of weeks, it was time for the mental debrief..... Did I find anything I can improve?

I was satisfied with the processes I had seen and so incredibly proud of the commitment of our team but disappointed in myself to be struggling to come up with ideas for improvement.

At 5am the following morning my eyes opened and my head was being assaulted again, I spent the next hour emailing seven areas for improvement to our operations manager. They were all marginal ‘Team Sky’ style gains, but they will add up and are already being implemented.

It may be beneath my pay grade, but it’s not beneath me to work alongside my warehouse team and get stuck in just once in a while. 

ps. photo credit, Major Chopra is now 7 months and plonked onto my lap in the kitchen as I sat on the floor, majorly exhausted, with the radiator soothing my tired back. Joy!!!