Congratulation to Robert Bull, Operations Planner Materials, who has recently celebrated his 45 years long service. This is an amazing achievement, so we asked Robert what was the secret to such a long service:
Words by Robert Bull…..
“After a brief stint as a Trainee Aircraft Designer for BAC, then building Concordes, I walked through the door of Readymix Concrete (Transite) Ltds Head Office at London Colney on 9th January 1978, sporting flared trousers, platform shoes and shoulder length brown hair. I started as a Trainee Accountant but had no more luck with Accountancy that Aeronautical Engineering and was about to be shown the door when the Sales Ledger Supervisor gave in his notice. My boss, seeing an easy win, gave me the job to see how I got on.
It worked rather well and for the next 20 years I moved around all the different bits of the Accounts department, ending up as Office Manager. Back then, the accounts functions were centralised and I thought I was facing redundancy, but I must have made myself useful to a lot of people over the years and one of the Managers offered me a new role. When CEMEX took over I applied for a proper job as a Maintenance Planner, which, with a minor change of job title, to Operations Planner, I still am.
Is it really 45 years? When you’ve been doing a job for a while it becomes second nature and not much fazes you. And of course, there are the people. I’m still in touch with half of my old RMC Accounts team. And there’s my current team, the Ops Planners – we order all the stuff that we need to keep the plants and quarries operating. I’m going to miss the daily interaction with them, the Ops team and all the others I deal with when retirement catches up with me.
My retirement looms large now, just another few months. It shouldn’t be a problem filling the days. I’ve a sadly neglected garden to sort out and the house needs work too. I need to get back to concert-going again, badly affected by pandemic and family matters over the last few years. Photography is another old interest coming back, but I need to really understand DSLRs, which will take some practice. Lots of places to go and people to see. I want to get my baking up to scratch as well.
Looking back, as writing this has forced me to do, I have seen a lot of positive change. The RMC I joined was a very different company to what CEMEX is today. In the 1970s and 80s it was wildly non-PC, not all desks had phones, but they all had ashtrays. Safety was nowhere near the top of the list but there was always a lot of laughter. There still is, it’s just down the phone these days!”
We wish Robert all the best in his retirement when it comes later this year, and hope he enjoys all the projects he is planning to do.