As some customers will have noticed recently, there is a new name appearing on our emails and answering the phones – Cameron Moors was appointed as Assistant Manager, actually back in February, with a view to supporting the sales/customer support desk, focus on stock and supply chain, and improve planning and organisation in the factory.
Our MD, Rob, asked him to say a few words about his (very strange) time here so far…
I first started at SEP on Monday 17th February 2020. This was a bit of a change of industry for me as I had previously been working as a Service Technician in the security industry with a brief insight into the fire industry. Although during the interview process I did highlight some transferable skills from previous roles which I could bring with me.
Things started well in the business, and I found it very interesting with quite obviously a lot to learn. I felt I was progressing well and learning a lot of new things until the coronavirus pandemic hit the UK, and it soon put a halt to a lot of things when the UK plunged into lockdown. Since I still had so much to learn, and working on my own wasn’t yet possible, I was furloughed with the occasional working from home day to cover when needed. Although lucky with my start date, this wasn’t the easiest of situations: there was a lot of uncertainty, I was unsure how things would pan out being ‘last in’ at a new employer, I was unclear about our prospects, and when/if things would return to some sort of normality. Working from home was sometimes challenging if I had a difficult situation to solve, but with the support of the rest of the team we always overcome the issues and things ran quite smoothly overall. I was gaining more and more knowledge, and learning new things every day and also growing my confidence that my knowledge was correct. I feel being ‘thrown in at the deep end’ (especially when the MD was away) in terms of the job has been really useful and it was needed sometimes to force me to work some things out for myself, but I find this is the best way to learn and remember for the future.
As business has picked up again (even from May), we have been very busy recently having some of our best ever months on record, so I have been working full time again, mixing between working at home and also working back at the office. It was useful being back in the office again and being able to communicate with the workshop staff in person, being able to better answer their questions about customer orders going out, and also in regards to stock control and purchasing. Being on the premises and able to communicate in person makes these things much easier!
I have been working back in the office every day and getting back into the swing of things for the past month or so… and then now we face a second call of “work from home if possible” so it is a return to part time working from home and part time working at the office, just another obstacle to negotiate in this strange year of 2020 so far!
But in terms of the job itself, it is very interesting and very much the cliché of “no two days are the same”, that is for sure. The company is very good to work for, we have good staff morale, and Rob is a decent boss as well and good to work for, which is a rarity I have to say [note from Rob: I didn’t ask Cam to say this!]. I really enjoy this role as SEP and I look forward to seeing what the rest of 2020 has to offer and hopefully we can carry on breaking records and hope it continues into 2021 and beyond.
To explain main photo, one of Cameron’s main non-work interests is freshwater fishing and DIY, where during furlough he built an undercover decking area and an outside office for home-working!