Good Buying or Goodbye

I've already posted about one firm that went bust because of bad buying decisions, now I want to tell you another story about my time working in retail.
I was working as manager of a large bookstore in Northampton in the late 1980s. The store was set up by the Goldsteins when they were directors of Kingfisher Plc. They d sold Superdrug to Kingfisher a few years before and wanted to try something new. Volume One Bookshops was a new concept in retailing and a complete change from the "libraries with tills" look that characterised bookselling at that time.
Our shops were bright, had acres of space to display books with the covers out rather than spine-on, and sold videos as well. Sell-through video was a very recent concept. Up until that time videos were rental only. No-one foresaw the potential, or that legions of Dr Who or Startrek fans would buy every episode of their favourite shows to watch at home over and over again.

Volume One were one of the first to sell videos alongside books and in time the business grew so that half our turnover came fom selling VHS cassettes. We ordered our stock from a wholesaler called Parkfield. They were the main wholesaler in the UK. We could ring our order in on a Monday and it would be delivered the next day. This meant that we could keep our stockholding to a minimum and reduce our exposure to bad purchases clogging up the shelves.

Sell through video was like pop music with a very short shelf life. A film would be released on a Monday, sell for a week or two and never sell another copy. It made sound economic sense to keep our stocks at a minimum, although the margins were lower than if we had bought direct from the publisher. Using a wholesaler made such good economic sense. The wholesaler held the stocks and we could replace our sales within a couple of days. Constant stock-turn more than compensated for the lower margins. This was good buying.
We started having problems with our video supplier soon after we read in the press how they planned to become the largest video wholesaler in Europe. Each delivery would have lines missing. This went on for week after week. I found out that the firm were taking in so much stock for the Christmas rush that the staff didn't have time to pick the orders going out to the customers. The problem of short deliveries got so bad that we had to change suppliers. Needless to say the video distribution company went bust soon after, having filled numerous warehouses with stock that they couldn't dispatch to their customers.
The firm failed because of bad buying.
We used a couple of wholesalers for buying books. One of them was a small family firm on the South coast. Nothing was too much trouble. You could get in your car and pay them a visit, walk around the warehouse and choose some stock which was then scanned, an invoice/delivery note printed there and then, and the books packed into a box which you could either take away or have delivered the next day.
Our other supplier had a huge brand new state of the art warehouse, and a computer system that was unable to update fast enough to keep up with the business. Every book had a bar code, yet the warehouse lacked bar code readers to input the stocks, which had to be input manually. The stock levels were only updated each evening, so they never knew what stocks they had. The computer said one figure, but the reality was always different. We d place an order and their computer system was unable to distinguish whether the books were on the shelves ready to be picked, in the loading bay ready to be unpacked, or already picked and waiting to go to a customer. Once again we were faced with unacceptable shortages in our deliveries and we switched supplier. They went bust soon afterwards. They had no control over their stock.

Bad information equals bad buying.
Bad buying equals goodbye.

A few years ago I worked in a warehouse that supplied tenpin bowling equipment to the various bowling complexes in the UK. If you bowl regularly you will soon buy your own ball.
The technology of bowling balls is very complex.The normal ball you use when you go bowling for fun is a far cry from the highly complex balls that are used by the serious players. Everything from the shape of the core (the middle of the ball) to the type of material that covers the ball will have an effect on how it moves down the lane. Serious bowlers buy their ball from the bowling pro in the same way that the golfer buys from the golf shop at his course. When you buy a bowling ball it comes without holes. The pro will measure your hand and will cut the holes so that it fits you exactly. You can choose the weight of the ball. Years ago the serious players would use a heavy 16lb ball in order to get the swerve and power to score consistently high. As the technology developed and the players got older they found that they could get the same power and control with a 15lb ball. To all extents and purposes the 16lb ball was obsolete. My friend and work colleague was responsible for ordering the stocks of balls and although he knew as well as everyone else in the industry that 16lb balls were obsolete, he would still order "a few" each time.
Every time a new ball was introduced we would sell out of 14 and 15lb balls, leaving the 16lb balls unsold. Eventually we had a warehouse full of 16lb balls that no-one wanted. We ended up giving them away,although it might have been better to send them to landfill.
The company is no more. Bad buying contributed to their downfall.

That sinking feeling

It's 1988. We moved back from Somerset the year before and we've just moved house again. Sue had bought a house in Kettering so that we had somewhere to live while we sorted ourselves out. It was a nice mid terraced house overlooking a park and we paid £34,000 for it, having sold our house in Shepton Mallet for £37,000. House prices were rising fast and we decided to move while we could, so, one year after we bought our home, we sold it for £46,000 and bought another one on the outskirts of the town. It was slighly larger and had a garage. We paid £48,000 for it.
It's worth noting that our house earned more in that year than I did. I was on about £11,000 as I recall.
As well as moving house, I was in line for the new store in Corby that was due to open later that year. The company still had plans to continue expanding and had a brand new state of the art distribution centre in Southampton. It was then that we began to hear rumours that the company was up for sale. The rumours were confirmed. Everything went on hold and I had to continue commuting to St Ives.
Then the news came through that the company had been bought by Superdrug.


Oh joy.

There were a few ex-Superdrug managers working for Share and none of us felt secure. We were called to a meeting to meet the new owners and I came face to face with my nemesis who by now had been promoted from Area Manager to Regional Director. I recognised a few of the Area Managers as well. Superdrug only appointed from within so they'd been managers when I was kicking my heels as an assistant manager.


After that meeting which seemed to go OK (there were no promises made that we would automatically keep our jobs) I recived a letter stating what I could expect if I decided to accept redundancy. It wasn't a lot and I'd just moved into a new more expensive house. I agonised over this for a week or two and finally and reluctantly accepted the new contract from Superdrug.
Share had already appointed a new manager for St Ives, so I was once again a spare manager. I went around the various local stores to re-acquaint myself with the systems, which hadn't changed much, only evolved and then I heard that Superdrug had taken over the lease that Share had signed on the new store at Corby, so I applied for the position and was given the OK.


Once again I was recruiting, and training staff, fitting out and stocking the store. The store opened and we started trading. I can only remember a few things about it.
One was the silly lift from the warehouse to the shop floor. It was only about 3 feet high and just big enough for one stock trolley.
Then there was the steady stream of toerags who had nothing better to do than to stand outside taunting me. They were all barred from entering, but that didn't seem to stop them. They thought it was a game. They'd intimidate the younger staff and openly shoplift unless I stood in front of them. I wish I'd had a cattle prod.
The next was the staff's accents. Although Corby is less than ten miles from Kettering, the people speak with an entirely different accent, a strange almost scottish accent. This derives from the huge influx of Scottish and Irish families to work at the steelworks in the 1930s, when the population increased from 1500 to 15,000 in a little over eighteen months.
Finally there was my chief cashier. She lived on one of the more notorious estates. She knew everyone who came into the store. OK so far, but then she didn't turn up for work one Saturday and rang in sick. This meant that I had to cash up the tills on my own and at that time we used to take the banking to the local bank and deposit it in the night safe. We closed on time and I asked a couple of Saturday staff to wait and walk with me to the bank. As we rounded the corner I was jumped from behind by a young man who tried to grab my briefcase which looked like a security case. I fell to the floor and we had a tug of war for a second or two. I managed to kick him hard in the balls but in doing so broke my hold on the case. He ran away with my case which contained my wallet, some papers and the remains of my lunch. The night safe wallet was inside my jacket, tucked under my armpit. My glasses were broken and I was bleeding from a cut above my eye. I placed the wallet in the night safe and went to a call box, rang home and then called for an ambulance. The cheque cards were cancelled before the lad had stopped running. The police later found my briefcase in the local river and no, I didn't get it back.
I rang the area manager and he arranged to meet me early on Monday morning. When I arrived at work I looked a sight. I had a huge black eye and swollen face. We sat at the checkout to greet the staff as they came in. I kept my back to each one and turned to face them in order to gauge their reaction.
Only one person didn't register shock.
Guess who?
My chief cashier.
We suspected that she'd tipped off her boyfriend and he'd mugged me. Only there was no proof.
She put in her notice a few weeks later.
Funny that.


About nine months after the store opened I was on the move again. I was asked to take over an existing Share store in Northampton.
And I went on a training course. My first proper training course since I'd left school over twenty years before. Ah, well, it's never too late to learn.

On the move again

I worked for Superdrug and Share drugstores in the late 70s and 80s. Both businesses used the same model of having a central distribution centre where suppliers delivered, and minimal stocks in the branch. We kept accurate stock and order records (this was pre- EPOS and computers) and we ordered what we needed every week.
It meant that the companies didn't have their cash tied up in slow selling stock in the branches, which was the downfall of Lewis Meeson's.
I left Meesons after they'd been taken over by Martins and moved up the High Street to Share Drug Store, a company in the same mould as Superdrug. It was a brand new shop, and I was sent to another store for training while the builders fitted the store out. I enjoyed working there, it was a much better atmosphere than Superdrug, and they were expanding.
We'd been living in Somerset for about three years. I loved our house but the towns were all a bit small for an ambitious retail manager. After a succesful Christmas I was ready for a change.
Share had about 140 stores, mostly in the southern counties, with a distribution centre in Southampton. One day I was looking at the list of branches when I noticed thatthey were proposing to open a branch in St Ives. It was a few weeks after we'd been to Cornwall on holiday, and we'd spoken about the possibility of moving down there. In the end we decided against it, because of the lack of alternative employment should the job not work out.
Suddenly the company was opening a branch in St Ives. I looked long and hard and then realised that it was St Ives in Cambridgeshire!
We'd lived in deepest Somerset for three years, and the locals were only just acknowledging our presence. I'd always treated the move as temporary, and we'd visited every tourist attraction within 30 miles, so I was ready to return to the Midlands.
I talked it over with my wife and we agreed that I should apply for the post. I heard back within a few days. I'd been successful. All I had to do was train my successor and I could move up in time to recruit the staff and fit the store out. However, the company would not be paying my relocation costs.
We put our house on the market. We'd been there for three years and had turned a very run-down property that lacked a kitchen or central heating into a nice comfortable end of terrace home with a very large garden, not overlooked, on the edge of town and with views out over the Mendips. We'd paid £22k for it 9in 1984) and sold it for £37.5k in 1987.
However, it still wasn't enough to buy a house anywhere near Cambridge. St Ives was about ten miles from Cambridge and the most we could afford there was a tiny two bedroom quadrant home. We decided to move to Kettering and I would commute, although the A604 wasn't the best road to travel on.
I moved up to stay with Sue's relatives and began the job of getting St Ives store open. She rang me one day to say that someone had agreed to buy the house. I said that she should get in her car and come up and buy us a house in Kettering.
So she did. She put Chris in the child's seat, sent Jayne to school and drove the 150 or so miles to Kettering. She walked into an Estate Agent just as a couple were placing their house on the market. She had a look around and did the deal there and then. She then drove back home and told me what she'd done when I rang her later that night.

Sue packed everything and arranged the move while I worked to get the store open. She moved on the day I opened the store. We had to stay in her parent's spare bedroom that night, as we couldn't get the keys until the following morning.


St Ives was a succesful store that made money right from the start. We had a good team of staff and we all got on well. It was a bind travelling 35 miles each way each day, with only the last few miles on dual carriageway. I began to look around for somewhere a little closer to home.
As luck would have it, the company had signed a lease on a shop unit in Corby, just down the road. I was all set to transfer there when the news came through that the owner of the company had put it up for sale- and the new owners were- Superdrug.


Four years on and I had come full circle. I was going to be working for Superdrug again.
Oh bliss. Not.

Psychometric testing

I'm no fan of psychometric profiling. In my experience it's only used in firms where the management are remote from the workforce. Rather than interview the staff themselves, they employ intermediaries called Personnel, or the even more arcane and forbidding Human Resources.
When I worked for Superdrug and Volume One a few years later, I was interviewed by the Managing Director and he employed me on the basis of that interview lasting half an hour or so.
Recruiting staff is like weather forecasting. No matter how sophisticated or expensive the methods used, the results are statistically no more accurate than pine cones or seaweed.
In my long career I've interviewed a lot of potential employees, and attended a good few interviews as well. There's an old saying- "First impressions last", and psychometric profiling is a poor substitute for a face to face interview. When a vacancy occured in one of my shops I interviewed the applicants with an eye to what the job entailed and how they would fit in with the team I'd assembled.  When I was in retail the staff turnover averaged about eighteen months, that is, you'd have a new member of staff in every position every eighteen months or so. This meant that the manager would be forever recruiting and training staff, knowing full well that they'd only stay for a month or two. This often meant that he spent less time training his staff and that brought even more problems. So the answer lay in keeping your staff for as long as possible. In my experience profiling was no more effective in achieving this, and cost a whole lot more.
For the record, my last management position was as manager of a bookstore in Northampton. I was there for five years and when I was made redundant by the incoming owners, more than 90% of the full and part time staff had been with me from the start. That was way, way, way above the industry average. My record of recruiting and training and retention of staff speaks for itself.


The first time I encountered profiling was when I was interviewed for a management position with Lewis Meeson, a subsidiary company of Barker & Dobson, maker of Everton Mints. I was working at Superdrug and anxious to get out. I'd been there too long and my reputation meant that my career was stalled. I'd just got married again and we were happy to move almost anywhere in the country in pursuit of my retail career.
I saw the advert in the Grocer and applied and in due course went for an interview. I passed that initial interview and received a profile test in the post. The test involved answering a load of stupid questions, most of them variations on the same theme. I had to fill  it in and return it before my next interview with the Managing Director at head office in Liverpool. I can't remember everything the profile was supposed to reveal about me, but they went ahead and hired me anyway.
The salient point was that the profile test was as an adjunct to the two face to face interviews I undertook. The face to face interviews took precedent, and the profile was just background.


Fast forward twenty years and I'm working as a temp in a call centre. A good temp has to be able to walk into any job and pick it up straight away. I'd done a lot of call centre work, both inbound and outbound. I prefer inbound, where you respond to calls from customers.
This call centre was run by a large photo copier manufacturer and distributor. Everyone has used a photocopier at some time, but my recent jobs hadn't involved any contact with them. All of a sudden I was answering calls from customers whose copiers had packed up. I'd identify the customer and the machine using the AS400 software on the computer in front of me, and I'd try and find out what the fault was. Some faults can be cleared over the phone. I had diagrams and photos of the various models on the computer, and together with the customer we'd try and find the fault. We had a couple of skilled engineers that we could refer the difficult calls to, and if all else failed we'd get an engineer out to them. The object was to keep their copier working, although that wasn't always possible if some burley policeman had broken the glass while trying to photocopy his private parts (It happened more than once).
After a week or so I was approached by the call center manager who had been listening in on my calls and monitored my success rate. He wanted to know if I wanted a permanent job.
I was temping because there were no permanent jobs around, so I said yes. As part of the interview process I was given a psychometric test to complete.
One look at the form and I despaired. It was more psychobabble and arcane nonsense devised by people who don't like dealing with people face to face. I completed it and handed it in.
Up until that moment my joining the firm was cut and dried. I was good at the job, good with customers, good telephone manner, good clear up rate.
The call centre manager never mentioned my joining the firm again. I stayed as a temp for another couple of months. Other people, less able joined the permanent staff while I continued as a temp, so why did I not get the job?
The answer had to be the profiling. The company, a huge Japanese multi-national had several sites in the UK, with a head office in Feltham. The Human Resources department were based there. I never ever saw anyone from that department at our site. They had worked out the requirements for the job and devised a profile. My form arrived on their desk and it didn't match their profile, so no job for me.

In time I came to realise the short-sightedness of profiling.
If a company only recruits staff according to profiles, it means that there is no possible career path, no opportunities for promotion in that company. It is impossible for someone to join the company at the ground level and work their way up. Their profile wouldn't match the junior jobs if they were executive material, and individual job profiling would prevent them advancing through the company.
If every company adopted profiling it would mean that your job was assigned to you when you entered the job market and all you could expect was to do the same job in different offices for the rest of your working life.
That's my idea of hell.


And all those heroes of business who started at the bottom and worked their way up? Forget it. It would never happen. Profiling will squeeze every ounce of creativity and originality out of a company. In time companies that employ profiling will not have the talent to adapt, to be original, to spot new ideas and opportunities and will ultimately fail.
Good.

Good and bad bosses

I've had a few bosses in my time. I've worked alongside a few, and I've been a boss as well. Here are a few of my observations down the years.
When I worked at the bank the manager was a seldom seen figure who occupied an office and hardly ever emerged. He left the day to day running of his branch to the deputy or assistant manager, who then delegated down to the various department heads. It worked well. Because the business was run to deadlines, the overriding concern was to getting the job done to the highest possible standard in the shortest possible time. Once everything was completed and the assistant manager gave the OK, we could go home. Because it took a long time to progress to branch manager, and because there was a well defined career path, one rarely encountered a ruthless, devious and ambitious individual trying to short cut his way to the top by fair means or foul. One did, however, encounter a bunch of bank clerks who had reached the limits of their ability and whose career path lay in a series of sideways moves.
My lack of ambition caused me to be transferred to the various sub-branches of the bank, along with the other no-hopers, and each day was spent in doing the work as quickly as possible so that I could go home.

It wasn't until I worked in retail that I encountered an environment that rewarded ability rather than length of service, and these observations are based on my retail experiences.


The first thing I noticed was how some managers would employ tactics that kept their subordinates fighting each other. Divide and rule. While your departmental and assistant managers are fighting each other, they're not fighting you.


Then I noticed that some managers rule by fear, while others by encouragement. In every business the manager needs to stand out. He need to be head and shoulders above the rest.
Some managers do this by kicking their staff so that they are always on their knees. The manager is the only one standing.
However, the best managers that I worked for and with would encourage and equip their staff, making them strong and able to stand tall- with the manager carried on their shoulders.
As I travelled from branch to branch, either assisting or training managers, or relieving them for days off or holidays, or taking over from them and managing their store, I noticed another difference between good and bad managers.
Some managers would deliberately hold the store back, rather than allow turnover to increase to its full potential. They would hold the store to the level that they could manage,and not allow it to grow any further. Success brought problems to them. A bigger turnover meant more stock had to be ordered and handled. A busier store brought problems of staff training and retention. It brought security and shoplifting problems. If turnover was held to the rate of inflation, it meant a quieter life.


I was a pioneer rather than a settler. I preferred the challenge of taking an empty shell of a shop unit and fitting it out, of recruiting and training my staff, of ordering the stock and filling the shelves, and the bustle and excitement of opening day. I enjoyed working hard and growing the turnover week by week and following it through a complete year, with the Christmas build up and climax, and the post Christmas doldrums. After about eighteen months I was ready for a new challenge.
I was lucky in that most of the firms I worked for, namely Superdrug, Share Drugstores and Volume One Bookshops operated at a time when it was possible to open new shops in town centres, that there were new markets to break into, and big profits to be made.
As a manager I opened five new stores, and assisted in the opening of several more.
I trained many a new manager, some of whom went on to greater things.
I got out of retail at the right time and have never looked back.

The greasy pole, or the onset of ambition

I've never been particularly ambitious. My form teacher at my first grammar school wrote on my end of term report that I was over inclined to rest on my laurels and time has proved him correct.
I do just enough to get comfortable and only move if bored or threatened, or if I suddenly get ambitious.
I've already posted about my ambitions for 1978. Learn to drive, new house, new job. I started work at Superdrug and found myself surrounded by ambitious people with differing levels of ruthlessness. When Superdrug started in 1966, it was a very hands-on set up. The Goldsteins did everything and as the company grew they recruited like minded people to take the company forward. They never once recruited an area manager. On the retail side, everyone started at the bottom, as a trainee manager. They learned how the company worked by doing the work. Those with talent got their own store very quickly. They were expanding at a steady rate, without having to go into debt and keeping all expenditure under control. There was never a penny wasted. As the company grew they needed an area manager and they appointed someone who'd been a manager at the very start. He then became a Regional Director as the company expanded. It was said that if you cut the arm off a Superdrug area manager, you'd see "Superdrug" running through the arm, like letters in a stick of rock.
I wasn't into such naked ambition. If it was a case of "compete or retreat", I'd leave them to it.
And that was how it was for two or three years.
Then I reached thirty and I decided I'd better get a move on. I decided to pull my weight a little more and improve my performance. I even asked to be considered for any new shops that might be opening. My bosses were gobsmacked. They'd got used to me doing just enough to stay out of trouble and there I was, bright as a button and looking for promotion. A few months later and I still felt the same way. I was based in Northampton but travelling to all the stores in a forty mile radius. I even transferred to Peterborough for a while, and commuted daily.
This went on for a year or two. I was getting more and more frustrated, and my bosses were digging their heels in. I had to get another job and I didn't care where.
Some people are naturally ambitious, but remain affable. My ambition made me angry mean and nasty. I was not nice to know.

Superdrug

Superdrug was set up in the early sixties by the Goldstein family. Ralph (the father) had sold his chain of supermarkets to Tesco and his sons Peter, Ronald & Howard were looking for a new venture. They opened the first Superdrug in Putney High St in 1966. They found the premises, fitted it out, stocked the shelves and manned the tills. They grew the business from humble beginnings and there wasn't one single aspect of the business that they hadn't done. They knew it inside out.
I was interviewed by Peter Goldstein at the Northampton branch of Superdrug and he offered me a job. The company was growing, opening new stores almost every week and he made a point of telling me about the opportunities for promotion that existed within the company.
One thing convinced me to join Superdrug.
It wasn't Tesco.

I wasn't prepared for the culture shock when I turned up for work on my first day.
For a start, it was very formal. All the management staff called each other Mr.... No first names.
No fraternising with the staff. Inappropriate behaviour with a female member of staff was a sacking offence. It was like being an officer on a ship of the line.
Then there were the hours of work. The store opened from 9.00 to 5.30. I was expected to start at 7.00 to unload the deliveries and to stay until at least 6.00 each night. I was used to having the odd Saturday off. I couldn't even have the Saturday off before my annual holidays. My band were playing about three times a week and they'd have to wait for me to finish work before driving off to the venue. I'd change from my work clothes in the van and grab a sandwich and perhaps a short nap. I weighed about 11 stone and was built like a racing snake.
My job title was Trainee Manager. This meant that I did everything from opening the store to unloading the deliveries and packing everything in the warehouse. I also made lists of the stock that had been sold during the day and picked the goods for the female staff to price. I also kept the store neat and tidy and dressed the windows. Every evening we'd face the shelves up, bringing all the stock forward to give the appearance of  full shelves. We'd count the stock every week and place and order with head office. This was delivered two days later. Superdrug ran a very very very tight ship. There was no waste anywhere. The cardboard was separated from the rubbish and sent back to the warehouse, where it was baled up and sold for recycling. This was at least twenty years before recycling became fashionable.
We cashed up the tills every day and banked every penny. The cash had to balance to the penny. If it didn't there was an enquiry.
We carried out staff searches at least twice a week. The reasoning was that if the staff expected to be searched then they wouldn't try anything stupid. It mostly worked, although I did catch a saturday girl with a bag full of sweets and no receipt. She lost her job.
We took stock three or four times a year. We didn't have a stocktaking team as that would have cost too much. The area manager would oversee the stocktake and it was conducted like a military exercise. Every staff member had to come in, or stay behind after work to take stock. We never closed, not even for half an hour. During the day we'd count the warehouse and the backup stock and as soon as the door shut we started counting the stock on the shelves. We were only interested in monetary value. One person would count the stock and write the amount on a piece of tally roll, and another would follow along, spot checking and recording the amounts on a master sheet. These were gathered together and tallied up and it was possible to arrive at a provisional stock result within three hours of closing time. Woe betide if you had a bad result.

Superdrug didn't have a training department. They expected their trainees to have had some formal training at their previous jobs. I hadn't. The company estimated that a trainee manager could relieve another branch manager after a few weeks, and be able to manage his own store after three months.
I struggled. Boy did I struggle. I tried to find another job but there was nothing doing. It was 1979 and the country was in a right mess. I had to stick it out.
For all my different jobs, I'd had no experience in management or leadership. I sullenly followed orders and became the area relief manager. I'd travel to the various Superdrug stores within a thirty mile radius to cover the manager's days off and holidays, and I tried to keep a low profile.
Two things kept me sane.
One was my music. I'd formed a top40 group in 1976 after my rock band had folded, and we played the pubs and clubs within a thirty mile radius of Northampton. It was the one constant during all the years that I was with Superdrug.
I'd achieved my ambitions for 1978. New house, new car, new job. I'd married my long term girlfriend in 1977 and we were working hard doing up the house that we'd bought together.
I can't say that I was happy though. We were predictable and safe, like an old married couple.
Then a new chief cashier started at Superdrug. She only stayed for a few months but she changed my life. After she'd left the company the rules about fraternising didn't count and we became friends. After a couple of years we became lovers. We've been married for over twenty five years.
I was a stubborn and slow  learner. It took me ages to feel comfortable giving orders. I'd always been one of the workers. I had to learn to be single minded, not to be distracted and have clear objectives. It took a long time.
One defining moment was during a particularly busy time. I was on the shop floor, rushing around trying to restock the fast moving lines. There I was, with my head down, price gun a blur, and my staff standing by watching me. I suddenly realised what I was doing and everything changed in an instant. From now on, they would be the ones with their heads down working, and I would be watching them.
I stayed with Superdrug for nearly six years before moving on. As fate would have it, I was back with them within three years. A lot had gone on in the intervening time.
Looking back I really admire the Goldsteins. They were innovators, pioneers. They were hard but fair. A few years after I'd left Superdrug they offered me a chance to join them on another pioneering retail venture.

Management part one

After a few months at the factory in Northampton I moved from production planning and took a job in the factory. I was the manager of one of the rooms in the factory, responsible for scotch egg and saveloy production and packing. I was in my mid twenties, more interested in making a success of my rock band, and without any training for the job I had to do.
I was an abject failure.

When we all relocated from London to Northampton to work in the factory we tended to cling together for friendship and support. There was a distinct barrier between the incomers and the locals, partly fuelled by the fact that we'd been given brand new houses by the Development Corporation and that we were generally earning London wages rather than the local rates, which were a lot lower.
The new factory was very spacious, with big open plan offices and a coffee lounge just for the office staff and management. We'd sit in there and talk about how much they had to drink the night before, and who was shagging who. We'd talk about how much work had to be done, but we never actually did much.
The factory staff just got and did more or less what they liked. I was very green, very anxious to be liked and to be everyone's friend, and consequently a pushover.
I had no authority and wouldn't know what to do with it anyway.

We never once hit our production targets and the quality of product was poor. But this was 1975, so it was OK. The unions ran the country and there was a crazy pay scheme in place where we got a wage raise if inflation reached a certain point. My wages increased almost every week, but our output didn't.
It was a train wreck in slow motion and I didn't know how to avert it.

So we sat in the coffee lounge when we should have been trying to get the factory working and we mouthed platitudes about how it would take about five years before the factory was running to its full capacity. And all the time the firm was leaking money like a seive and losing customers daily.

I was a fish out of water and totally unsuited to the job. I was more interested in my music and fraternising with the young female staff (naughty boy!)
And so after less than a year I left for pastures new.
And I didn't know what or where that was.