Gas fitters and electricians required.

I don't know if this is a sign that things are looking up for the hoards of gas fitters out there, but they are in popular demand. I spent almost 2 hours on a conference call today discussing the labour needs of all of our contracts. It appears that we need to recruit sub contract plumbers/gas fitters from across a broad area of the country. Now you would think that the pay offered for their services would be increasing in line with demand. Well it is, but not drastically. 

We also discovered that we were going to be short of electricians. I have a problem with our electrical department (management) as they have a very poor relationship with their engineers. It seems to be almost impossible for the management to talk to the workforce. I personally sympathise with the engineers, they have been shit on for the last couple of years. Their wages are poor to say the least, and this is unfortunately reflected in the effort they put into their tasks.

I then moved on to a meeting with a very important client of ours. A working lunch was on the cards at the local Harvester. I sat in a meeting room with the client and two of my underlings, thrashing out a few fine details with him. The meeting only lasted half hour however it was time spent well.

The meal at the Harvester was ok, but the service was poor. it appears that staff cut backs were implemented recently and the punters were paying the price. Well you live and learn, somewhere else will have my custom next time.

The drive back to the midlands was interesting as several of the lanes i travelled on were flooded. At one point there was at least 9 inches of water in the road. It was a road i knew well. As i passed through a puddle nice and slowly, i noticed a bright orange transit van ploughing through at a good rate of knots. i could see that on his side of the road two 1ft deep pot holes were hidden by the water. They were just at the back of the kerb line. On a normal day one would wait for passing traffic to negotiate the holes before negotiating it one’s self. The van driver was totally unaware of them, and hit them at about 15mph, his van was thrust into the air and down and then back up again! It must have almost shaken the driver’s fillings out. I must admit i had a little chuckle as he should have been going a lot slower.

I arrived back at our office at about 3.30pm, and as per usual the atmosphere was not great. A lot of the problems with the electrical team manifest themselves at this office. Its not the fault of the electrical management team in that office but their superiors who dare not show their faces there. The contractors who have put the wiring into the offices for the I.T and alarms etc were still working. They have only been there for about 12 weeks! And yes we have to use contractors, don’t ask why as it pisses me off big time.

The journey home was uneventful and short. I was greeted by my better half with her beautiful smile, she really is my rock.