Thursday, 27 March 2014

A Career in Construction - Part 10

Where was I? Oh yes, four contracts in Peterborough over four years were coming to and end. All the surveyors in my little area were gradually disappearing and I was left with tidying up final accounts. But what had the company in store for me next? As it turned out, a huge shock to the system. Tamworth!

On the back of our hugely successful second housing contract in Peterborough (Bretton 3A), Birmingham Region was tendering and winning some vast public housing contracts in the Midlands. One of these was in Tamworth. And strangely enough, half way through, it was in big trouble, think Bretton 3B on bigger scale. So the company thought, Roberts to the rescue. Did they think I would travel daily from Peterborough? On Monday 1st November 1976, I pitched up on site for the first time. The surveyors there were unhelpful, the files were in a mess, and a Valuation was due.  They could not have a clue about how much the material costs were working out, as no one had done a stock on site check....ever? So my first job was to try to get the team to count all the materials that were actually on site, first for the Valuation and second for the reconciliation. On a site as big as Tamworth, this was a huge exercise and one that was not completed in the day.

I knew then that Tamworth was not for me, and I resigned the next day. That was my only trip to this contract, and I was glad to escape and spend the remainder of my month's notice finalising things on Peterborough from an office on a Corby site. I already had made a few applications for a new job, and it was just a case of deciding what to do next.

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