They Call Me The King Of The Spreadsheets...

Well, working at Richard Burbidge has turned out to be more fun than I could have hoped for. 

The main part of my job is to look at spreadsheets of data and decide if we need to order new products, then order them, and then chase up the orders when they are inevitably late.  The spreadsheet part of the job is actually the least demanding, and in some ways the most fun.  I've been able to modify almost all of the spreadsheets in some way to optimise their performance, and I've been finally using some of that computer/maths education I had back in school/college/uni.  It's been alot of fun.  Seriously.

The other part of my job, chasing up the orders after I've placed them, is slightly more difficult.  Luckily, and I feel slightly ashamed when I say this, all the people I speak to from foreign climes speak English, so I am not having to rely on my knowledge of Latvian, French, Dutch, German, Italian, Swedish, Mandarin or Bahasa Indonesian.  Which is almost less than zero, considering I took German at GCSE level, and barely passed.  The real problems begin, then, when I try to convince suppliers to deliver on time or, if I've cocked up, early.  I've had so many problems with two suppliers in particular that I've had to bend over backwards to get what we want, including trying to convince these suppliers to send us things like details of what is in the delivery they sent yesterday, or what item they mean when they print 14566664/a/hob/asdf as the product code, which obviously doesn't match ours.

The big secret is so far it's not that difficult.  Although I have yet to start on the second part of my job description, Quality Assurance, I still have plenty of time to do things.  I did make the mistake of telling Tim, the operations director, and he suggested that I start the QA stuff early, but it hasn't materialised just yet.

The best part about the job, though, are the people I am working with.  I've yet to find someone who wasn't helpful, funny, friendly or honest. 

The greatest irony is though my first conversation with someone in the canteen was about horse racing....