LIFO? Cops ’N’ Robbers?
My Ever Changing Life
Life as a Quality Control Shift Chemist was good, I had become knowledgeable in all of the processes, and the hours were good as was the social life and the money was great.
Two years into this new lifestyle a meeting of all of the factory shift chemists was called…
It was announced, on a dreary Saturday morning in the main staff car park, that redundancies were looming…oops!
3 Shift patterns would return to 2 shifts and only 2 QC Chemists per shift rather than 3…big cuts!
Just when you thought you were safe…
Everyone would be given the opportunity to apply for positions in the new system, but I knew, deep down, the clock was ticking.
Now, whether I was the most valuable company asset or not (lol) back then there was LIFO…Last In First Out. The government later went on to make laws to improve regulations for this practice but from my experience in business, companies still found ways to get around that.
Recompense for being made redundant with only 2 years under your belt, would amount to nothing more than perhaps a week’s wage. And whilst my wife worked full-time, we had a mortgage and bills to pay, time to seek another job!
It was a grim time, scouring the job ads, going to the job centre to check out the latest vacancies and always with the threat of my current employment coming to an end.
Having had a few years of experience in the mainstay of my searches for employment centred around that type of work. It has never been the best-paying work but often offered the chance of extra hours that would help balance that out.
And then…
There it was…
Willis Ludlow, a much respected retail store in Hull, had a position for an Assistant Security Manager.
Hell…why not eh?
I got lucky!
And secured the position within just a few weeks, leaving Smith & Nephew with little or no notice.
Now, this was another job I really got into.
The city ( Kingston upon Hull aka Hull or locally ‘Ull — Hull Slang) had a security radio network across all of the “big shops” and some of the lesser shops, but ones that were prime targets for theft.
So, beyond patrolling the interior of the shop, deterring theft (staff and the public) where possible but more preferably (I found) detecting and apprehending thieves, we also worked with other stores, alerting each other to the baddies in the area or giving chase to assist other city security teams.
The hours of work were mostly days, obviously centred around store opening and closing times. Extra hours came with staying after hours for cleaners or internal shop moves (retail is an ever-shifting animal as many of you will have observed).
The company paid above the standard security officer rate and my position as Assistant Security Manager meant my rate was enhanced again.
And then…suddenly…
(No the job didn’t fold surprisingly lol)
The actual Security Manager, who had been there for many years, became ill. He wasn’t old by any means but whatever the illness was, it was serious enough to take him out of employment circles.
Yup…and then, I became Security Manager…every cloud eh?
Crime in Hull has always been a problem, especially in the retail sector. So much so that the local police force set up an “undercover” (best they could) team that worked with the security teams across the city.
Needless to say “The Shop Squad”, as the sneaky civvy-clothed coppers became known, spent a lot of time interacting with Willis Ludlows.
My team became well known for their positive impact on crime both in-store and assisting around the City. As a consequence of being in the know with the police directly, I became interested in police work.
I had actually applied to the police a few years before and got to the stage where the Inspector visited our home for the final person-to-person interview. I had already passed all of the entry tests, medical, and background checks…this visit, to see how myself and my wife lived was the sign-off that all was good.
The Inspector had said:
“If I could I would take you back to start today. However, you will of course need training first and you will get the joining letter within the next 4 to 6 weeks”.
At the time, I was so excited that this was going to happen.
Approximately 5 weeks later a letter arrived.
I knew from the return address on it, THIS IS IT!
That put a full stop on the dream there and then.
On opening the letter, it revealed that the application process had changed during the 8 weeks of exams, tests and interviews I had undergone. Now, under new rules, the Police only wanted University Graduates…so Physics CSE Grade 3 wasn’t going to cut it.
So, going back to “The Shop Squad”, time had obviously moved on since this failed application and the guys and gals from the squad kept nudging me to reapply. “They’ve realised graduates don’t make ideal coppers…they want people like you with some world experience”.
It was tempting, but I really couldn’t face the possibility that if I applied again the same outcome may come during the process…perhaps once again the standards of education would become a stumbling block.
“Royal Air Force Police Recruiting Now”
A while later, still with the seed of being a police officer in my head and still obsessed with checking out the jobs page in the Hull Daily Mail…employment had been erratic over the years and I was always mindful that things don’t necessarily last…a job ad popped out of the page at me…
OK, OK, some of you may remember that I had decided to go against my parent’s hopes for my career or educational future. Military service had been in the family for several generations (Dad 23 years Warrant Officer I — Army…as an example).
However, this seemed to be the right moment, unemployment and employment uncertainty were an ongoing thing in the UK, which hasn’t gotten any better today, by the way.
The Royal Air Force, military career (parents happy maybe) = Tick RAF Police, desire to be in police work = Tick New life and environment with hopefully better prospects for me and my wife and our firstborn son = Tick
My wife and I were going through some truculent times, both realising we had got married at too early an age and were trying to work through how best to deal with that.
So…
That is exactly what came next…
Swinderby and Newton…next time peeps!
Until Next Time
Originally published at https://dominusowenmarkham.substack.com.
