OT: Old Mrs. May's fudge shoppe

[seriouspie]

I suppose it depends how you define 'patriot'. I don't believe in god, I don't believe in the principle of a Royal Family, but I love living here and I'm proud to be English. The England I'm proud of however is probably a bit different to the one you are proud of. I'm proud of the fair, tolerant, inclusive and compassionate England, but I'm not keen on the bigoted 'us and them' England.



I spent my working life in the Dyeing and Finishing industry, starting work as a naive 16 year old at a company in Bulwell called Spray & Burgess Ltd as a laboratory technician earning £6-15 shillings per week (yes, per week!). I pissed about for a few years then realised that if you have to spend 40 hours per week at work, you might as well get paid as much as you can. I started to move up the ladder a bit, to a supervisory position on shifts where I sometimes did an 84 hour week on nights if overtime was on offer - that's 7 days of 12 hour night shifts, so I wasn't afraid of hard work. I ended up as a section manager with a good final salary pension scheme and 38 years service. I had worked hard and saved and invested wisely, which allowed me to retire at 55 with more than enough money for a very comfortable life. My sales experience was little more than involvement in the purchase of dyes, but I can spot a bullsh!tting salesman a mile off. Even with that scant experience I know that saying "F*ck you" to someone you desperately need to trade with isn't a good negotiating move. My skills were largely technical in the field of colour physics, and I was very good in that area although I couldn't be arsed with much of the management side. Why would I have a chip on my shoulder? I did well for myself through hard work and common sense, but it didn't mean I had to abandon my social conscience.

Apologies if I've bored anyone, but if I'm asked a question I like to answer it.

Nothing youth ..... I started at Manlove Alliott as an engineering apprentice fitter in mid 1953 on £2.4s.6d per week (44 hours) and still have my indentures to prove it.... Do you want to see them?

[drillerpie]

The 'F'um literally is never used you silly man ... it's a figure of speech.

Fair do's to you on answering the question on work ..... I respect that and would always offer blokes like you a a safe well paid job. 'Steady Eddies' that lack managerial ambition are the strength of many companies.

On other matters ....... Salesmen are also the backbone of manufacturing companies. Without orders = liquidation. Go and ask the Americans who is one of the most important employees on the books. Incidentally, heavy capital equipment salesmen are certainly not Bull****ters I can assure you. It's not the hard sell, it's the guarantee you're machinery will do the job better and more cost effectively than the opposition. You must understand that certain people have the ability to take a risk in life and go for it rather than talk and do nothing. You don't have that inbuilt drive and ambition - but fair do's as Tarks once said - you've got your house paid and a few quid in the bank. Lovely .. all the best to you - but others will progress further along life's rich tapestry and succeed so don't call the wealth makers. I repeat (Want another bet?) the Donald will cakewalk the next term ......... now he's patriotic.

Your machines were either the best on the market, in which case guaranteeing them to be better than the opposition wasn't that hard, or they weren't better than the opposition but you guaranteed them to be anyway, in which case you were a bull****ter.

Which was it?

[i961pie]

I suppose it depends how you define 'patriot'. I don't believe in god, I don't believe in the principle of a Royal Family, but I love living here and I'm proud to be English. The England I'm proud of however is probably a bit different to the one you are proud of. I'm proud of the fair, tolerant, inclusive and compassionate England, but I'm not keen on the bigoted 'us and them' England.





I spent my working life in the Dyeing and Finishing industry, starting work as a naive 16 year old at a company in Bulwell called Spray & Burgess Ltd as a laboratory technician earning £6-15 shillings per week (yes, per week!). I pissed about for a few years then realised that if you have to spend 40 hours per week at work, you might as well get paid as much as you can. I started to move up the ladder a bit, to a supervisory position on shifts where I sometimes did an 84 hour week on nights if overtime was on offer - that's 7 days of 12 hour night shifts, so I wasn't afraid of hard work. I ended up as a section manager with a good final salary pension scheme and 38 years service. I had worked hard and saved and invested wisely, which allowed me to retire at 55 with more than enough money for a very comfortable life. My sales experience was little more than involvement in the purchase of dyes, but I can spot a bullsh!tting salesman a mile off. Even with that scant experience I know that saying "F*ck you" to someone you desperately need to trade with isn't a good negotiating move. My skills were largely technical in the field of colour physics, and I was very good in that area although I couldn't be arsed with much of the management side. Why would I have a chip on my shoulder? I did well for myself through hard work and common sense, but it didn't mean I had to abandon my social conscience.

Apologies if I've bored anyone, but if I'm asked a question I like to answer it.

My dad worked at Murray's which was taken over by S&Bs for 37 years before being made redundant (no redundancy pay in those days) he finished up at Weldon and Wilkinson's at Basford.
Did you know a young lass in the office by the name of Jane Ball ( Pearson) or a joiner Alan Edmonds by any chance?

[seriouspie]

Your machines were either the best on the market, in which case guaranteeing them to be better than the opposition wasn't that hard, or they weren't better than the opposition but you guaranteed them to be anyway, in which case you were a bull****ter.

Which was it?

Read what I said before making comment please.

No capital equipment salesman would guarantee his machinery was better than the competitors if he knew it wasn't - too much capital cost and possible law suits following if the machine recommended failed in it's job.

If you don't understand the principles of rock breaking ...... please Google "The MMD Group of Companies" and see my old company and the machines it manufactures. I'm not being funny Drillerpie ....... it'll prove you can't bull**** when you're selling this type of kit. Silly as it sounds you may find it interesting .... I'm sure Alty would.

[Elite_Pie]

No capital equipment salesman would guarantee his machinery was better than the competitors if he knew it wasn't - too much capital cost and possible law suits following if the machine recommended failed in it's job.

So you seem to be in full agreement with him when he said "Your machines were either the best on the market, in which case guaranteeing them to be better than the opposition wasn't that hard". If your machines really were the best, surely they would have sold themselves. Sounds like you had a cushy number, because you didn't need to be any more than average as a salesman.

[TheBlackHorse]

... everything we have is a result if a salesman selling a product or service. It determines our GDP. That's why the Americans hold salesmen in higher esteem than here in the UK. That's why nationalised industries eventually fail and why poorly run commercial organisations fail. The rail industry in the UK is a good example - both formats have failed; mainly because of poor quality management. Our MP's are part of the failure as many have no commercial acumen.

[seriouspie]

So you seem to be in full agreement with him when he said "Your machines were either the best on the market, in which case guaranteeing them to be better than the opposition wasn't that hard". If your machines really were the best, surely they would have sold themselves. Sounds like you had a cushy number, because you didn't need to be any more than average as a salesman.

Well if you say I had cushy number, then it must be true with your vast experience of company management

Black Horse's comments are actually 100% correct especially concerning the Yanks. But Hey ho! you LW Socialist cum Liberal bods wouldn't understand .... generally speaking you've always been protesters never the innovators, always the talkers never the do'ers.

[AltyPie]

Read what I said before making comment please.

No capital equipment salesman would guarantee his machinery was better than the competitors if he knew it wasn't - too much capital cost and possible law suits following if the machine recommended failed in it's job.

If you don't understand the principles of rock breaking ...... please Google "The MMD Group of Companies" and see my old company and the machines it manufactures. I'm not being funny Drillerpie ....... it'll prove you can't bull**** when you're selling this type of kit. Silly as it sounds you may find it interesting .... I'm sure Alty would.

Hi Serious,

I had a look at the video of that Atlas 500T Transporter. Amazing piece of plant. I imagine the design and build work associated with that would have required collaboration between all sorts of engineers - mechanical, electrical, structural, mining, geotechnical, to name just a few.

Just designing and building the transporter itself would be challenging enough, but then the operation of it, once on site would, I'm sure, require another whole new set of on site stability checks. I'm assuming two crucial safety checks would be to assess the bearing capacity of the ground it was sitting & travelling on (so it doesn't settle on one side too much) and to assess access road slope stability as it travels along (don't want that thing getting too close to the crest of the mine access road slopes).

Very interesting, thanks for the link.

[PedroTheFisherman66]

Technically the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the western European country typically called the United Kingdom shipped US$445 billion worth of goods around the globe in 2017.

That dollar amount represents a -18.8% setback since 2013 but an 8.1% uptick from one year earlier in 2016.

Based on estimates from the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook, United Kingdom’s exported goods plus services represent 30.1% of total UK economic output or Gross Domestic Product. The analysis below focuses on exported products only.

From a continental perspective, 54.4% of UK exports by value were delivered to other European trade partners while 22.6% were sold to Asian importers. United Kingdom shipped another 15% worth to North America.

Smaller percentages arrived in Africa (2.5%), Oceania led by Australia and New Zealand (1.6%) and Latin America excluding Mexico but including the Caribbean (1.4%).

Given United Kingdom’s population of 64.8 million people, its total $444.5 billion in 2017 exports translates to roughly 6,900 for every resident in that country.

United Kingdom’s unemployment rate was 4.3% as of November 2017 down from 4.8% one year earlier, according to Trading Economics.

United Kingdom’s Top 10 Exports

The following export product groups represent the highest dollar value in UK global shipments during 2017. Also shown is the percentage share each export category represents in terms of overall exports from United Kingdom.

Machinery including computers: US$68 billion (15.3% of total exports)
Vehicles: $53.7 billion (12.1%)
Mineral fuels including oil: $35.6 billion (8%)
Gems, precious metals: $32.8 billion (7.4%)
Pharmaceuticals: $32.8 billion (7.4%)
Electrical machinery, equipment: $28.6 billion (6.4%)
Aircraft, spacecraft: $21.1 billion (4.7%)
Optical, technical, medical apparatus: $18.1 billion (4.1%)
Plastics, plastic articles: $12 billion (2.7%)
Organic chemicals: $10.3 billion (2.3%)
http://www.worldstopexports.com/unit...s-top-exports/

So of these industries which ones are the rest of the world queuing up to now purchase?. ( if they aren't already)
note of Point - RE Vehicles: $53.7 billion (12.1%)
I didn't realise we still had an automotive industry, so the vehicles we have exported would they be items we have produced and sold with all the revenue's going into our coffers.
Or are they made here by foreign investors as a gateway into Europe with the proceeds returning home to the country of origin.?
eg Nissan Toyota etc

[sidders]

... everything we have is a result if a salesman selling a product or service. It determines our GDP. That's why the Americans hold salesmen in higher esteem than here in the UK. That's why nationalised industries eventually fail and why poorly run commercial organisations fail. The rail industry in the UK is a good example - both formats have failed; mainly because of poor quality management. Our MP's are part of the failure as many have no commercial acumen.

Bollox as usual from my favourite poster.
Everything we have is down to our intelligence and how we use it. Nothing is more important than education. A thick and stupid salesman won't sell anything, but one who is well-educated, perceptive and has a wide view of humanity and how it functions will always bring home the bacon...(so to speak, of course)