MD’s Musing
I used to have a love-love relationship with snow. Now it’s more love-stress. As an organisation, we’ve always offered lifts to our staff in our 4×4 in adverse weather, but with constantly increasing staffing numbers and the company’s 7-seater 4×4 in the middle of a repair job last week, the snow presented a particular logistical challenge this time.
With around 50 staff on duty over 24 hours and nearly 10 different shift changes across the various departments, it meant driving for the best part of 18 hours on Friday. Throw a couple of fallen trees into the mix, which blocked our drive, and it was probably a 20-hour shift for our stoic maintenance team.
Our maintenance Hero’s
Short of giving them an actual medal and thanking them on bended knee, I’m not quite sure how we can recognise such a valiant effort. Overtime rate and a box of biscuits doesn’t seem enough for the role they played in keeping everyone safe and sound.
Perhaps listening to them about how we can improve things for next time, and putting a more robust strategy in place that doesn’t rely so heavily on one or two vehicles and people is the kindest thing to do.
During my last driving shift on Saturday evening I was contemplating what takeaway I was going to pick up on my way home only to find our local village had turned into a ghost town. The takeaways and even the off-licence had closed early. And then the responsibility of our situation really struck me.
Open all hours
We can never simply shut our doors and close for the day. A nurse half an hour late for their shift could delay a time-specific medication for someone with Parkinson’s disease. And being short of care staff could put someone recovering from a stroke at risk of a pressure sore and infection.
By Sunday morning, everyone managed to make it to and from work under their own steam, for which I was extremely grateful, and remember thinking that I’ll never take people simply turning up for work for granted again!
Times like these really highlight what an amazing team we have, and how fortunate we are to have people working for us who put other people before themselves.
So, all that was left to do was spread some salt one last time before tentatively checking the weather forecast to make sure the temperature was indeed due to stay above zero for the foreseeable. Long may it last.
All the best,
Charlie