Logistics Supervisor
Tarmac

Andy Christopher

00:00:03 Andy Christopher, I’m a logistic supervisor at Tarmac Colchester. Basically, if it moves it comes under me so I look after the trains, the tippers and the mixers so anything that moves come under me and soon to be ships as well.

00:00:21 No, no, I didn’t know what I wanted to do and if you asked me when I was six it would never have been a logistics supervisor. It’s been a progression since I left school into this role. When I was at school I was constantly bullied and that’s probably because I’m a big, I was a bigger guy then, I’ve always been big although I was always bullied but I was always good at sports so the bullies actually struggled because when it comes to the sports field they couldn’t bully me anymore and that’s probably what’s made me the way I am, you know, I think my bosses think I’m pretty tenacious, I don’t let go of anything and I’ll carry on until I’ve got the role done.

00:01:01 If my teachers saw me now I don’t know what they would say because I am a very different person to when I was at school because I was so bullied at school. I was the quiet one in the corner whereas I’m far from it now. I’m the outspoken one at the front, not in the corner but, you know, when I was bullied it was a negative experience at the time, it made me quite self centred because I probably only had one or two friends at the time.

00:01:27 Sort of made me not really trust anyone, that was one of the problems and but when I met my future wife, you know, made me trust someone and I probably trust people too much nowadays but it’s always a little bit on the back but you don’t tell them everything.

00:01:47 At school I enjoyed most of the sports, really, I wasn’t really good at exams and at the time it was exams, exams. I was actually going to go back after my GCSEs and do A Levels but job locally came up in construction industry as a lab technician and instead of going back to school to do my A Levels I got a job instead so I earned a bit of money.

00:02:12 My job that I actually left, when I left school and actually started was my Dad’s first job. So, there was actually a picture of him when he was 21 in the job when I started and when I left that role when I was about 20 there was a picture of me in there and you couldn’t actually tell the difference other than the fact he was smarter. He’s wearing a suit and I was in scruffy jeans and t-shirt. So, I followed that aspect but then went and stayed in the surface inside whereas I dabbled in the surface inside and then came back into the office and went into distribution and then logistics.

00:02:50 I was made redundant several times in my path, every time I got made redundant I managed to move onto something better. And it got to a stage in the end when people were coming to find me as soon as they heard I was made redundant for whatever reason. They came and found me, I didn’t actually have to apply for a job, they came and found me which couldn’t be too bad.

00:03:14 Yeah, when I became a father it was massive. It was really big. That’s the thing I live to do nowadays, obviously work to get the money to be a good father, that’s what I try and do. Yeah, the things I enjoy about being a father is just watching them grow. I wasn’t home last night but when I go home tomorrow he’s probably doing something different already.

00:03:36 Five or 10 years time I’d love to be retired. But that’s not going to happen. I’d just love to see me being a good father, I’d like to be a friend to my son, not always possible in 10 years time he’ll be a teenager then so, we’ll be hating each other but work wise if I’m in the same role as I am now, fine. If not, I’d like to move on to bigger and better things. ENDS