Area Manager
Vue Cinemas

Kirk E

00:01 Name’s Kirk E I’m area manager for VUE cinemas. I would work with the general managers who are responsible for producing a balanced score card the balanced score card would be split into their people section, their processes, their customers and their financial sections, and we spend the majority of time either assisting them with helping them get their numbers or their people or processes in the correct manner, or alternatively advise if things need changed.

00:26 I just couldn’t see the point of university at the time it was just the way I used to think, I went and did a hotel management diploma and since I’ve left school what I found useful to me is I’ve done my masters in business so I tend to use that as a lot more of a filler for areas of subject matters that, not that I struggle with but I needed more help with say like financials or strategy or things of that nature.

00:51 I used to work in the nightclub, restaurant, hotel business and I advertise a job I used to work for a company called Garvan O’Doherty in Northern Ireland and I advertise a general manager position so when I actually went to see a reference number they’d got all the information incorrect, so I phoned up the agency to say that’s not the correct information they said it’s actually a different job and now while we got chatting he said, why don’t you apply for it, so I did and that’s how I got into the business.

01:18 Before I joined the cinemas I hadn’t been to one for 6 years. In my latter years of schooling I did a lot of part time bar work and things so, I thought I’d give it a punt the hotel side of it. My mother had been in hotels as well so, sort of fitted in that respect. He used to run a taxi company in fact he, when he was in London he was in the RAF and things like a, and then when he moved out of the RAF he went out to London Transport and he used to tutor people how to drive the London buses and things like that. And then that’s why we went to South Africa he went out to South Africa to do the same thing. But when he was out there he opened up a taxi company.

01:53 He sacrificed a hell of a lot to get us private education and I had 2 brothers and sisters as well. But he put a lot of, made a lot of sacrifices just to get us the correct education, and we all went to a very good school.

02:05 It was my favourite part of life although you enjoy the camaraderie of friendship and things like that, I thought a lot of the subjects to be brutally honest were, some subjects don’t prepare you for what goes on in the real world. You know although you need the basic ones of English, math and science and things like that, some of the geography they teach and biology you can’t put to use unless you’re go into a specialised field.

02:25 With the hotel business you know, you tend to move around a hell of a lot, so I did a year here there and everywhere and then, I got the bug for travelling and eventually came to England to Dublin and then up to Derry.

02:38 Depending if I’m working a weekend or not I would come over on either a Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and then spend 3 or 4 days in my area and then go home.

02:45 The thing with my kids is settled there and they’re very outdoor kids, do a lot of fishing the activity and everything suits them, schooling education is very good over there as well so, my wife’s lived there all her life, she’s very settled, she’s got a business there and things like that.

02:59 Be surprised how many people I fly with on a weekly basis who do exactly the same thing as I do, they’ve a settled home life and tend to travel. I can get to London quicker than most of my colleagues who live in places like Leeds.

03:12 We think outside the box, the film industry isn’t a revolutionary industry we don’t invent the atom bomb and things of that nature it’s quite a simple thing you know we get films, we convert it into a format that people want to see and we do coke and popcorn primarily and those are our core part of our business. And I think what we do is we don’t lose sight of that. I could have probably stayed in a certain job for longer, I got offered promotions when I’d resigned that in hindsight maybe I should have taken but you’re young and you want to explore and anybody who’s young and does want to explore I recommend you do it. I’ve got 2 sons and one, as soon as he turns 18 I’m gonna help him pack his bags to go and see the world. I think there’s more to life than you know, work is an aspect of it but you need to educate your whole body and mind as well.

03:56