Technical Manager (facilities)
All Star Lanes
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My name is Ruslan.
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I’m working at All Star Lanes.
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I’m a technical manager. We’re based in Westfield,
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White City.
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All Star Lanes is a bowling alley.
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Not only a bowling alley – we
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are a restaurant, bar,
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karaoke.
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We always do the private events.
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My job is actually to take care of all the bowling equipment,
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facilities, and just keep the building managed well.
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I can fix
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any issue with the bowling machine.
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It doesn’t matter which one – it’s gonna be electrical stuff,
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or mechanical stuff, or
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simple bowl jam, so I can fix everything.
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It’s very interesting,
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it’s almost never boring.
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I always can find out something, which
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I even don’t know sometimes, and I find out.
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And always when you
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find out something new for you, you feel you have a win.
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So a little bit I have to be facilities and also a bit like handyman.
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My skills is
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like, basically electrical skills,
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technical skills and plumbing skills.
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School was
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for me, let’s say, sometimes boring.
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After school I go to the transport college.
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Transport college is like
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train manufacturing.
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I have to fix the train and I have to fix the wagon.
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And after that, we get the practical as well.
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So I worked with the big manufacturer for more than three years.
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My profession was actually
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train mechanical engineer.
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In this time in Latvia,
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it was a very bad economic situation and a lot of people lose their jobs.
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So a lot of manufacturers were closed in Latvia,
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even, especially my manufacturer where I worked before.
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So at that time I had already a young family
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and I start to think about, okay, maybe I need to go somewhere. For this reason, I
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go to
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London and try to find myself.
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And slowly, slowly –
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I’ve been to one venue,
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this was near Heathrow Airport.
It was called Airport Bowl.
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I find a job.
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I was in Latvia and one of my friends,
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he says, ‘look, you can go there and they are looking for a technician.’
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I said, ‘Why not?
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Okay, if I can fix a big train,
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why can’t I sort out an issue without experience
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in the bowling alley with the pinspotter?’
I read the manual and
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pick up the skills very quick.
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After that, one of the managers who is working at All Star Lanes,
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he hears something about me.
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He’s looking for a technician and he gives me an offer.
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It was a bad time
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when I arrived in the UK, very very beginning.
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It was difficult, you know,
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my language was not really well at all.
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So it was difficult.
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If you want to do something, if you want to achieve something,
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you have to work hard. Always try.
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Never postpone –
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‘Oh, I can do this tomorrow.’ No, no.
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Try today, right now.
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You will feel after that how you win.
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It’s going to be a little win, but you win.
“If you want to achieve something, you have to work hard.” Ruslan likes fixing things. He grew up in Latvia and trained as a mechanical engineer before moving to the UK to find work. He now looks after the equipment and the building at a bowling alley.
More information about Engineering technicians
The UK average salary is ÂŁ29,813
There are 37.5 hours in the average working week
The UK workforce is 47% female and 53% male
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