Quality Technician
Britvic

My name s Sarah M I work at Britvic Soft Drinks and I’m a quality technician. I work in a manufacturing site with the cans and the bottles for like Pepsi, Tango different products that are associated with Britvic and Pepsi and I kind of, I make sure that it’s all as it should be, Like it tastes right, it looks right, it’s in the right packaging, just make sure that the quality is 100% really.

It was a secondment that I took to get in to it and I’ve kind of worked and gained it as I’ve done it. I was working as a manager, same site but a different function at the time and it’s kind of like a job tester kind of thing. It’s just to see how you like it and how you are in that role, and if you can perform in that kind of role as well really and I ended up going into that. In to the quality department, I really enjoyed it and I got taken on full time in that role.

You get constant phone calls all day with different things you need to do and with different decisions you need to make, it’s really interesting. You get a phone call, like oh this is going wrong, and you have to make that decision there and then and you’re thinking afterwards god, did I make the right one and then you just think yeah I went through this thought process and this is why I made the decision and you’re like yeah it was.  That’s kind of a bit nervy sometimes, but I like that in the end really because it’s kind of like, I’ve decided that, I’ve made that happen.

We have to borrow like laboratory equipment and we’ve got specifications.

When I was at school I wanted to be a journalist so I did A-Levels, I think English Lit, Sociology and Art, which hasn’t really got a lot to do with what I’m doing now. Then I worked as kind of a receptionist just to get a job, just to get kind of my own pay really to make my own way and I’ve done jobs in admin, jobs in warehouses. Giving out kind of the picking sheets and picking slips and things like that. And then I joined Britvic doing that job as well, same kind of thing and then made my way up to a team leader there in the warehouse area and then I took the secondment into the quality department. So it was kind of a long route but it got there in the end.

Yeah I think at the kind Id kind of, I’d done secondary school and Id done sixth form A-Levels, and I just wanted to get out there really and make my own way in the world and kind of experience instead of kind of going and doing more learning in classes I just wanted to be kind of out there really.

My dad works in a factory packaging and my dad works in admin so there’s not really, I suppose probably I took more of my mum’s route through the admin side of it but that’s not really anything to do with science. They didn’t push me to go into do my A Levels but It think they kind of steered me that way, if you know what I mean. They were always proud of me and I think they just wanted me to keep on doing what I was doing.  I did like science at school actually, I was interested in it, but it’s not something that I ever thought that I’d get a career in. You know you think of a science career, you know like rocket scientist or something really complex but this isn’t, it’s like 12 hour shifts. Which sounds like it’s a long day but with the work that’s in it it’s kind of, it goes really fast because it’s so varied yeah and I get plenty of time outside of work as well.

Well I watch banger racing, it’s a bit unusual I suppose. I like martial arts, shopping; it’s a bit of a cliché I suppose isn’t it. I’ve got my own house now, a car and stuff I’m just, I can look after myself, I’m financially independent. Its good, it’s kind of, its where I wanted to be really, it’s why I didn’t go to university because I wanted to look after myself I didn’t want to have to have a massive Uni debt I suppose. When I was in school it always seemed like it was really hard, like you’ve got to be really really intelligent to do it and you know you’ve got to be kind of, just really like in the lab all the time, it’s just really not like that at all. There’s just kind of normal people that do it, you’ve not got to be a genius or anything.