As most of you know, I work for First Great Western as a train conductor. Almost a year ago, Andrew Haines was the Managing Director of First Group rail division and was also acting CEO of Great Western in a concentrated attempt to rescue it from being the basket case it had become under previous managership. After an amazing amount of money had been thrown at renovating the whole outfit from top to bottom, Mr Haines announced, prematurely, that the refurbishments were finished and that we could now move forward and build on our success. I'd already taken it on myself to send regular email updates to the Customer Service Director (from my background with BOAC and BA) to ensure he knew what was happening on the front line. So I send two strongly worded emails in as many days saying that the Boss was out of touch and the train maintenance was severely affecting our service levels.
The day after that, I had a call from the Engineering Director who invited me to our maintenance depot in Bristol and spent several hours showing me around and listening carefully to all my points, letting me talk to the engineers and managers and explaining what they were doing to address the points I'd made. In return I wrote an article for my colleagues, passing on all the stuff I'd heard and telling them how improvements were being made. I emailed a copy of the article to the Engineering Director. Two days later I received an email from Andrew Haines saying he'd seen the article and heard how I had a lot of good ideas and would I make an appointment with his PA to meet him.
He gave me an hour and a half and there was just me, him and the Communications Director and I gave them a full presentation of how customer service should be on the railways and how simply it could be achieved. We got on really well and he said it was so refreshing to meet somebody who understood what he was trying to do as he felt that his senior managers had no idea. At the end of the meeting he gave me a top secret document about the future of the company and asked me to read it and give him my thoughts and opinions on it and then asked me to join him on the management team! And I said no, I don't want to be a manager, I can be of more use to you on the front line. I was very flattered!
When I sent him my report on the document he said that it had more insight and understanding than most of his management team were capable of and reiterated the offer of a management job. He left the company a few months later but I received job offers from two other senior managers and a director at his behest, but again I turned them down as they didn't appeal for various reasons.
Anyway - so now he's CEO of the CAA. And I can't help wondering if he's still got my email address tucked away in his blackberry. If he offered me a job at the CAA, I might not play quite so hard to get
But bottom line - what a nice man. Really down-to-earth and with a great respect for the experience of people on the front line, but as tough as you need to be to get to a position like that. If I was in a cosy little number serving my time at the CAA, then I should be very worried now. He'll want to surround himself with energetic, innovative people who understand efficiency. Oh yes - and perhaps a retired air steward with some railway experience!
Ian
but I suppose a conductor is more relevent to his previous job!!!!!
