phil d
Well-known member
No, its a very large grain storage facility, when they were building it I went up to install some cctv but the spark they had to do the other work hadn't got a clue, so I ended up replacing him and was there for 4 years on and off, more on than off, I ended up designing and building all the gear that runs the place, there's a massive dryer, loads of elevators and each bunker has loads of fans and temperature probes in it. They have a lab for product analysis and believe it or not the whole thing is run by a computer!
they only employ a couple of staff to run it, I'm the plant maintenance manager on a part time basis, if there's an issue the computer throws up a fault and notifies me, apart from that it's just a matter of about an hour a week walking round and seeing everything's ok, I have planned maintenance sessions where things get stripped and inspected and I can check on the place from home using my laptop.
The thing is when the boss goes abroad on his holidays, they book me for standby in case one of the staff goes off or they have any other issues, they also own 2 large farms, one up here and one in Shropshire. Since I was involved in the building of the place there's only me and the owner who can do every job on the place, whether it's loading or unloading trucks, working in the lab doing the testing, or in the office doing the paperwork, or any of the other bits and pieces, pest control is a big problem, however I sorted this out by installing some large bird boxes which were quickly taken over by a large group of kestrels, they constantly patrol the place mercilessly persecuting the local mice and other small mammals, lol.
All in all it's not a bad number, I've carte blanche to make any decisions regarding the place while he's away, I have accounts set up at a number of places if I need any kit and best of all there's a large lake at the rear, filled with fish and swans swimming on it, so I can sit there for an hour and relax, but I'm still on site so I get paid, all in all I can honestly say I've worked in worse places.
There's only been 2 major issues that were a pain, one when we had intruders at 3 am, that involved the police helicopter being called out as well as several ground units, with me in support as the dog handler, being in charge of security is another of my roles. That was a funny one, someone had parked one of the vehicles in a shed and it was thought to have been stolen by the burglars, the next thing the police inform me that one of our motors, a brand new Audi sports has been seen in the north east and they were getting units to do a stop on it, NOOO! that's supposed to be there, the boss is up there on a break. lol.
The other one was just after I'd left one Saturday lunchtime, I received a call that there was an incident, the place was crawling with police and the road outside had been closed, the officer in charge was requesting my attendance asap! A passing motorist had found a bicycle lying on the grass, she stopped to have a look at it, and at that point spotted the body in the ditch, The police arrived and declared it a crime scene, because we have cctv covering the place, including the road outside they wanted me in to review it all, several hours later we had it all wrapped up, the cyclist had collapsed due to a heart attack, fell off his bike and landed in the ditch, they still wanted the video footage though.
