Jo Williams Independance Day..The Aftermath

Hello all. I cannot believe I have not posted a blog since April 15th! I am so sorry. (Though maybe you are not...) Anyways, as I was rendered totally speechless last Friday on receipt of my gorgeous and multiple gifts, I thought the least I could do was make a bit of an effort to share my feelings with you some other way, hence this blog....read on and weep in the weepy places if you like!!



I joined Castrol on Wednesday 19th February 2001. My computer arrived five days later, so the first few days were hellishly boring! We were in Phase II back then, and I was employed for three weeks by Mark Hodgson to help sort the admin backlog in Workshop Marketing. (Quite how anyone thought I was going to do this in three weeks when the first week I was computer-less I have no idea, I guess this gives you some idea of how bloody unorganised the people were!!). The Milton Keynes lot had just been brought in, so the likes of Paul Tuohy, Jason Suckley and Dave Martyn were appearing in the office for the first time. I was sat next to David Foster, who was a man of as few words then as he is now, and diagonally across from Liz Woods, who was away skiing for the first two weeks I was here and who, upon her return to work, took one look at me and decided she despised me! (A feeling I fully reciprocated at the time :-) Then Paul Tuohy (Captain Darling as we called him in later years) sat opposite me and I really could not wait for the temporary assignment to be over so I could escape back to reality!



I smoked in those days so spent most of my time walking to the fag room, which was quite a hike from Phase II and involved going past the private dining rooms and then through the restaurant, the only good thing about the length of this trip being by the time you got there it made all sorts of sense to stay for a couple of fags!! By the Friday however I was becoming suicidal with boredom so approached the very scary looking lady who obviously ran things who went by the name of Val Stump and asked if there was anything I could do to help her. She looked around and said the only thing she had I could do was sort the stationery cupboard out (which was the size of a one bed flat and would of housed 8 Polish people). I instantly agreed, she said she was only joking, she couldn't possibly ask someone to do that, to which I pointed out the alternative was yet another 4 hours in the 'company' of David Foster and Paul Tuohy, or another 4 hours of smoking myself to death which was incidentally starting to cost me a fortune. Val shook her head and said 'well, if you put it like that I guess I am doing you a favour!'



So, two lovely days spent sorting the stationery cupboard out, which got Val in loads of trouble as people like Bozzie and Richard Hunt kept telling her she really shouldn't be asking temps to do such menial work!! She kept saying I asked to do it to which I just raised an eyebrow - brilliant set up! The start of a friendship for life :-)



So time progressed and being naturally work-hungry I soon became gainfully employed for the forseeable future, what with most of the permanent staff being naturally work-shy ;-) Tasks ranged from analysing data for Bozzie and Jason for Project Alchemy (a nightmare), collecting endless visitors from Main Reception for Sally Edwards (which Maureen bollocked her for after two weeks and said she was abusing my good nature), and taking on any piece of crap that Liz didn't fancy doing .... I do remember her giving me the Bonus scheme to administer, which was painfully admin-heavy, so I spent loads of time improving it and made it much better, at which point she decided she would have it back. I decided she wouldn't, a little stand off was had and the upshot was we both had a little more respect for each other and ended up being mates....classic.



We moved to Phase I on 13th March, I remember there being skips everywhere full of Castrol branded goodies that I shamelessly took home, cases and cases of oil that had been ordered in for some reason or another and that no one wanted, my Dad was bloody delighted! And in fact my brother gave me back a pack of motorcycle oil a few weeks ago that I gave to Dad back in 2001, which my brother inherited and now it has come full circle! Talk abpout a brand for life!



Lord Browne came to site on 10 July, I got death stares from loads of people as we were all walking down the stairs to the restaurant for the Townhall and he was walking up, everyone ignored him bar me, the gobby temp, who said 'good morning and welcome to Swndon' to which he replied 'good morning and thank you', I was so chuffed and people around me were furious! 'You are just a temp' !!! He gave a brilliant speech without notes, the highlight for me mind you being Dave Martyn falling asleep despite being in the front row!!



I also met Ralfy Baby (aka Ralf Schumacher) at the Williams Factory that year, a trip I thoroughly enjoyed, and made my first visit to Stanlow on July 30 as part of Quantum (maybe that was when I met Tony Lloyd??!!!!) And I went to Silverstone to decorate the box....it was a wet Wednesday and as I was in the box I heard cars going by. I went outside and there were quite a few people watching, I asked the bloke nearest to me whether they were Formula Three cars. "No love" he replied. "That was Mika Haakkinen. They are tyre testing the Formula One cars". WOW! I immediately did the classic, phoned my dad as one of them screamed by and said "guess where I am ? " Brilliant.



2002 I became a permanent member of Workshop Marketing, and bought my flat in Wootton Bassett, moving in on May 28th 2002, such a big day for me! A real grown up with a real job and a real mortgage.... That was the year of the Boat Trip up the Thames where everyone got wasted, and it was also the year that Connie Bianco officially left!!!! In the October I took my Sales Secondment and became the First Woman in the North (well, after Peter Ewen anyway :-)

and spent six months living in Yorkshire and commuting back to Basingstoke most weekends as I was seeing Ceri in those days... talk about a long distance relationship!



2003 was the Holland conference, I will never forget Paul Flanagan 'taking in some fresh air' by simply walking the circular doors through 360 degrees because it was snowing outside! Never broke his stride. Also the club we went to after the 70s themed night, four Elvis's in one club, the locals could not believe it! And Dave Woodman trying to swap a stick-on sideburn (he being one of the Elvis) for a hotdog on the way home. Pure class. I came back to Swindon in May and started my fateful role reporting to that bitch No Neck in September.....in my defence I was suffering from depression and was not in a fit state to make sensible decisions!



Site Audits came to life in 2003, Dennis Barnsley and I had some humdingers of arguments, what a man he was. Carole Cooper left in October and I had a Budget Meeting with Blaine and Vicky on 7th November apparently! Vicky and I went to Antwerp and delivered Fabriq to them, that was a great laugh, we flew from London City and went straight to the bar when we got there, then got straight on the champagne when we reached the hotel! Happy days. Blaine had his birthday do at Vic's (Pentridge Close), I remember I was driving my sister's Saab cos my Golf must have broken (again), I decided to walk to the local shop to get batteries for Blaine's present (a remote fart machine as I recall) and terrified myself by going through the underpass by the Covingham Hen!!



January 8th 2004 I Gave Up Fags, had a £50 bet with David Goosey that I wouldn't survive the Conference without smoking...which I won, then got over excited and matched his £50 with my own! Doofus. I got sent on a weeks training course to Majorca by No Neck to learn IMS Auditing - funny how that course, which I was not supposed to go on and had absolutely no interest in doing, led to my current career choice - just shows you never know what fate has in store for you. I also organised that Self Defence course where I got all upset when the trainer pretended to attack Fran!!! I started running too in order to combat the effects of my newly-acquired appetite of a horse due to lack of nicotine. I got My Own Temp to process the bloody site audits, which had taken over my life, and John Thompson left in the April. I went auditing in Romainia and we had Golf Lessons at which I was useless! The professional actually stated he hoped I never darkened his golf club again... brilliant. Hortensia made her infamous 'Moggy' comment which had me and Chris Reason searching the club house for a loose cat only to work out after several minutes she meant the weather was 'muggy' :-) We laughed about that only on Friday! I feel really bad not inviting her, I completely forgot! I will email her....



The Olympics were in Athens and my sister had trained one of the Kiwi horses and was out there, I remember Val coming in and saying she watched ALL the showjumping but never saw 'Nugget' (the horse in question), to which I had to advise Nugget was his stable name and his proper name was Glengarrick........we just wet ourselves laughing. I got seconded against my will to work with Alan Hodges (or Old Father Time as we called him) in getting the UK through their external audit - yet another one of those occurences that has had a massive effect on my life! So it was a case of out of the frying pan and into the fire for me boss-wise, from No Neck to Old Father Time...jesus I must have been bad in a previous life!! I remember going to Dublin with him for three days, by the end of which I was ready to kill him, which I damn nearly did at Birmingham airport as I marched off at 100 miles an hour back to the car, just desperate to get home, only to find him wheezing along behind me clutching his chest having recently had bypass surgery and not being up to my speed!!! Classic. Thought the bugger was going to cark it and delay my getting home even more!!!



2005 was a tough year with my beloved father and his cancer, although he made it so easy for us with his black humour, we all laughed our way throughout his decline made sure we enjoyed every goddamned minute we could. I will never forget my mother saying "Now Christopher, please stop telling people you are dying when they ask how you are, they don't know how to deal with it and it is down right embarrassing!". We lost him on 21 June, he was such a great man, I miss him every day. Work were amazing and I had as much time as I needed for which I remain eternally grateful, it's times like that that you realise just how good a place it can be. You guys were all amazing too, especially Mrs Beadle, you helped me through a very tough time with love and friendship and I will always be in your debt for that. Thank you. He would have loved you all too.



14 January that year I got my allotment, Vicky had a Virgin Vie party on 19th and Chris Beadle had her Pasta Night on 11 February, for which I made apple pie and where Connie bought along her daughter as well as her vibrator!! Wierd. On Friday 15 April I had a meeting with Rachel to learn how to do Mail Merge (Rach, your training sucked cos I still can't do them!!). August I went to Spain for a week with Val, Andrea and Jo Wallace which was heaven. I put my flat on the market in October, full of plans to move to Bristol to be closer to my Mum. She had a new knee in November and I spent a week working from her house looking after her, it snowed like mad and I had to take her to physio, against her will, in her brand new car, down the 1 in 10 drive that was sheet ice......talk about scary!



2006 was the year of the travel ban which we were all furious about at the time, the Conference was in Chester and it was also the year of the first big Reorg - 'Fit To Lead'...EPF forms and Sales reorgs, that was where Duncan Paget came into my life with his spreadsheets and Tracker Forms, and where Stanlow came into my life as a result of my getting the new role of IMS Manager. (Which funnily enough Sarah Vaughan went for too and refused to speak to me when I got it!!) I first came up here on 4th May to meet my new boss Duncan. Charlie Farlie (my niece) went to Australia on 14 May, she seemed so young to be going off round the world (19), and it was the football World Cup, lots of David Beckham, hmm hmmmmm! I spent the year commuting up here each week and living in the Holiday Inn Ellesmere Port, and Raymondo left the firm, with a blinding do at the Ivy in Wroughton on 29 September, that speech was superb Ray, absolutely superb.



Mum sold the family house, after a year of me and my brother working away to sort out Dad's scrapyard collection (bless), and we moved her into her new smaller house nearer the village in October. I had taken my flat off the market at Easter and was no longer on the Move To Bristol plan as Mum was as ever a star and was totally sorted. I did my first ever 10k race (Lethbridge) and my second in Bromham with Gerard and Jason Cox. I think this was my inaugural FC&A Christmas Lunch too, a major achievement in my social life - thank you one and all!



January 2007 saw me putting my flat back on the market and going to the Conference in Warwick, where I famously 'peaked a little early' and fell asleep at the dinner table on Sean Doherty's shoulder. It also brought me my first ever football match, Man U at home, can't remember who we played but I know we won! I loved it. I went to America for a week in March for my hols which was ace, and on 22 March I took receipt of my very own Company Car, one Ford Focus ST3, what a day that was!! My beloved VR6 Golf went into storage in Ceri's garage until my brother took custody in September. I never forget driving out of Wakefield House in my ST with Vic alongside me in the Metro, shouting 'nice wheels', I thought I would burst with pride. Charlie Farlie came hom from Australia in April and Mrs B left on 27 April with another blinding do at the Ivy. Ceri kept calling Bryan Taylor Bwyan, and Dave Martyn fell off the ramp and into a hanging basket, then kept groping people in photographs, then fell asleep! Reaso was the big 40 and it was the summer of floods. I sold the flat on 6 July and had my offer acceoted on Vale Road, Ellesmere Port on 12 July.....I was keen to move! Blaine and Sam had their Hag Do at the Cricket Club and I moved Up North on 31 August.

I did loads of trips that quarter, Portugal and France and Poland and Blackpool (which was horrid!) and Liverpool and Las Vegas! Which was amazing. Cost me a fortune but it was a fantastic trip and I had a ball, drank for 36 hours straight for Colby's birthday, took me a full week to get over. Came home, had a crap Christmas as was ill (unable to make FC&A Christmas Lunch - that is ILL) and my family were massive pains in the bum....however had decided to take my voluntary redundancy and basically that decision is why we are where we are today, me working my last ever Tuesday for BP!

2008 has been fairly manic even by my standards, what with the fateful Logistics job for Roland Rat, and the longest most demoralising serving-of-notice ever....I have of course kept myself entertained with a combination of dabbling in internet dating, stepping up my running massively with Dianne Markey, socialising like buggery - ChesterFest was the ultimate, plus many a fab local night out with Julie Price, and learning to ride a motorbike (please PLEASE all keep your fingers crossed for July 17th which is my test! I just know I am going to cock it up and fail, especially if my lesson yesterday was anything to go by, I was a disaster!). Plus hours and hours of internet shopping...in fact I just put my lovely new private plates (FIG 4002) onto my lovely Golf GTI T.... the plates mean nothing but they are non-age related and so much nicer than the old Y reg. Happy days.

Anyways my lovely people I am sure most of you have fallen alseep by now, so I will wrap up. In a nutshell, the past seven-and-a-bit years have quite simply been the best of my life, for which I thank each and every one of you. I am very excited to be taking this next big step, it feels absolutely right, but I am only able to to be brave enough to see it through cos I know I have all your support - which is priceless. We are going to stay in touch of course, I will blog much more regularly (and with much shorter posts I promise!) and I am already looking forward to "ChesterFest2 - The Return (Wales Welcomes You)" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thank you so much for becoming my friends, for making my leaving do so much fun, for all your lovely messages in my card and for the generosity of your presents. Most of all, thank you for putting up with me over the years and for pretending support for each and every one of my fads, you know much I need the pretend support and that is what I love about you all the most, the fact you indulge me!!!!

I am going before I cry. This is only adieu and not au revoir. Love me xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx