Employee Focus: Lois, Warehouse Manager
Employee Focus: Lois, Warehouse Manager
Lois works on our Arsenal contract at one of our Bradford sites. She has worked for Torque for over 16 years.
We caught up with Lois, a long standing Torque employee who loves her job and more importantly, making our customers happy. Find out about what it takes to work on a contract like Arsenal and why you shouldn't ask Lois for directions in London!
1.What’s your role within Torque and how has this developed?
My role within Torque is Warehouse Manager (to which I was recently promoted) at one of our Bradford sites. When I first started with Torque (well as it was known then Elite) I was a part-time warehouse operative and worked on the Cotton Traders contract. I then progressed to admin and went full time, from working in admin I continued to be promoted and worked on a number of contacts eventually landing on the Arsenal contract.
That was 8 years ago and can remember it like it was yesterday, once I moved onto Arsenal it just seemed to fit – my role consists of dealing with most of the site’s day to day running and issues.
2. How long have you worked for Torque?
I have worked for Torque for 16 years
3. What made you choose a career in logistics, and what has made you stay with Torque specifically?
I was aware that there were job vacancies within Torque and I was only 5 minutes away to the Wortley site, I applied, got a job, and never looked back.
4. What’s the most important thing you think you’ve learnt in your role?
I have learnt many things over the years – practically, a big thing for me was learning how to create spreadsheets and although I do not proclaim myself to be a spreadsheet wizard they are getting better and I am enjoying still learning new tricks. I have also learnt a lot about organisation and this has been a great help with time management etc.
5. What’s your favourite part of your job?
I love most of my job but the main thing for me is making the customers happy.
6. Funniest story on the job?
The funniest moment for me was one of the many trips I made to Arsenal in London, myself and the admin girl at the time caught the train to London as normal. From the station you need to get the tube to Arsenal football ground the building is called Highbury House and if you get the tube to Arsenal the walk from the tube station is around 5 minutes, on this occasion however my mind went totally blank and we ended up on the tube that took us to a station called Highbury House, when I realised we were on the wrong tube I thought how far can it actually be from Highbury House station to Highbury House itself? Once off the tube I called Highbury House and they told me that should take no longer than 45 mins to walk but also found it highly amusing, so we started to walk and after half hour realised we were totally lost, we asked people for directions as we were walking and somehow managed to get to a spot that we kind of recognised, after walking for what seemed like ages we managed to get back to where we should have been if we would have taken the correct tube, it had taken us 1 hour and 50 minutes, it did not take long for everyone in Highbury House at Arsenal to find out that we had done some sightseeing on the way and there were plenty of comments made before we left to get the CORRECT tube back to Kings Cross.
It was a very eventful and highly amusing day.
7. How do you think Torque go the extra mile for their customers?
Every customer’s needs within Torque are different and we will always do everything possible to ensure the needs are met fully.
8. What advice would you give to someone looking for a job in logistics?
Join Torque!!!
9. Can you tell us an interesting or fun fact about yourself?
When I first left school I went to college to study hairdressing, once we had been on the course a while we began doing customers hair within the college. On one day which I will remember forever I was set the task of perming the models’ hair. I was on my 3rd perm of the day and one lady wanted a particular perm which I wasn’t sure how to complete. My tutor pointed to the bottle of solution I should use and as trained I wound the hair into the rods applying the solution to the customers head. For some reason it didn’t smell like a normal perm solution but I never really gave it another thought.
After around 15 mins the lady said that her head was starting to burn so I looked through the cap and saw that there was a little more condensation than usual and that her head seemed very warm so I asked my tutor to take a look. By the look on my tutor’s face, things were not how expected, she looked flustered and scared all in one, she pulled me to one side and said we needed to get the solution rinsed off ASAP without too much force on the hair. I didn’t know what to think and I was very scared, we ushered the lady over to the sinks and I tried to slow down the flow of water while my tutor attempted to rinse the ladies hair – I looked down to the sink bowl, which had 10 rods in the bottom all with hair still attached. My tutor assessed the damage (we all know the outcome of that – NOT GOOD!!) and then had to explain to the customer what had happened and what her choices were – the decision was made to shave it (which I was not allowed to do).
The lady was in the college salon for around another hour letting her head recover, luckily, she was very understanding. I was allowed to stay at the college and the week after it was the talk of the salon, we all had a good laugh at the incident including the lady that it happened to. I got to know the lady quite well due to this and I still know her up to this day, although she will not let me perm her hair. I eventually went on to pass all my exams and I worked as a hairdresser for around 5 years before I started my family, after having my daughter I never went back and pursued a career in logistics this which was probably beneficial for a lot of heads J
10. If you had a boat, what would you call it, and where would you take yourself if you could go anywhere in the world?
If I had a boat big enough to take me anywhere in the world then I would definitely have enough money for someone else to take me, not sure I would get very far if I was the captain, but I would call it Kathleen and I would go to Seychelles.