We will be bringing you stories from BA Components and here is Brenda with the very first employee blog post.
Come the 25 July 2014 I will be a BA employee 20 years and all I can say is ‘wow’; what changes I have seen!
I started with the company when I left technical college and never imagined then I would still be here 20 years later. I have worked in nearly every department to date and that has included the factory. I loaded the lorries with my partner in crime Caroline (who currently works in the accounts department) and I have even experienced a day on our routers (this however was a dare!).
Our office at the time was top class but now I laugh at it, as it seems so prehistoric. We would have hand written the invoices and despatch notes, we had two phones and one very noisy dot matrix printer for our factory production sheets. We also had a fax machine and some computers that had the smallest monitor you can imagine. I have been the cleaner, tea lady, receptionist, sales, accounts, despatch and all in one day at times! However, I am a bit of a boomerang and always seem to end up back in my comfy seat… in the sales department.
The changes within our company and within the industry alone are too many to mention. When I began my BA journey we made our Sperrin range, which was a simple five-piece mitre frame door collection in what seemed like every shade of Ash you could mention. We then progressed to bring in our (really high tech at the time) Rivera range of doors. These were routered out on our shiny new router and sprayed by hand in some strange colours; we even had Alder pink!
I recall the days when Brian (MD) and Kieran (Director) came to work in their normal working clothes. They completed a hard days work in the factory from early to late alongside the small number of employees we had then who also were in manufacturing. Now the two main men are that busy with meetings, research, travelling to various countries for both sales and production, I don’t even know when they get time to relax.
As the years have passed the product range has grown dramatically. The building has grown and the staff size is the biggest it has ever been! I have made some friends through the years and all I can say is BA has a knack of hiring unique employees. We have shared laughs, tears, troubles, weddings, babies, breakups and anything else possible in a life. We have discussed every topic possible from world peace to the latest fitness move. I find myself in the position to say that they are really all like another family.
We have many customers now and I can remember lots of them joining BA. I have some customers who I chat to like I’m chatting to a friend and maybe chat to some customer more that my friends (not sure if this is good or bad)!
I do feel lucky to belong to a business that is growing fast, and with people who work so hard to make sure the growth is sustainable and that we are always working to what the customer wants.
We have two sites now producing 1000’s of pieces every day and who knows what the next 20 years will hold – because 20 years ago no one ever would have considered where we are today. We are all working with the top resources available and everything is the best on offer – our most recent addition to the office is our new printer it will soon be able to make coffee its that advanced! Like all our technology. I hope you have enjoyed a brief insight into my 20 year’s working and living at BA Components.
