STAR OF THE WEEK

Whereas normally I am quite a cheery old bird - honestly! - I have noticed that on my blog recently, I have given little praise for those I encounter in my day-to-day ramblings. Could it be that I have finally become a crusty old boot?

Well, no I haven't! But it does seem that we encounter fewer people who are happy to do their jobs - and do them well. So, today I would like to break my usual habits of a) only mentioning those who piss me off (largely those connected to the Ford Motor Company), and b) by not talking about work - as I normally blog as an escape.

I today ended a run of store refits, with my colleague, in which we had three days to refit the entire tiling sections of three large DIY stores (that is all types of floor and wall tiles, with just the two of us) - one store per day - all stock off shelving, shelves dismantled, resized and rebuilt, end of line stock removed, new lines worked in, and then all stock back on shelves again. The work is back-breaking, filthy and very hot indeed.

Today was, albeit still very hard work, something of a breath of fresh air. A member of the store's staff was appointed to assist us, as usual. Today, at Homebase in Chippenham, we had young Josh. However, whereas previous assistants usually only stick around until the manager isn't looking and then bugger off, Josh stuck with us all day, worked his little socks off and, when he found that we were not going to stop for a break, as we wanted to crack on and get the job done, Josh disappeared for his own coffee break, only to re-appear five minutes later with 3 cups of coffee on a tray, which we were then able to drink while we carried on working. He was courteous, extremely helpful and very hard-working. So even if he doesn't actually read this, I hope that anyone who thinks their efforts are never appreciated, will find that they are, but perhaps we don't always tell 'em so.

So, from now on, I am determined to find a 'star of the week' every week. However, if they are in short supply, I might just have to add an occasional 'plank' or 'spanner'. I wonder if anyone out there might also like to mention any of their little bright stars.