Late afternoon Friday felt like going on holiday, but
without going away anywhere. I left work just after 4.30pm and am off now until
Thursday. Most of the workforce have been laid off – a situation we are reviewing
on a weekly basis, but with many customers either postponing or pushing back
delivery of their orders, it makes sense to scale back production.
It also means that the handful of people who are still in,
have plenty of space between each other to maintain that all important 2 metre
social distancing. There is still some necessity for the QC function, which is
the area I am responsible for, but today I worked out a roster with my staff
which enables us to provide cover during the run up to Easter, and potentially beyond.
The hardest part was finding sufficient work for the team to
do at home, an issue that I’ve spent the past couple of days solving, so now
everyone is sorted, and I can put my feet up for the weekend, secure in the
knowledge that short of closing the factory completely, we’ve done everything
we can to keep the workforce safe, whilst keeping things ticking over.
Before finishing, it’s surprising and encouraging to see how
quickly people have fallen in line with social distancing. There’s a well-stocked
village store and Post Office just along from our premises, and it’s good to
see that it’s well patronised at present.
I’d a package I needed to post back to a supplier this morning,
so I strolled down to the Post Office and joined the queue. The shop has a
one-out, one-in policy, but it was quite entertaining whilst waiting for my
turn to stop and chat with a few fellow shoppers, whilst at the same time
keeping our distance.
Community stores like this are worth their weight in gold at
the best of times, but during the situation we’re facing now, they really come
into their own. My company helps by placing a regular milk order for the staff
tea-room, and if we have visitors, such as auditors, who fancy a working lunch,
we can phone down an order for filled rolls for our guests to enjoy.
I forgot to mention that Mrs PBT’s has a stack of jobs for
me to do, so the weekend won’t be one of complete relaxation for me but keeping
busy is the key at present. That reminds me, I’ve still got that Isle of Man article
to put together.
3 comments:
One in, one out seems common. The queue out of our Tesco stretched back to the cashpoint so I gave up.
It's three weeks Martin, since I last set foot in a major supermarket. Matthew has been taking his mother shopping, seeing as he's been laid off work, and they've mainly been using the M&S Food Outlet that we have in Tonbridge.
I took Mrs PBT's there a fortnight ago, and whilst this was before they introduced the one in, one out rule, it was still quite relaxed and very civilised. You might end up paying slightly more for your groceries, but it is worth every penny in the present circumstances.
Local producers and farm shops are also well worth checking out. For example, you can pre-order from the excellent butcher that we have in Tonbridge High Street and then either pick it up later, as part of your daily exercise routine, or they will deliver for a small fee.
Good advice.
We had a delivery of fruit, veg meat and bread this week, good quality but not cheap. Still needs topling up though.
Take care.
Post a Comment