The Good Old Days

In the very early days of the company, we didn't have any office staff to answer the phone, and I remember one particular day when I had had to accompany my partner to one of his posh company dos in Monte Carlo. I had of course diverted the business telephone line to my mobile. The phone rang as we were coming out of a visit to the casino. And there I was perched on the stairs of the casino, desperately trying to find pen and paper in my diminutive handbag and answering in my best professional voice: AB First Response, how can we help?

The client wanted to book some training with a particular trainer and wanted to know if he was available . This trainer as it happened was at the time working in Kabul on a training contract we had for the MoD. The client back in Wales had just rang our office number and never knew that his telephone call for a booking involved a lady in mini-skirt sitting outside the casino in Monte-Carlo and a trainer in a military base in Afghanistan.

Put it on a shelf and forget about it!

The other day, one of our consultants went to do a fire risk assessment for a local restaurant. When he came back to the office, we were having a chat about it, not the risk assessment, the food!, my favourite subject. Eventually we moved on to the subject of the risk assessment. "It's going to end up on a shelf and gather dust" he said "I did stress that they had to take into account my findings and make some changes and that in some cases there was a serious accident waiting to happen if they didn't do anything" Our consultant is passionate about his work and despairs that some clients still don't take their responsibilities seriously. They still think that like in the old days of the fire certificate, once you get the fire risk assessment, you're covered and you can just put it on a shelf and forget about it. Unfortunately they couldn't be more wrong. See http://www.abfirstresponse.co.uk for information.