A drink and chat bring perfect end to the day

Jun 18 2008 by Tony McDonough, Liverpool Daily Post

BOOTLE-BORN David Ricketts is director of infrastructure and building at Royal Haskoning’s regional office at Stanley Hall, in Edmund Street, Liverpool, one of the new businesses in the growing commercial district around Old Hall Street. He joined the Dutch-owned specialist consultancy organisation last year to help expand the company’s new city centre base.

The company is doubling the size of its team in Liverpool to around 50, recruiting highly skilled professionals, including civil, structural and coastal engineers, as well as environmental scientists. This is an account of his day.

6.30am: Radio alarm goes off for the start of a fresh day. Why do I have it on Radio 4 when Jon Humphrys is so annoying? I’m first up, as wife and teenagers sleep on. Quick breakfast on the run, and into the car heading for the office.

8am: The usual journey into Liverpool from Heswall via the Birkenhead tunnel is OK. Today I’m making a detour to see the recently moved U-Boat U-534 on site at Woodside Ferry Terminal. Royal Haskoning undertook the project engineering to move the U-boat from Wallasey dock, including cutting the hull into sections to allow them to be lifted and transported to their new home, where the submarine will become a tourist attraction.

9.15am: Installed in our office in the business quarter in Liverpool city centre, with the first cup of coffee of the day. Go through the diary with Helen (our secretary/PA) and check the rest of the week’s arrangements. As my area of responsibility covers the North West, I usually try to spend a day a week in our Manchester office, plus I go to our head office in Peterborough once a fortnight to meet with colleagues to discuss our nationwide infrastructure and building projects and opportunities.

11am: Meet an architect contact in Castle Street for coffee and a catch up on what’s happening, and what’s new. One of the benefits of working back in the city centre, after 11 years working in an out-of-town business park, is that quick catch-up meetings like this are easily possible.

Noon: Telephone conference with our marketing and communications team regarding progress on our student design competition, “Brighten New Brighton”, which involves designing a new waterfront feature on the site of the old pier. We are going to hold an exhibition of the entries, followed by a prize- giving, in October. It’s part of Royal Haskoning’s contribution to the 2008 Capital of Culture celebrations, and of course it will enable us to identify emerging new talent from our fantastic universities in Liverpool.

12.45pm: Take a break for a sandwich and a breath of fresh air. It’s good to be able to walk down Old Hall Street and bump in to people that you know.

1.30pm: Use some uninterrupted time I have managed to set aside to work on a proposal for the structural design of a hotel scheme. This needs to include some innovative thinking on off-site manufacturing and on incorporating sustainable design features. Using off-site manufacturing means that the quality should be better with fewer defects, and also that traffic movements can be minimised making best use of a tight city centre site.

3.30pm: Conduct an interview with a potential recruit to our expanding team of structural engineers at our Liverpool office. We are doubling our workforce in Liverpool to almost 50 people, so interviews are now quite frequent.

5pm: A good interview, both my colleague and I are agreed we’d like the interviewee to join us, so I speak to our HR people about sending a formal job offer. Return phone calls and emails that have been stacking up since earlier in the day.

6pm: Usually quite happy to be heading home around this time to see the family. But tonight there is an invitation to join some colleagues from other property-related businesses for a drink and a chat at a bar in town before heading home. It’s been a busy and fruitful day, but the social gathering with friends and colleagues is a nice way to draw my working day to a close. It’s not all work.