A day in the life of… our Technical Manager
Our staff are at the very core of our success, so we’ve decided to celebrate them in this special ‘A day in the life of…’ Q&A blog post series.
First up to spill the beans on what life’s like here at Invicta is our Technical Manager, Terry Ryan.
Terry used to be our Technical Customer Support specialist, but over the last 18 months, his role’s developed as the business and technical department has grown, resulting in Terry becoming our Technical Manager. Take it away Terry…
Q. What time does your day usually start?
A. Around 6am, which is so much easier to accept in the summer than in the winter.
Q. What sort of time do you start work?
A. If I’m in the office, I’ll be sat at my desk at 7:30am or in the warehouse measuring or checking forks or forklift attachments.
If I’m out visiting customers, then I’m on the road early to beat the traffic queues and get to the first site meeting. I’m generally our and about two to three days a week, so the motorway network can either be a friend or foe – sat in traffic jams is one of the downsides to my role.
Q. How does your day usually begin?
A. First things first (if I’m not off-site) – with a coffee in the office! Then on to the emails, quotations and designing bespoke forklift attachments.
Q. What does your role involve?
A. The technical department gets involved with specifying the correct piece of equipment for the requirement, so I’m either working alongside my colleagues in sales to identify standard equipment, or working with the customer to determine the answer to the problem, and then the design and costing of the new forklift attachment.
Q. What do you most enjoy about your job and why?
A. The challenge it presents – the cliché of ‘every day is different’ has never rung truer than here at Invicta.
Keeping in touch with some very good customers, friends and acquaintances I’ve made over 35 years in the industry is always worthwhile, and the buzz of solving a problem and seeing the equipment in action never gets any less exciting.
Q. What do you find most challenging and why?
A. Identifying the most cost-effective and workable solution for the customer – whether that’s supplying a bespoke piece of equipment specifically for the application or modifying an existing attachment to better meet the requirement and keep things simple.
Q. What’s been your biggest work-related achievement so far and why?
A. Other than individual designs of attachments that are now out working, the biggest achievement is very general and involves being a part of the growth of the business and seeing the headcount grow from around seven to 17 people in the space of just four years. Exciting times lie ahead, that’s for sure!
Q. What advice would you give to aspiring technical managers?
A. Learn from everyone around you and understand that every day is a school day.
Q. What time do you usually clock off?
A. The office closes at 5pm each day, so if I’m in the office, I’ll be away shortly after that once I’ve caught up on all of my messages/voicemails/emails. If I’m out on the road, the end of the day normally ends like it started – sat in traffic.
Q. What’s the last task you tend to do each day?
A. With modern technology being as it is, I’ll check emails and sort out the priorities for the next day or ping details to my colleagues for them to action.
We hope you’ve found this Q&A with Terry enjoyable and useful. Keep your eyes peeled for our next ‘A Day in the life of…’ blog post when another one of our employees reveals all about their role at Invicta. In the meantime, if you’d like to find out more about our bespoke forklift attachment capabilities or discuss your forklift attachment requirements with us, contact us on 0113 277 1222 or sales@invicta-attachments.co.uk.
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