Name: Mark Smith
Job title: External Quality Technician
Tell us a bit about yourself
I live with my partner Ruth in Middlewich, Cheshire. We have four children and eight grandchildren through previous relationships and we share the madness with two dogs, Alf and Nelly (we sadly lost two, LU LU and Lilly, recently) and 100 racing pigeons.
My interests are varied and mostly revolve around sport – football, F1, horse racing, pigeon racing and boxing (I had 19 fights with 19 knockouts and managed to win the last one).
For my sins, I’m a Manchester City fan – not the new type, the old fashioned version at Maine Road and the Kippax stand. I used to love the old days standing in the rain against Halifax on a Tuesday night.
We also love to go horse racing and are very lucky to have Chester racecourse not too far away, which we visit when we can, and have been lucky enough to visit most of the major courses in the UK (please don’t ask me for a tip).
When I am not horse racing, I am pigeon racing, competing in the UK and France. I am a member of several organisations, including the Lancashire Social Circle, and am president of the North West Classic Club.
Above: Hitting the dancefloor at this year’s 25 Year Club celebration.
Describe your job to a five-year-old
My grandson always laughs when I describe it as “Chase is on the case”, a reference to the cartoon Paw Patrol.
What do you like most about your job?
I love the diversity of the job and the meeting of new people, as well as seeing the ones I have known for years and the fact that I can make a real difference to situations and resolve them.
How did you get here?
Well, I’ll give you the short version. I started on the infamous YTS scheme after leaving school in 1984 and somehow ended up in the laboratory of Ideal Standard in Middlewich, earning a massive £25 a week.
Above: The old lab team in Middlewich – Mark is in the white coat.
After my year was completed, I was asked to stay on in the lab and continue my development in the testing of raw materials, making new glaze colours (yes, there was more than white) and other general lab tasks.
I was also doing day release at Norths Staffs Polytechnic for three years, studying ceramic technology.
After a few years, there came an opportunity to join the quality assurance team in the plant, which I grasped with both hands because it meant I could actually go out to visit suppliers and gain further knowledge of the business.
After a some years of doing that a new department was being established by Mark Barrett (he still reminds me now) as External Quality, visiting customers and inspecting products that had been rejected or damaged in the field. Although the job has change massively since those days, I am still doing something similar to this day
What motivates you?
Trying to be better than yesterday.
Above: Mark (centre) playing in the annual Middlewich v Hull football match.
If you could swap jobs with anyone, who would it be?
I think it has to be [Manchester City Manager] Pep Guardiola, with Alan Brazil on talkSPORT a close second.
Your favourite song lyric or line from a film
It has to be THE Only Fools and Horses Jolly Boys outing when Del is doing a quiz and asked what a female swan is called and Rodney is holding a pen up to try and help him and Del says it’s a Bic (that’s me all over).
Your favourite app?
WhatsApp – nice and easy.
Biggest facepalm moment at work?
This is difficult one because there are so many over 41 years. I think it has to be in the old days in my time in the Plant QA team when we had a customer complaint about a colour match on a basin (Whisper Cream). I went to the customer’s house to replace the off colour basin with the new colour matched one which was in the en suite bathroom. I removed the old basin and fitted the new one, and tried to get out, only to my horror to realise the basin was the wrong size and I couldn’t actually get out of the bathroom because the door wouldn’t open.