A Few Minutes

May, 1987

I was sitting at my stress office operatives desk, minding my own business when Matt Hilliard walked over and told me that he had a head hunter on the line, he said that he wasn't interested but thought I might be.

The person at the other end of the telephone line was a very English sounding lady called Valerie Davis and she said that she was representing an employment agency in Canada called Cantech and asked if I had a few minutes to talk.

There was the usual discussion about who I was, what I did and a brief verbal resume was passed over, she then continued and said that the company in question, recruiting for a new program, was Dowty Aerospace Toronto, a landing gear company in Ajax.

I knew of Dowty, which were our competitors in the UK, but had no idea where Toronto or Ajax was, and very limited knowledge of this place called Canada besides the Monty Python Lumberjack sketch, yet I said I was very interested.

The next step, she said, was to send off my resume to the agency with a cover letter saying that I had seen the advert in the Manchester Evening News and that I was interested in the position of Stress Analyst.

I thanked Matt and returned to my desk, head buzzing with flies, the Olivetti M24 was booted and over the next guarded hour the resume and cover letter were created, I grabbed an APPH envelope and slipped silently out of the office and up to Hunts Cross post office.