1960s WORK
0156 Gallahers -- John Elliott Resigns
After a couple years at Gallahers the good days came to an end. John Elliott had a bust-up with the board, typically for him over a matter of principle. But then he left. I believe later he went to Philip Morris, as head of its European operations. When I was later at BTR, and just before I got fired from there, I was headhunted by Philip Morris -- but I didn't know John was their client and hence turned them down. That was perhaps one of the biggest mistake I made in my life. Had I known he was the person headhunting me I would have gone like a shot.
With John Elliott gone, Roland moved up to be the acting general manager, and I moved to be acting marketing manager in Roland’s place. We all hoped this would continue, but the promotion mill got to work. At first it was a game. Everyone was guessing who was to get the job. Roland was a prime candidate since he had already shadowed the job. But, as everything was fun in those days, we started to take each other's candidates apart. The idea was that the person with the least marks against them would win. Of course, we came a cropper. The person who actually won was someone we would never have considered possible and who accordingly had not featured in any of the character assassinations. He was the sales manager, something of a martinet -- with absolutely no experience of marketing! Indeed, he was one of the old school.
To be fair, when he arrived, he did try his best; but he could never replace John Elliott and we all started looking for other jobs. As I have said, elsewhere, three of us brand managers found new jobs within the space of one month of each other. I don't know what happened after that, but I believe Roland – who stayed - went on to run a chain of tobacconists that Gallahers took over. Richard went to Aspro Nicholas. It was all a terrible shame. I had immensely enjoyed my time there. I got on with everyone, not just those within the department but everywhere else in the organisation.
As our work was so closely related to profit and loss I even spent a lot of time with the chief accountant and was very friendly with him. Indeed, I was privileged to be shown their records room, in a secret room built in the corner between two buildings and guarded with a bank vault door. This, he assured me, contained the real records of the company -- not those produced for public consumption!
It was as near an ideal company as I have come across; paradoxically so in view of the havoc its product was bringing to its customers' health. The headquarters was small, probably only couple of hundred people, but everyone was very high powered -- and very bright. What was more, we worked together as teams, and we even ate together. We had our own waitress service restaurant in the basement where we all used the lunch. Roland, as a more senior manager, was allowed to eat in the management restaurant, but even so he often ate with us; since we shared everything. It is a shame that so many companies push their employees into much more stressful situations and do not encourage them to enjoy each other's company. When I first joined the Open University something similar was the case, but that too soon deteriorated into the usual political in-fighting!
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