An evening in Holmfirth

May 1996 saw the culmination of the most successful IT project that I'd been part of to date. I was the senior systems analyst on a team of truly excellent people, dealing with constantly changing requirements but working to an immovable deadline. (I must write about it sometime; it's a good story.) The client, Bradford & Bingley, promptly offered me an extension to my contract but I was disappointed to find that it was for a testing role.

The test manager on the recently completed successful project had been a chap called Graham Bradford (there was also a Teresa Bingley in the department!) and he'd told me testing was the next big thing. I wasn't so sure about this (he was right, actually) but I knew I wasn't interested in doing it. Still, a job's a job and it was new experience - sort of - so I knuckled down to it.

I stuck that for seven or eight months before deciding that I wanted to get back to systems analysis so I contacted a few agents and started looking for a new role. I was offered an interview at Asda in Leeds, which I went along to. The interview started off all right but then took an odd direction. "This is for an analyst role, isn't it?" I asked, slightly perplexed. "No, no. It's for a test manager." 

Well, I apologised for wasting their time and made ready to leave, already thinking about it what I'd say to the agent, when they asked me to stay: they thought the interview was going well. Indeed, at the end, they said that there was one other person they were hoping to get for the role but, if he was unavailable, then the job was mine.

It turned out that he was available, though, so I returned to job hunting, which, in those pre-Jobserve days was a fairly tiresome process. But then Asda got back in touch: there was another test manager role, and would I come in and interview for it? This was a bit odder than the previous occasion when I'd accidentally interviewed for the job; this time I was putting myself forward for it.

It's already too late to cut a long story short but I did get the job and started there in just after Easter in 1997. It was a good time: New Labour won the election which made me feel happy and optimistic every time I thought about it, not least as we surged through the first hundred days, with compassionate sunshine burning away they dark, dreary clouds of Conservatism that had overshadowed the country for far too long. Suddenly, we felt like a society again.

And I liked working at Asda. The company's ethic was like nothing I'd experienced elsewhere: I even had a 'Happy to Help' badge to wear at work. New products would be tried out in the atrium in the mornings and one week I had my breakfast there every day, trying out new cereals along with all my colleagues.

I also met the other test manager, Neil, who was the chap who took the first job. We hit it off immediately: bright, capable and great at doing his job, he was also an education in how to work with all sorts of other people, plus he was a really nice guy, always up for a joke and keen to see the funny side of any situation. He was good at keeping the various stresses and obstacles of the job in proportion, too. 

We've kept in touch over the years and last met up for dinner in Skipton three or four years ago. A meet up has, therefore, been long overdue. And as I didn't have the kids this weekend and with the Minx off gallivanting around the Latitude festival, tonight was the perfect opportunity to head over to Holmfirth to see him.

It was a great evening that just whizzed by: delicious mojitos at Neil's house, after which his wife dropped us down into town to have a jaunt around the bars and restaurants. I like Holmfirth - I've been here a few times to go to gigs at the Picturedrome - but it's the first time I've ever had an evening out in the town, and it was most enjoyable.

So, thank you, Neil, thank you very much indeed! :-)