The Merry Month : Robert Merry wonders why the stone industry abroad has to close for a month in the summer
Robert Merry, an independent stone consultant and project manager who ran his own company for 17 years and now also runs training courses on project management, gives his personal slant on the stone industry this month.
By the time you read this, most of you will either have ignored
1 July and the arrival of CE marking as a statutory requirement of selling stone or you will have attended the Stone Federation seminar on the subject and / or been spending sleepless nights reading all you can about the dreaded subject.
I don’t wish to bore you with more information, reasons for and against, why you should be panic stricken or alternatively why you could simply go on holiday and forget the whole affair until you return. But, suffice to say, you will need to take it seriously – unless you only work in kitchen worktops and / or fireplaces.
Other than these specific areas, you are a ‘stoney’ and you need to sort it.
There are no excuses, no pretending or imagining that for some reason as a supplier… shopfitter… fabricator you are exempt. You are not. Get tooled up with the knowledge and move on. The industry you belong to is changing. In fact, it has just changed.
Enough. Finished. Lecture over with… for now.
But don’t let me catch you doing it again! You at the back, put your hands where I can see them. OK. Settle down now.
Last month I went to Italy. I have to go again, just before they close for the summer, on bended knee to beg for some production before 1 August – the start of the month-long shutdown in the Italian stone industry.
Is my first thought one of envy of their long, hot summer holiday, stretching before them like golden sand on an Italian beech?
No. Closing the whole industry for a month is very frustrating and my first thought is ungracious, impolite and unprintable. If it were a colour it would begin as red, change to purple and eventually turn black. Dark thoughts indeed… not golden.
I employed some 20-odd Portuguese when I ran my own company. Fixers, labourers, improvers, managers, sawyers, skilled masons (the 20-30mm variety, not the dimensional kind).
Every August the business was decimated. They all left to go home for a month. Over the years we improved the organisation of holidays and staggered starts and finishes but it only served to extend the disruption from July until September and sometimes far beyond. Even when we refused to pay them for more than two weeks at a time, they still went home for a month.
Of course, the following rule firmly applies: whenever you need something or someone, it is at the exact point at which it or they are least accessible to you. Particularly when most of the staff are on the beach.
Holidays are good and deserved. We all work hard. We also know it takes 10 days to relax and then four days later you wake up and it’s time to go back to work.
But a month?
On top of the eight days bank holiday and the two week construction shut down at the end of December, what’s the point of even coming to work!
Two weeks feels manageable. We could fudge, prevaricate, find reasons why we can’t for a couple of weeks to cover absentees.
We could even show-up willingly and mutter about summer holiday disruption and short staffing and everyone in the northern hemisphere would understand.
But a month?
It’s a virtual divorce. And they rarely end happily, I am told.
The memory of sitting in my office staring at the company holiday planner on the wall in front of me with thick green lines overlapping for three months, like so much river weed bent against the current, still makes me break out in a cold sweat.
I remember, in the early days, there was only one mason and myself left in the workshop for two weeks. I cocked up everything I touched, much to the amusement of returning staff.
I have to confess to being more organised and a better manager now I only have to manage myself. I do try to manage my partner and the kids, but they just humour me in a slightly patronising but very loving manor. I almost don’t notice.
I guess we have no choice but to watch from afar and accept that on the balance of things we would rather be on holiday for a month as well. Its just so bl…dy frustrating!
Have a good summer.