WHITE LINES - do do it!


Dr Colin Mumford explains how a chance phone call led to a mad dash to paint the white lines on the games deck of Cunard’s new cruise liner, The Queen Elizabeth, once she had docked in Southampton on Friday, ahead of The Queen naming the vessel the following Monday!


M 98


onday morning was like any other, catching up with e- mails, deciphering the hastily written notes left on my desk, checking the diary


for that week’s appointments, and answering the phone, which invariably springs to life the minute the clock strikes nine. Then, around mid morning, after the initial rush of morning calls, a slightly more unusual phone call came through. I answered the phone with the standard company response, only to be asked one of those left of field, out of the blue requests. “Do you paint lines?” a young lady enquired in an almost hushed tone, as if she was embarrassed to ask the question, “Yes, we do line marking on sports surfaces, if that’s what you mean,” I replied. “Can you paint the lines on the Queen Elizabeth cruise liner?” For a split second I was asking myself if this was a prank phone call, but no, it wasn’t. After a brief explanation, it transpired that the new Queen Elizabeth


cruise liner was to dock at Southampton on the Friday, and the games deck needed the line markings to be applied as soon as possible, as the Queen was naming the ship on the following Monday.


This wasn’t a mission impossible assignment but, with an already busy schedule, it was leading into the realms of ‘just in time’ management, which can easily fall foul at the last hurdle to become ‘just not quite in time’. So, with the sound of the theme music to the Battle of Britain ringing in our ears, and with great British resolve and a stiff upper lip, we said we were not about to let some white lines ruin the Queen’s day, we would be there on Friday, but could they let us know what the postcode is for the sat nav? After some discussions with my colleague, Dave, who, coincidentally, is my boss - but I feel more at ease typing this tale by referring to him as my colleague (sorry Dave, I mean boss, Sir) - we came up with our plan of attack. We


would take as much stuff as we could cram into the van to counter any possible spanners that might fly into the works. This would be our hands-on approach to minimise any potential disasters, our very own interpretation of the boy scout motto “be prepared,” and a nod in the direction of Emergent Strategy, the mumbo-jumbo management speak for thinking on your feet. Friday came very quickly, probably because it was 1:30 in the morning when I got up. I said goodbye to my dog, Ziggy, and joked that I would be back in 24 hours. Perhaps, at this point, I should let all the animal lovers reading this know that other family members of the household were at home, so Ziggy wasn’t left stuck indoors with her legs crossed all day!


I left home at 2:00am for the three hour drive to the work shop in Sutton Coldfield. The three hours goes by quite quickly, as this is the time of night when all the specialist radio stations come alive, with Livetronica, Hip hop, Punk


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