Antiques Don't Bounce (books on antiques) by Richard Bullivant

Author:Richard Bullivant [Bullivant, Richard]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Europe Beckons

Spring had arrived and with it, quite out of the blue, a letter from my college Liaison Officer - a strange title that, somewhat inferring that I was on parole and subject to a good behaviour order whilst away from the harsh realities of college. The truth was in fact quite the reverse.

In my experience college life was like a protective cocoon which suspended you in time, whilst you theorized and formulated your plans for your future life. It was as if someone had pressed the pause button on the remote control of your life whilst you took some time out. However, take one step outside of those hallowed halls of learning and wham! Someone hits the play button and you are off and running again, synchronized with real time and facing the challenges of the real world once again.

My Liaison Officer’s letter reminded me not to forget that my third year project, which was a required element of my work experience, should be well underway by now. I sighed, clicked on the kettle for some caffeine induced inspiration, whilst I tried to recall just exactly what this project was supposed to be all about in the first place.

As usual, as with most college projects, it was one of those “identify a problem, analyse and solve” directives. Applied to my current world of fine art shipping and transportation, I came up with the following proposition:

Compare and contrast (academia loves this term) the practices of Lloyd & Taylor with those of similar shipping companies in Europe, to identify new areas of best practice that can be adopted to improve productivity and reduce costs.

This sounded a terribly serious and earnest endeavour for a mere youth of nineteen, but I can assure you that my motivations were purely hedonistic. The plain and simple truth was that I just fancied an all expenses paid trip around Europe. And, as John Lloyd loved the idea, that is exactly what happened, but of course the reality was far from the luxurious journey that I had already pictured in my mind.

It was a busy Monday morning, but I broke off from my duties, as I had been summoned to John Lloyd’s office to discuss travel arrangements for my impending trip. So with eager footsteps I hurried up to his office in the management block, my mind full of images of first class air travel from London to Paris and then on to Cologne in Germany.

I had chosen two of Lloyd & Taylor’s main European counterparts to give me a good cross-section of differing procedures across Europe to hold up to scrutiny – Gerard Dupont in Paris and Adelbrecht in Cologne, West Germany.

My French it has to be said was mediocre at best and my German was non-existent, even though the Oxford and Cambridge Examination Board in their infinite wisdom had decided to award me an ‘O’ level in German, three years prior, despite the fact that I never took the subject and certainly don’t recall ever sitting the exam.

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