Blog Articles

One highlight last month was a day at the annual Young Bus Managers Conference in Brighton, which focussed on the use of new technologies in the industry. The event also included a speech by the MD of Arriva UK Bus and served as a good opportunity to meet other young managers from First and other operators. It was well worth a visit. There was even time for an ice cream and crazy-golf in the mid-March sun before an evening on the train back to Yorkshire!

I spent the most part of the month in Bristol at Enterprise House (which is just the posh name for the slightly less grandiose Lawrence Hill depot). This, along with Southampton, is the location for Devon and Cornwall’s regionalised positions and was my make-shift home while I undertook my training as a Management Accountant (or did a two week finance placement – however you want to look at it). As well as surfing the various functions of the finance department, I was tasked with undertaking a fixed asset audit of the whole of Cymru. As interesting as that was, it certainly makes me confident that I will never forget the importance of internal audit controls.

As I write this blog I am in the process of readjusting to daylight hours. For the past couple of weeks I have been working nights at Bedford Train Depot as part of a project for the Engineering Department.

Early in December I joined the other First ’11 graduates in Leeds, for an introduction to management skills course, plus a day of skimming the murky waters of employment law. The management skills course talked about such issues as conflict resolution, effective leadership, planning and co-ordinating – this was very interesting, and gave a good insight into the sort of skills we would have to exhibit in our future careers as managers of people, budgets and assets. The employment law discussion was a complex affair – you do not have to sign a contract to be bound by it, for instance. The notes from this will be carefully preserved, as they will come in useful some day.