A number of people have asked for a copy of my leaving speech - well here it is. This is the original script, what I said may have been slightly different from this as I was working from abbreviated notes based on this.
Thank you Alan for those kind words. And thank you all for the card and present - I can imagine some of the comments in there and I'll be surprised if the body piercing doesn't get a mention!
This is going to be quite short as you all know I'm a man of few words. However I'm not afraid to speak out when necessary. I hadn't planned to say very much but I've been persuaded by a few people to say a little more. So listen up, cheer or boo and break into spontaneous applause if you feel like it, and if all the MG3s and above could get their mime walls ready, they might be needing them. Ever since I decided to leave back in December, I was never going to do it quietly. I'm not trying to set myself up as some sort of martyr but I have deliberately made it very clear why I am unhappy and why I am leaving, in the hope that those in a postion to do something about it will do so and improve the conditions for the rest of you.
On the whole I've really enjoyed working here - at the start it was really good but for the last few years it has gradually gone downhill. At the start there were certainly some characters, the likes of Paul Ferg, Giles, Flembo, the Muppet, even Hursty - but over the last few years they've all left and the character void hasn't really been filled. The way we work has also changed considerably, mainly due recently to the introduction of CMM. In the beginning there was a lot of real engineering and a sensible amount of paper work but since CMM took over the paper work has got ridiculous and the real engineering is now just a small part of the work - I'm glad to be going to work at a company that is firmly at level one.
It's quite ironic really that today is four weeks after the end of the CMM assessment - the end of the month in which flexitime was supposed to arrive. Four weeks ago the mood of optimism was absolutely fantastic and I was seriously wondering if I'd made the right decision about leaving. But four weeks on although we now have floating holidays back, there's still no tangible sign of flexitime nor the long promised salary review. So on the whole I think I've made the right decision. As I said to Martin, I can get myself flexitime in four weeks, unfortunately it's not by working here.
Although CMM is really good for the products we develop, it doesn't address the "People" side of working which is where the real problems lie. In the past we were able to get products out of the door and we can still do that - that wasn't the problem - the real problems are things like the working conditions, people retention and recruitment and nothing visible besides hot air is being done about those. There are a lot of talented engineers here like Daryl, Steve Poss, Steve Merry and a many others. These people genuinely do the work of two people so why not pay them twice the salary? You need to reward the people on the ground that do the real work and get the products out of the door because at the end of the day it's the engineers and the production peolpe, the people that do the real work, that decide if a project succeeds or fails and makes the profit. It's not the management, it's not commercial, it's not vendor management, it's not personnel - they are all profit-eating overheads and if you haven't got good people left on the ground then there's going to be no-one to generate any profit.
Looking back I think the highlight of my time here was, I'm sorry to say, the three week holiday in Paris, I mean the secondment to Dassault. It was quite an experience. Thinking back I couldn't think of anything at the other extreme and the closest I could come up with was some of the things my colleagues have said to me over the years - and this is to me personally not even behind my back. There's Barry who repeatedly calls me "Weird" - Barry of all people calling me weird?? Then there was Darran who called me a "fashion victim" - the man from Del Monte - he say "fashion victim". And then possibly the most perceptive of all Cathy Wyatt who once told me to "shut your face you smarmy git" - well I couldn't really argue with that. And then there was Bob - the only person as far as I can remember to ever call me incompetent - Bob - me incompetent? Well Bob you know what I think of you - I won't be sorry to see the back of you.
I think I am going to leave behind me a legacy of some reasonable work except no doubt on Monday, once I've gone, like every engineer before me who has left, I will immediately become a scapegoat for every project I've even remotely been involved with. The MFD will fail the EMC yet again and it'll all be my fault. PIDS will miraculously develop some fault which delays it another six months and no doubt it'll all be my fault because the PM-link card keeps falling over, the digi opto card will develop some mysterious fault, the CSH will stop working and no-one will ever be able to program an HCI again and of course they'll all be my fault. I take the blame right now. I will however take with me the knowledge of how to send musical e-mails!!
Part of me is sorry to be leaving because I do think that there is a vague possibility that things will get better in time - I just ran out of patience with the continual carrot dangling and empty promises of jam tomorrow. Besides I also wanted to get away from Barrow to be somewhere more alive and a bit more open minded and less bigoted, somewhere where I can really be me. I think the new building, if it comes to fruition could be really good for combat systems, however to pull it off and make it work as a stand-alone business is going to need incredibly strong management which I have to wonder about. But I'm quite optimistic about my future. Telsis look like a great bunch of people to work for. They have flexitime, flexible holidays, salaries that are in the top ten percent instead of well below average as here and annual bonuses that amount to several thousands instead of the paltry hundred or so here. I'm already writing my shopping list and the item at the top of the list has three wheels, two wings, an engine and goes quite fast!
Most of all I'm sorry to be leaving behind a great bunch of people, I will really miss you and I wish you all the best of luck. I will be back from time to time, for the St Georges dinner and the Gliding Club dinner for instance - and if you happen to be on Ibiza this summer keep an eye open for me at sunset at the Café del Mar.
All that remains is to have a fabulous party for the rest of the day - I think I deserve a good send off after twelve and a half years in Barrow. The drinks are on me at the Italian, well the first round at least - there's a hundred pound in the kitty - so Chal and Paul don't drink it all and leave some for the rest of us!
By the way if anyone wants to know of a good recruitment agency I've got some cards here and they come highly recommended.
Thank you.
(Raptuous applause from the audience!!!)
Alan Dennis (Alan.Dennis@lakesgc.force9.co.uk)