Biography of Malcolm Archbald Smith - employment - Midland Bank

Malcolm Smith's Family History Archive


Biography of

Malcolm  Archbald  SMITH

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Employment with Midland Bank

 
Being unsatisfied with his current job, Malcolm started to look around to see what else was available and found an interesting advertisement in the Southern Daily Echo. The requirements did not exactly fit his experience but a visiting computer engineer mentioned that the bank did have the same type of Burroughs microcomputer which Malcolm had been working on. Malcolm applied pointing out these facts and was invited to interview which went very well. He was able to deal with all the points raised and it transpired that the skills that he had were about to be required by the bank but they had not advertised them at that stage. He started work as a Programmer at grade A02 on 12 May 1986 in the Business Systems department of the Midland Bank Insurances Services headquarters in Southampton. He had a starting salary of £10,354 which was a 25% increase over his previous and came with other benefits such as an allowance for working in Southampton, non-contributary pension scheme, subsidised mortgage, profit sharing, annual bonus and interest paid on the current account. The office was located in a suite of multi-storey buildings adjacent to the railway station in Southampton. He would drive to work each day and park his car in the streets nearby.

Although Malcolm had been told that he would be supervised for the first three days in order to acclimatise, it did not work out like that. He was shown round the office during his first morning and introduced to his new colleagues then, before lunch, he was shown his desk and told that when the 'phone rang he should answer it. And that was it. The first phone call was from someone who had a problem with their printer and, luckily, and to his relief, Malcolm was able to sort it out over the 'phone immediately.

From there onwards, it went very well. There was no proper structure to the department in which he worked as it largely comprised programmers and engineers who supported the various computers which had been installed. Like Malcolm, most of them were self-taught. Malcolm's principal role was to act as a helpline and deal with problems encountered by other staff. He soon found it beneficial to set up a system of recording the calls he received so that trends and problems could be identified and corrected. Malcolm was left largely to his own devices as his colleagues were probably pleased to be able to get on with their work and not be distracted with calls from people with problems.

Within weeks of starting work at the bank, Malcolm was tasked with setting up the first email system in the London headquarters. He had never dealt with electronic mail previously but he undertook and managed the task with final success after solving a problem that had baffled even the manufacturers engineers. He wrote a suite of technical instructions for anyone else who may work on the system at a later stage.

With the march of progress, Burroughs B25 computers were beginning to be upgraded in Midland Bank Insurance Services regional offices around the country. Malcolm was soon leading the team that installed them and got the staff settled into using them. He instigated a simplified system of configuring the computers and installing the software in a standard format and produced a comprehensive manual to detail the method. All this resulted in his first Personal Assessment being classified as 'Excellent' and accompanied by a glowing report of his organisational and technical skills. Consequently his salary was raised to £11,074. His objectives for the following year were to increase the diversity of his knowledge.

Early in 1987, Burroughs B28 computers started to be installed for the first time in Midland Bank Trust Company offices around the country and this task fell to Malcolm and again he produced a comprehensive technical manual. Work in installing the new computers required good planning and a schedule was published as to which offices were to receive the computers. Members of staff were brought down to Head Office for training so they would be ready. Preliminary work had to be organised to get the necessary cabling installed as well as the communication lines. Malcolm with another colleague would travel in a hired car to the location and stay in an hotel which had been booked by the bank. The next day they would unpack the computers, assemble them and set them up in working order. On the second day, the staff had their accounts set up on the machines and were given the opportunity to try them with any guidance from Malcolm that was required. Some of the new users were less than impressed, one saying that his Amstrad was better, another prefering a typewriter. Each installation varied and some had stories attached to them.

Project Galaxy had been started whereby DEC MicroVAX computers were being installed to replace the Burroughs systems. By 1988, Malcolm had learned enough about this new hardware to become responsible for co-ordinating the installation of the new equipment and removal of the redundant computers. To support this he wrote a fully detailed technical manual to ensure consistency throughout the project. In parallel to this, Malcolm was formalising the helpdesk into a fully structured team that was able to field all incoming queries or faults in an efficient manner. As it was early days for formal systems of support for computer users, there was no immediate solution for Malcolm. He researched the market and arranged for suppliers to demonstrate their products but nothing suited. It was finally decided to create a system in-house whereby Malcolm would design the requirement then the programming would be achieved in-house. He designed the program to allow the details of a call to be described and categorised. Any operator picking up on the call at a later stage was then able to have all the details to hand when dealing with it. Also it was possible to review the calls to look for trends so as to make changes to reduce the number of calls. The system worked very well and it set a standard that would be followed elsewhere within Midland Bank and also pre-empted Call Centres that would soon flourish.

Malcolm along with other colleagues went on a 'roadshow' of presentations to offices around the country to promote the Helpdesk and answer questions. He became a member of the Midland Helpdesk Forum and was able to demonstrate methods which other would follow. By the end of the year, Malcolm had ceased to work on hardware installations and had become a full time manager of the Helpdesk as described in his Personal Assessment. On 18 July 1990 Malcolm was promoted to Manager of the Helpdesk which carried with it a promotion in grade and increase in salary to £20,110. He was travelling to and from work by car, getting in an hour or so early in the morning and often leaving two hours late in the evening.

The next stage was to install a call handling telephone sysem. A supplier was found and Malcolm went to their premises in Crewe for several days training. The system was purchased and installed but it did not immediately perform to the standard expected by Malcolm's superiors. It was supposed to allocate incoming calls evenly amongst the operators but that did not seem to be the case so, one day when Malcolm was hosting a meeting of visiting administrators, he was called out to rectify the system. In fact, there was nothing particular to be done at that stage and it certainly did not warrant immediate attention. Malcolm told his boss that in no uncertain terms and in a manner that enabled the entire office hear what he was saying.

His team had now grown into a well organised operation and comprised six front line call handlers and three backing them up in busy times but otherwise working on problems that needed resolving. Members of the team came from different backgrounds but all were competent computer users. There came a merger with a support team from London which left Malcolm in charge but with a team expanded to twenty. These new members never properly integrated as they were aggrieved at the merger. Further mergers and re-organistaions took place quite frequently which also led to changes in top level management. The character of management started to change form the gentlemanly style that the bank had traditionally enjoyed to a more mercenary style. Mergers and rationalistaion continued and, at one point, it came down to a choice between Malcolm and his deputy but Malcolm held onto his job.

In 1992, Malcolm came back from holiday to find that his team had been totally re-organised without him having been consulted or asked for advice. He was naturally shaken and expressed his opinion quite forcibly as he knew that the changes would decrease the efficiency of his team and that turned out to be the case. With further rationalisation moves, Malcolm's position became unnecessary and on 24 August that year he was given the newly created position of Hardware Support Specialist which would be to administer MicroVax midi systems mid range computer installations throughout the country. Although he was paired with a colleague, he had a free rein and was largely untroubled by anyone.

Under this new arrangement, Malcolm became responsible for rolling out another tranche of installations for a programme called 'Orbit'. He was given a list of locations and dates and then organised the preparation work in the destinations. The computers were delivered to his office in Southampton where he installed the software and tailored each machine to it's intended location. This was all work that he had learned himself.

Thereafter, changes or moves in office locations required their computers to be relocated and this was Malcolm's principal work until a further new project for the Private Banking sector was initiated in 1994. He also became deeply involved in the data cabling network in his offices and this generally involved lucrative overtime working at weekends. The cabling needed to be strictly controlled and Malcolm designed a system of recording the work so that it could be checked by anyone at any time thus prevent interruptions to the network. Malcolm's Personal Assessment that year noted his reliable and methodical attributes.

Data cabling work became a large part of Malcolm's work as staff numbers increased and new premises were established. At the same time, existing staff were moved around so their cabling had to be altered during weekends and ready for Monday morning. Mondays were often a bit stressful as faults manifested themselves. His Personal Assessment at the end of 1996 specified his adaptability, problem solving ability and a friendly good communicator who does not like to be idle.

One Friday afternoon when the entire management had gone up to London, Malcolm was approached by one of his team to report that his manager had made inappropriate remarks to one of the girls at a social function the previous evening. Malcolm understood that this man had previously been reprimanded for a similar matter. Malcolm felt obliged to act immediately, even in the absence of any of his superiors so he found out who was the relevant Personnel Manager and reported the matter. Over the weekend, the offending manager was instructed to remain in London whilst the matter was investigated. He returned a week later with no action having been taken.

In these latter years, Malcolm changed his arrangements to travel by bus which reduced the additional hours he had been working as he was bound by the times of the first and last bus. A staff canteen had been opened which provided excellent subsidised food and it hard to resist. Malcolm has always taken his full lunchbreak each day but used the time to walk around the city so eating in the canteen shortened the walking time. The solution was to eat during the morning then still get an hours walking. His colleagues were amused by his walks and would often ask how far he had got.

In 1997, thoughts in computer circles were starting to consider the 'millenium bug' whereby computers would fail at the start of the 21st century. Malcolm was allocated the task of testing the MicroVAX system to identify any potential problems. He rigged up a system did everything he could think of to expose any possible hitches and carefully recorded all his actions. The only problem he found was that the computer would not understand 29th February in the year 2000. Work was also being done to get rid of any old legacy systems which meant making their software able to transfer onto newer systems. That was done by programmers but Malcolm was one of those attending to the hardware removal.

Another task that came Malcolm's way was to install daily software updates on the bank's website. This was done on a PC and the job fell to him as he was usually in the office early enough to do it.

One Friday afternoon when the entire management had gone up to London, Malcolm was approached by one of his team to report that his manager had made inappropriate remarks to one of the girls at a social function the previous evening. Malcolm understood that this man had previously been reprimanded for a similar matter. Malcolm felt obliged to act immediately, even in the absence of any of his superiors so he found out who was the relevant Personnel Manager and reported the matter. Over the weekend, the offending manager was instructed to remain in London whilst the matter was investigated. He returned a week later with no action having been taken.

Also that year, the position of Facilities Manager was becoming vacant and Malcolm thought this would be a good move for him as much of his work was in liaison with that department. He considered that he could use his current skills and knowledge of the bank together with his former skills in the building trade. He applied and was accepted for interview and he understood that he was the only candidate and would be appointed. However, he changed his mind at the last moment as the job was likely to be far more stressful than the one he had already.

Malcolm's choice of not taking the Facilities Manager job as being fotuitous. A management decision to relocate his entire department to London gave all the staff the option of moving or accepting voluntary redundancy. This was perfect for Malcolm as he was nearing the bank's age of retirement at 60, but in the event of redundancy, he received a severance payout in addition to an immediate start to his company pension. Furthermore, the equipment that Malcolm was working on was nearing the end of it's life so he would be needing to learn entirely new skills. Malcolm's final Personal Assessment noted his mature and pragmatic approach to the situation and a note by his new manager expressing appreciation for this was hand-written on his final pay review.

The last three months of Malcolm's time at the bank were spent initially trying to find things to do such as getting all th eold files into order. That was soon achieved so he used his time and the company's computers to research his family history. On his last day, 30 September 1998, he hired a room in the Victory pub which was located within the same complex as his office and laid on buffet food for anyone who wanted to pop in. He was there from 4pm until he took a taxi back to Ringwood at 10pm.

 


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