Weeks don’t come more eventful than this one (for me anyway). Through relentlessly harassing Mike, I managed to blag a week of dream work experience. So, what happened?
Well first day, I got my popularity up instantly by bringing in one of my mum’s famous coffee/chocolate cakes, and it dropped again when Mike and Billy complained my tea was too weak. Ahh well, at least they didn’t ask me to make it again…
My day pretty much went like this: Cycle to work, tidy up the store room, make tea, be complained at about tea, watch tea being made ‘properly’ (Billy’s looked more like coffee it was so strong), eat lunch, put new grips on my bike, say goodbye to Billy (he’s off reporting at Champery), do the most interesting number processing ever (World Cup results) and then go home.
Tuesday… not much happened. A big box arrived from Sunn, and I felt like a small child at Christmas. I was allowed to build it up before (in Mike’s words) I wet myself. It rides beautifully, and looks even better.
On Wednesday, Mike and I clambered into the battered old Dirt van and drove to Milton Keynes to Madison’s iceBike show. This was pretty much all the new stuff for 2011, so I was told to go and be a journalist for the day. This abnormal behaviour was reported on Singletrack’s website, about halfway down the page. I was shown around the warehouse as well (which is absolutely massive) – think ikea and double it.
Thursday was… stressful. I wrote my first full size article, and as you’d expect, I took my time. 3 hours of my time, to be exact. This annoyed Mike, who threatened to fire me. I hurried up. The product is here.
And today… I didn’t do much. Wrote this, prepared part 2 of the iceBike article, ate a new lemon cake and was told off for being too slow on this as well. Hard man to please, this Mike Rose.
My challenge for the week, set by Billy, was to master rollbacks on the ramp outside the office in lunch break. Well… bad news Billy, someone has nicked the ramp. Am I let off now? Please?
I’ll leave you with some pictures of the office and its inhabitants (don’t worry, the rats aren’t in these ones. I’m talking about Mike and Ed)
Alasdair Todd (improved tea maker and editorial whipping boy)
