The Man Who Kickstarted My Career Has Sadly Passed Away This Week

in #steemleo5 years ago

8g2qrxr8b8.png

Arthur Ryan passed away this week after a short illness. Not many people know who he is but the company he set up is very well known in Europe. Ask @brittandjosie. 50 years ago last week Gaylen Westen asked Arthur Ryan to set a low price high volume clothing retailer Arthur Ryan set up Penneys. After an overwhelming success he then expanded the company to the UK. Penney's name was taken by then JC Penney. So he chose the name Primark to expand over there. Primark became very popular very fast and now it has stores all over Europe and it has recently expanded into the states. Primark's head office remains in the place the company started in. Mary Street in Dublin. I first met Arthur here as a young 22 year old assistant manager.

y4xwplc6l8.png

I had applied for the job because my girlfriend lived in Dublin so I wanted to move up. I got the job. The store was huge and I found it hard at first managing around 400 staff. Not only this. The board were coming through the shop every morning and evening to get to their offices. The chairman and founder Arthur Ryan was first in. One of my many roles was to have a financial times on his desk when he got in. If I didn't I would get murdered by him. Other days he would invite me in to have a chat. He would give me advice and then give out to me about something. It was water off a ducks back for me. I was new, young and privileged to be talking to the guy that set up the business. I soon realised that other managers were ducking and diving when Mr Ryan was walking up the stairs. They didn't like dealing with him because they did not want to get in trouble. I thought they were mad. I used to meet him head on.
Blanchy tell me why this Santy letter isn't selling? I have 100,000 of them in the depot and noone can tell me what the bastarding things are not moving

I knew the answer. Will I or won't I?
Where does Santy live Mr Ryan?
Lapland why?
I show him the envelope of one of the letters.
Las Palmas Grand Canaria
For fuc......

The air filled with expletives as he searched through the phone for his buying director. I ran for the hills knowing that my line manager will be going mad that I followed the bear into the woods.
Can blanchy ring 106

Uh ohhh I thought to myself. I am going to get it off one of the buyers or my direct boss.

It was my boss.
Blanchy, Mr Ryan wants you and your girlfriend to go out to Shanahans on the Green and he will pick up the bill.

From then on I was the go to guy for why something wasn't selling. Another good one was a 50 pack xmas card.
*blanchy, what the f£$k aren't these selling? There is nothing wrong with them!?
I actually didn't know the answer.
We have a load of them in the depot and we need to clear them.
Mr Ryan was always worried about bottlenecks. This guy was in charge of a multi billion pound operation and he was asking me about 1 product out of 20,000 that we stocked. He was so sharp when it came to that kind of thing. He knew everything.
Maybe it is a generational thing. There was a little one around 17 on the register beside my phone. I grabbed one of these 50 pack cards.
Why aren't these selling Shakira?
How many friends have you got? she asked me.
None of your business ya bleed n bowsie I said jokingly.
Shakira nailed it.
I could count my friends on two hands, well maybe 13 but no more than 20.
I rang Mr Ryan
How many friends do you have?
I took my ear away from the phone until he calmed down a bit. Shakira was the next person that was heading for a meal.
12fsz51s85.png

When the promotions came up for store manager, I was a shoe in. I was the only one that the chief knew because everyone else avoided him. I had a thick skin at that stage also from his severe bollickings. He gave me a store in the midlands and came up every Saturday to see me. Mullingar was on his tours anyway so he liked having one of his own there.
They put me up in a nice hotel at the start. It had a Gym. If anyone has ever been to Mullingar , there is fuck all to do up there other than drink so I chose the gym. I started losing weight. After a few weeks in walks the chief. He took one look at me
Are you ok , are you stressed?
ahhh no Mr Ryan, I am fine
You lost weight. Are you alright?
Yes sir. I am fine.
He left it at that and did his usual business with me.
He walked out the door. A couple of minutes later I was getting a call from Dublin. The HR director.
blanchy are you OK? Are you stressed?
I'm fine
I laughed to myself. It was the old man's way of looking after me. When I went to Spain and Germany Mr Ryan used to keep in contact with me asking me about items not selling there. Why wouldn't this sell? Why are snoods so popular? It was amazing how close some of us were to him. My colleagues were the same. One district manager used to get a call every day at 5pm off him. Every day. Even Sunday. And he took it. It was only for a minute or two but he always answered.
Arthur was tough but he was fair. Everyone got it. It's how he ran his business. You wanted to listen to him. We had a motley crew in Primark while we expanded. We worked hard and played even harder. That's what the chief did too. I had joined Primark just before it exploded. I realized at the Hannover opening that our beloved company had changed. We had become popular. Very popular. Take a look.


I will really miss this guy. He was the driving force for alot of us and I know he had my back all the way. His funeral is this Saturday in South Dublin. My first question on my lips as well as many others. Who is going to run the do the reduced? He ran it like clockwork. A team of ten couldn't of done what he did and then run the company while he was at it.
If you would like to invest in the company it is still owned by its parent company Associated British Foods.

Sort:  

looks like Very popular.

Howdy sir blanchy! great tribute to a great man, you couldn't have learned under anyone better for that business that's for sure!

Yeah he was some man and they are taking the states by storm .

Posted using Partiko Android

Sir blanchy! So Primark is doing well in the U.S. And so is your current company, is it TJ Maxx? I haven't seen a Primark anywhere yet.

Sounds like a great experience as a young person. It must be good for everyone to be that person that has to deal with an intense superior at some point in life.

Coin Marketplace

STEEM 0.35
TRX 0.12
JST 0.040
BTC 70734.57
ETH 3561.52
USDT 1.00
SBD 4.75