Systems Instructor was the title of first job away from the keyboard room at the Scarborough Evening News. I had to move from Scarborough in my beloved county of Yorkshire to Cheltenham, Gloucestershire when I started working for Linotype-Paul.
My new position involved visiting newspapers and teaching their staff how to use the various equipment that we supplied. It was a huge change in my life and in the 5 years I worked in this capacity I was fortunate to work in Holland, Belgium, Portugal, Spain, Norway, Sweden, Italy and Singapore. For a young Yorkshireman these were exciting times, just escaping the keyboard felt like I'd been let out of prison and the international travel was a huge bonus.
I can remember calling home after my first international trip which involved picking up a 12MB hard drive from our factory in London then driving to Heathrow airport to catch a flight to Amsterdam. The tricky part was that I had to walk through customs with the 12MB hard drive in a suitcase and meet up with a customer in the arrivals hall. I was breaking all sorts of import/export laws but who'd turn down lunch in Amsterdam.
Interestingly all of our software could be stored on such a small amount of space but the actual hardware in those days was like a huge cake tin, anything related to computers had to go through the proper import/export process, I tried to remain calm as I approached the Dutch customs desk and managed to get through without being detained.
The customer was waiting in the agreed spot and was extremely happy to receive his new software. I checked in for the flight back to Heathrow and bought some lunch on the air side. When I got home that evening I called my parents and they couldn't believe I'd been to Amsterdam for lunch.
One of the best things about working for Linotype-Paul was their policy for expenses, they gave you a per diem or daily allowance when you were working away from home. They published a book with the amount that they'd pay for every country where we had customers. Initially this included the cost of the hotel but later this was booked directly by the company and the per diem was only for meals.
The most lucrative trip from an expenses point of view was the seven weeks I spent in Singapore. Previously only our sales department had visited the country and so the daily allowance was relatively high and indeed if I'd stayed in a tourist hotel it would have enough to cover that cost. Basically I had to survive on £40 a day, the hotel I'd booked into was £27 a night and so I had £13 for food.
Since the flight from London to Singapore was over 7 hours I qualified for a business class which was another first for me. While waiting for my case to come off the conveyor belt at Changi airport I started talking to a backpacker that was travelling on his own money, he told me that he was staying at the YMCA for $6 a night and he laughed at the price of my hotel.
When I'd check in to my hotel and taken a relaxing swim in the pool I started thinking about the YMCA and the £21 difference in price per night. I managed to get a map from the hotel reception and asked them where the YMCA was, fortunately it was a short walking distance away. So I decided that I'd investigate the YMCA situation first thing in the morning.
The Singapore YMCA didn't have a pool or a bar but it did have two squash courts and a gym. I asked if I could look at a room and I was surprised to see that the room had a color TV, an on suite bathroom and a bible. I made a reservation for rest of my 7 week stay. I never used a hotel mini-bar and so I knew I'd be very comfortable in my new room without one.
I packed my case and walked over to check in at the YMCA where they asked me if I wanted a room with a window or without a window. The room without a window was £1 cheaper than the room with a window and so it was a "no brainer" that I'd choose the £5 cheaper option.
When I walked into my room I thought they'd made a mistake because there was a curtain across one of the walls but when I pulled back the fabric the only view I saw was the concrete wall. In the reception of the YMCA there was a small shop and I could buy breakfast provisions for £1. Instead of using taxi's I bought a bus pass and for lunch the guys in the Singapore National Printers cafeteria would make me fried egg sandwiches for £2 a day. When I told the local guy what they were charging he laughed, he said he could feed his whole family for a week for less than £2. I always wondered why those guys treated me so well.
So I was looking at a total cost of £5 for the room, £1 for breakfast, £2 for lunch, £2 for dinner giving me a potential profit of £30 a day. This was a lot of money, I could come home with $1,440 tax free in my back pocket. At the time my annual salary was £4,800 a year and so this was a huge deal for me. I set myself a target of taking home £1,000 because I knew I'd need to treat myself now and then.
There was other items like taxi's that I could claim on top of the per diem but I needed to provide receipts in order to claim those. While walking through the SNP building I discovered a small "jobbing" shop with cases of type and a small hot metal proofing press, I set myself the challenge of befriending the manager of that small area and eventually convinced him to let me create and print my own taxi receipts. So I printed 98 taxi receipts that looked authentic and even had a car graphic in the corner. Filling out each receipt for £2 a trip gave me another £186 in my pocket.
Catching the bus was a fun experience and helped me gain an understanding of how the real locals lived. Singapore was a safe and clean place to visit, I never felt in danger even though it was obvious that I was a tourist in some non tourist areas.
I bought so many gifts that I had to buy another Samsonite case for my return journey. The only mistake I made on the whole trip was walking past my wife who'd come to meet me at Heathrow airport. In my absence she'd changed her hairstyle and hair color, in my excitement of being back in England I'd failed to recognize her. She was upset and angry but once I opened up the new Samsonite case her anger level declined as she saw the clothes and gifts that I'd bought her.
The money I made from that trip was enough to carpet our whole house and build a patio in the back yard. In those days we never had to save for anything, going on a work trip would result in cash that could be used to buy the luxuries in life.
That was my reality,
Mark
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