From FMCG to the Mental Health Sector – Part 1

I’ve been with my partner Lynda now for 11 years. We are very different in nature, she the detailed, even-tempered one with the 30 year teaching career and me, a wayward, spontaneous fool. We share a love of music, film and all things arts-related but most of all, laughter. My mum even has “have a laugh” inscribed on her gravestone under the long list of her children and foster kids. She insisted it was the secret to surviving whatever life dished up.  God knows I’ve drawn on that philosophy over the years as I’ve fought off one calamity after another.

I had a 30 year career in FMCG (fast moving consumer goods) and worked with some big global companies and a broad collection of professionals ranging from the brilliantly talented to the lecherously entitled.

I can still remember working a “real job” at Hawker de Havilland, an aircraft company in Port Melbourne in the late 80s, when I went and played golf with a couple of footy mates. Both had company cars and worked in sales for Cadbury. They told me what they were earning and I then gently enquired,

“What is it you do again?”

“We sell Cadbury chocolate to milk bars and supermarkets.”

“But everyone loves Cadbury don’t they? How hard could that be?”

“Well it’s far more complex than that…”

“Bullshit” I interrupted, “ give me a go”

A couple of months later I was selling chocolate to milk bars in Geelong. Only problem was, that the locally owned Building Society, Pyramid, had gone into liquidation due to its dodgy board and virtually every small business person in Geelong was stripped of their life savings.

Unperturbed, I would take the time to comfort teary, shaken proprietors, put my arm around them and delicately direct them to my order sheet with a, “now, was that one box of Freddo’s or two?” I’m not proud of it, but that was very much Cadbury, hard-nosed and results driven.

After a couple of years at Cadbury, it was selling Sorbent dunny roll and Libra tampons. Feminine hygiene was the easiest ‘sell’ of any product I’ve worked with, especially when there were more males than females working as decision makers at the time.

“Can I just take you through the absorption qualities of this Super Tampon?”

“No. Just give me the 10 x case deal thanks.”

A promotion to Account Manager led to an opportunity to make some life-long friends in Melbourne and then a posting to my home town of Perth to look after Woolworths. After a firm lesson in how NOT to behave as a manager from my boss, I moved across to Simplot, a large US food company as State Manager for the shelf stable products. Here I was part of a great team and all of those guys and girls have gone on to have exceptional careers.

Greg Hebble, who was in charge of the frozen side of the business, has just finished as CEO for Foodbank in WA after 15 x years and has achieved amazing results. To this day, my favourite Xmas Day was working at the Perth City Mission in 1998 with Greg, having raised $10k for the marquee in conjunction with Woolies. 2000 x homeless turned up and it had an immediate and long lasting effect on both of us in terms of the scale, given Perth is a relatively small town, and also the breadth of personalities and backgrounds of those that attended.

After being promoted to a Coles National Account Manager role back in Melbourne and winning the National Sales Manager award, I got sacked over an inappropriate email. It was satirical, sent to small group, blocked from being forwarded but someone printed it off and dropped it on the soon to be offended person’s desk.

I deserved it, and walking out of that building to the cab past my upset and close knit team was humiliating and surreal. Even worse was driving over the Westgate Bridge to my wife and 2 x kids in our heavily mortgaged Footscray house.

“Cabby just drop me off here please.”

“But we’re on top of the Westgate”

“Correct”

I then spent 9 x years at Diageo, at the time the world’s biggest spirits company, mostly as a Field Sales Manager. It was a company very focussed on capability and I really enjoyed the majority of my time. There was a lot of space for creativity and the company put people first. I also got to work with some talented individuals who I’ve stayed friends with to this day.

On a personal front, things got a bit haywire and my drinking got out of hand during a 4 x year stint in Tasmania. Upon my return to Melbourne I quit drinking and was fully supported by the team, no doubt relieved at never having to see me drunk again.

In the last 10 years I’ve had mostly Field Sales Manager roles at State and National level with varying results. I’ve experienced the very worst and best of cultures that have correspondingly brought out the same behaviours in me personally.

No doubt my 5 x years at Campbell Arnotts was the best. Entering a poor culture and being part of a values-based transformation where we won the National Team Award after 8 x years in the doldrums was like winning a footy premiership. So when I was asked to leave due to running out of Vicroad driving points, I was understandably shattered.

That was 2018, then during 2019 I had a stable role as an Account Manager which I traded in for a National Field Manager role that I hated with a passion. After a month, Lynda was noticing how angry I was every day and within a couple of months it was over. Lynda just reassured me that financially we were fine, that workplace homicide wasn’t the answer, and to get my health right which I did.

One of my former Tassie reps, Nick who had gone on to be a financial guru in Sydney rang and offered me an opportunity to distribute his Tassie craft beer in Melbourne complete with van, cold space and commission. So I started 2020 all guns blazing then Covid hit. That was the end of the kegs but I did manage to stay reasonably busy during Covid selling cartons.

By the end of 2020 I’d had a gutful of beer (not literally of course being a non-drinker) and I needed another “old footballer” operation in December. For the first few months prior to Covid in 2020, I had also worked part time driving a bus for an intellectually disabled community in Ferntree Gully in Melbourne’s East. I’d pick up the clients starting at 7am, drop them off at the base camp, go to work selling beer, return to the base camp at 3pm and drop everyone off home. I loved it and it sparked what was going to be a career change for the rest of my life.

What life looks like in the disability sector and why it’s a change worth considering in Part 2.