Friday, June 11, 2010

Luke Leaving - the end of and era.

Way back in June 2007 Ben's brother came to have some training so he could ride our Pedicabs, Luke was back from working on the cruise ships and just wanted a summer job. He was a great laugh and really good on the bike so Ben and I took Luke on.

Luke was the first person who ever came to work for us and signified a huge change in the direction of our company.

The company began to grow and soon we were able to offer Luke a position running our recycling programme and alone throughout the years he has worked for us he has collected hundreds of tonnes of waste and stopped them from being sent to landfill. He has literally moved all of that waste himself and personally been involved in saving many thousands of tonnes of Co2 from entering our environment. Despite all of this very serious work Luke always added his own flare to things.

Luke always paid great attention to his appearance making sure that everything, even his smalls, conveyed professional working practice.

Together Luke and I formed the working practices in the business and built strong foundations for future projects and programmes. We also undertook some other projects, one notable failure for Luke was Movember, where he proceeded to grow the weakest moustache known to man. Sadly during this time Luke was also applying for some other jobs and was firmly knocked back on the grounds of his offensive facial hair.

Luke became part of the woodwork at Hereford Pedicabs and created a great reputation that exemplified all that we tried to create when we started way back in April 2007. Ask Luke to do a wedding on the bike and Luke would put the extra effort in to make sure the customers had a great day.Ask Luke to control the traffic an he did it with style

Ask Luke to help with training new staff and the guy runs in wearing a tri suit and proceeds to take the new recruits on a full groin based pre interview warm up.

People ask me how I'm going to replace Luke and the answer I give them is I can't, it's impossible to replace someone like Luke because he's so different to most people. An incredible, fun, hard working, diligent, courteous guy, who cheers everyone who he comes into contact with. Ben and I always wondered if it'd be awkward employing his brother, we thought maybe it'd cause problems in the long run, we were wrong and it's been a pleasure to employ someone who is now a great friend.

So what for Luke now? Well in the long term Luke is going to Uni to train to be a Childrens Nurse and we can't support him enough, its a tough day when you see an integral part of your company move on but it's a great day you see a friend progress.

In the mean time Luke and his friend Adam are off to do something amazing, they are going to ride across America to raise money for Help for Heroes. You can donate here and find out some more here

Something great does come out of this and that is we are able to take on a new member of staff. Tom will now ride in place of Luke and so far has shown some great promise. Luke took some special time out to train Tom up in his own special way earlier this year

So for the moment that's that, a true legend of Pedicabs moves on, he never did get the bike over 40mph but he could out ride me any day.

Good luck Luke and thank you.

Will and all the team.