Transport Manager
Vestey Holdings

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I’m Silvija,

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I’m a transport manager at Donald Russell. The company is based

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in north east Scotland, just outside Aberdeen.

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Donald Russell is a part of Vestey.

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Vestey is a group of businesses supplying

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food worldwide.

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My day-to-day job

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as a transport manager is ensuring

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that the goods are delivered in a timely manner to our customers.

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So it has a direct to consumer, which is, as I say, direct to the customer,

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trade business, which is the direct to the hotels and restaurants,

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and the third part of business is export.

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So we’re exporting it outside of the UK, mainly to Germany,

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Switzerland, Sweden and a bit of Hong Kong.

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The best thing it would be that you’ve got to think on the spot, really.

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The worst, I think is the uncontrollable because weather or anything

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like, you know, vehicle breakdowns, there’s not much that you can do about it.

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So communication is like

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it is quite important when speaking with the couriers,

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when we have any sort of deals or negotiations,

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and any problems occurring.

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Maths is very useful. I’d say

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languages would be another great subject

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to take on and embrace.

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For me being Lithuanian originally,

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I took English at school

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as a second language and it helped me a lot.

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I did go to school in Lithuania

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and it is slightly different, I would say. I loved school

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but I was more turned into the –

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like science, maths, that sort of side.

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I wanted to go onto uni and study medicine

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at the time but

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didn’t put enough work in my final exams,

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but I ended up studying chemistry, which was really interesting

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Like I always knew that I

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wanted to live abroad so after I finished university in Lithuania,

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I lived and worked three years in Ireland

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and I worked in a hotel.

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My family moved here, so my mum and my sister,

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that’s how I kind of followed them just to be together,

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and yeah, kind of developed from there.

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I joined Vestey Foods ten years ago and started in the butchery

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as a packer, packing meat for the dispatchers.

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And I have been promoted throughout the years

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in different departments and now I’m

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a transport manager.

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The advice that I would give to

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other younger people and probably myself as like a younger myself,

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was take every opportunity

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you’re given, I would say, don’t

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fix yourself onto one thing.

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If that doesn’t work, there’s always other possibilities.

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So you’ve got to do what makes you happy.