A day in the life of….our canopy surveyor

Posted on 27th November 2018 | Posted in About Canopies UK

Our employees are incredibly important to us and in making sure we remain the UK’s leading designer, manufacturer and installer of outdoor canopies.

This ‘day in the life of…’ series is dedicated to shining the spotlight on our team members, lifting the lid on their work and how they’re contributing to the Canopies UK success story. Next up in this series is our surveyor, Michael Conway, who tells us what it’s like completing new canopy installations.

Q: What time do you start and finish work?

A: It depends on where my first customer is based however, I tend to operate within normal office hours, which are slightly exaggerated by the distance that I sometimes need to travel to get to certain locations.

Q: What’s the first task you carry out each day?

A: I check on my equipment and vehicle because if they aren’t in good working order, I can’t carry out my work efficiently.

Q: What do you most enjoy about your job?

A: I believe I have one of the best roles within the business – I get to see the customer early on in their Canopies UK journey, as I visit them after they’ve just placed their order. This enables me to capture their needs and apply the technical product and building regulation knowledge that’s required to achieve the desired outcome.

In some instances, I develop the initial design to create a more bespoke outcome. My role doesn’t start and end with the initial customer meeting either, I get the chance to interact with them further during the installation, which means I get to see the project go from ‘cradle to grave.’

Q: What do you find most challenging about it?

A: My role is positively challenging and extremely rewarding! The most challenging aspect of it relates to something that’s completely out of my and Canopies UK’s control, and that’s navigating the traffic!

Q: Tell us about your most favourite installation to date

A: I’ve been involved in two huge commercial new canopy installations projects. The first was on the top floor of a hotel in central London and the second, a hotel in Southampton. They both presented major logistical and technical issues at the time, but I look back on them now with fond memories.

We were required to take crates and pallets of our products from the roadside to the top floor of these hotels and installed very unique outdoor spaces within their indoor facilities, which is testament to just how good we are.

Q: What’s the most unusual place you’ve surveyed a canopy at?

A: While I was working on the top floor of the hotel in Southampton, I was able to look out and see the RMS Queen Mary berthed right next to where I was working. While the venue itself may not have been that unusual, the sight of the luxury cruise ship just across the way was somewhat surreal and definitely provided me with a good selfie opportunity!

Q: Describe your job in three words

A: Detailed, rewarding and involved.

Q: What’s the one thing you’d like to change about your work?

A: It would be nice if we could go fully paperless, as working with sheets of paper with the British weather can at prove troublesome sometimes, but thankfully my tight grip has so far prevented my paperwork from flying away in the wind!

Got any questions or want to discuss our new canopy installations or your outdoor canopy requirements with us? Contact us on info@canopiesuk.co.uk or 01254 777 002. In the meantime, for more details about our ethos, vision and journey so far, check out infographic, ‘The Canopies UK journey: Our journey so far…’