Photo John Madden I joined a manufacturer of aluminium doors and windows around 5 years into my working life. After a couple of years as a management cadet with a plastics company, and having picked up some useful skills in production planning from both my employer and night school classes I'd got restless at the poor pay that good jobs returned compared to "unskilled" occupations. My brother was working in a car plant assembling BMC motorcars and I joined him for 6 months. The better hourly rate bolstered by regular overtime helped my wife and me save the money needed to buy a first house. And raise a first child. At the end of the six months I left the car plant to be the production planner for the aluminium company, my first assignment where I was in charge of a function. Less than a year into that role the management asked me to take on the Purchasing Officer's job as the incumbent was about to be dismissed. What knowledge I had came from academic study and invent