Sam Morrall has been working at Swanline for almost 10 years, coming to us straight out of school to become a sample maker and after two years he was promoted to designer. During his years as a sample maker, he would help the design team with smaller tasks and found he really enjoyed it and wanted to do more. So, when an opening became available in design, he jumped at the chance. After seven years of designing, an opportunity arose within Swanline for Sam to become an account manager, and wanting to be challenged further, Sam interviewed and was accepted for the role. He has now been an account manager for Swanline for almost 12 months.
Talking about his experience over the last 10 years Sam told us, “I owe a lot to the people I work with. The design team helped me a lot, Nigel, Cliff, Linsey, Alex – everyone has diverse design skills, and all taught me something different and I wouldn’t have learnt as much if it hadn’t been for them. They trained me really well. Then over the last 12 months, Judi (National Accounts Director) and the rest of the sales team have been amazing and have helped me massively. I owe so much to the people I work with for helping me grow within my different roles. All departments here at Swanline have helped me with different aspects of my role and I couldn’t be more grateful. They’re a wealth of knowledge within their roles and the industry.”
Sam’s role is now extremely varied day to day. He receives enquiries for new and existing customers, meets with customers to promote what it is that Swanline does, keeps customers up to date and makes sure their orders are running smoothly. Sam feels lucky in the fact that because he has design experience, if the Design Department are busy, he is able to create CAD drawings and get prices to customers sooner. “I enjoy getting to do something different every day.” explains Sam. “There is always a new project, or a new problem to solve and I really enjoy the variation that it offers.”
When asked about his favourite part of working with Swanline, Sam told us: “I think it’s great that everyone gets on so well at Swanline, I literally get on with everyone. We have a ‘Swanline Golf Society’ that’s a mix of office and warehouse staff and we play once a month, trying out a new course every time. I’ve just recently brought my handicap down, which I’m really happy about after playing twice a week for the last two years.”
Sam describes one of his favourite memories of working at Swanline, “We had a staff party in one of the warehouses and turned it into a casino, it was brilliant, we used monopoly money and had a magician walking around doing close up magic. We had office and warehouse staff together enjoying themselves – at some point Cliff, Alex and I started a love train and got a lot of people to join in – was a great night!”
When Sam isn’t account managing or starting love trains, you can find him playing football, occasionally fishing, and of course, golfing. However, he could find his hobbies side-lined temporarily as his wife is currently around 38 weeks pregnant with a little boy. “I can’t wait to be a dad,” Sam tells us. “We’re going to call him Miles.”
Sam’s one piece of advice for us is: “You need to love what you do, otherwise, what’s the point? Get a job that you really love, where you don’t have to dread Monday mornings, that’s really important.”