Sharon Stirrup has been taking care of invoicing in our Bodyshop for a total of 16 years. Read on to find out more about her role, and what she loves about working for Allied, as well as how she likes to spend her downtime.
What does a typical day look like for you?
When the cars are finished being repaired in the Bodyshop, they’re put to what we call Complete Status which tells me that the work is ready to be invoiced.
We check to make sure that every part’s being charged out, nothing needs to be returned, anything extra like sub-invoices which are there for things like alloy wheel refurbs and other jobs that we don’t do on site.
We normally have an estimator who checks to make sure everything is correct, recently me and my colleague Kirsty, are helping with that.
It’s a wee bit different from what we do normally. Checking the estimating system and our on-site system to make sure that everything matches. Making sure the insurance company have copies of invoices for things like refurbs and all the images from the workshop are transferred onto the estimating system.
So typically, that’s the main part of the day’s invoicing, but it’s a wee bit more in depth just now.
It sounds like there’s a lot to keep track of.
Yeah, there’s a lot of different bits. Some days can be different if there’s somebody on holiday, or if people need help with different things.
How long have you been at Allied? I understand you have split service.
Yes, I was here for 13 years and then COVID arrived and, unfortunately, like many other businesses at that time, Allied had to make a few redundancies.
I went to Mercedes Western Commercial, over in Ibrox, and I was there for about two and a half years. When I saw that a position was available again here, I applied for it and came back.
I’ve been back for three years, so altogether it’s 16 years. Next year would have been my 20-year work anniversary if I hadn’t had the break in service.
A lot of people wouldn’t return to a company after redundancy. What is it about Allied that drew you back?
Well, the redundancy was an exceptional circumstance because of COVID. I wasn’t happy about it, obviously, but I understand why it happened. Allied is a good place to work, with decent people who run it and they really do look after their staff.
And I’ll be honest; I live quite close to Allied. It’s 10 minutes from my door, whereas travelling to Ibrox every day I had to go into town then get the Subway. It was a lot of travelling.
Is the job that you’re doing now the same one that you were doing before?
It’s much the same, but before I was a Cost and Administration Manager. I was in charge of costing all the jobs and making sure that the job cards were done. I had a junior who I took through her full apprenticeship who also left at the same time.
But now the estimate and job cards are done by the estimators themselves. So that’s something that’s changed. It probably works better that way.
What do you enjoy most about your job?
The people are good to work with, and I like numbers and figures, I like the stuff that I’m doing, so it keeps me interested.
We have a good team, and everybody will pitch in and help each other if need be.
If I’m all on track with things or just waiting for authorisations to come through, I look and see if the girls need help with phoning and updating customers. I’ve not done that for a wee while, but we all help each other. Last week I also helped covering reception over lunch.
Can you share a memory of your time at Allied that makes you smile?
I was going to my friend’s wedding in Mexico, and it used to be a challenge for me to get a holiday, because there wasn’t enough cover and I never took month ends off. But, she happened to be getting married at the end of the month, so it just had to be done.
The girl that I took through her apprenticeship had done really well, so I trained her up to do my invoicing while I was away for two weeks.
When I came back, the number of compliments I got about her was amazing. And I was saying, “that’s because she’s good and she took everything on board,” and folk were then saying to me, “yeah, but that’s because you trained her properly.”
It was good to be able to go away and know that everything went smoothly for the month end.
Any funny Bodyshop stories that you’d be able to share?
Nadine Orr, who’s in service now, used to be in the Bodyshop. She was on holiday on Christmas and when she came back, they had wrapped her full desk up in wrapping paper. Her keyboard, her mouse, pens, everything.
She still talks about it, and she thought it was very funny.
How do you like to unwind?
Shopping, seeing friends and family. Catching up with people. I’ve recently started going to the pictures myself, which I used to think was a bit strange and would never have done before. But when you go to the movies now, there’s lots of people there themselves.
Any movie recommendations? TV shows, books, anything like that?
I’m watching High Potential just now. That’s really good.
Books-wise, I like Sophia Gravia’s stuff. Meet Me in Milan, Glasgow Kiss and all that stuff. She’s done maybe five or six now. I like those books, she’s quite funny.
What’s something that not many people that Allied would know about you?
The people that I work closely with will know, but a lot of people wouldn’t realise that I wear hearing aids. The people that I work with only know that because if it’s gone missing (which has happened before) I’ll have to say, “don’t think I’m being ignorant, you might just need to shout a wee bit to get my attention.”
What is a goal or an achievement that you are currently working towards?
I wanted to buy my own house, but I’ve done that. So, maybe working towards a bigger house. I’m in a four in a block so have a wee bit of a garden, but it’s not a private garden.
Anything in work life?
No, nothing specific at the moment.
I’m enjoying learning a wee bit more about the estimating inside; I would quite like to learn even more about that.
I’m not fully trained on it so when we are doing that, we’re only doing it to a certain point and then Allan Herd, the manager, will look at what we’ve done and check that everything is correct.
So he just needs to quickly do that and then send it to the insurance because we’ve done everything else.
He showed me how to find a part that’s on the computer system, but not on the estimating system, and match them up. That might have been something additional we brought in whilst the car was getting repaired.
Now I can find that and add it in for him, so he doesn’t have to do that.
If you hadn’t ended up in your current career, where do you think you might have ended up?
I always wanted to be an accountant. That’s what interests me; I’m a numbers person.
One of my regrets is that I didn’t pursue that. When I was at school, I got the highest scores in the exams for accounting and finance. But my school closed when I was in fifth year.
I’d done the accounting and finance Standard Grade, as it was called at the time, and I wanted to do the Higher but there weren’t enough people to do it. They said I could do it next year, but then the school closed, and I didn’t want to go to another school just for one year.
So, I do regret not doing that, but when you’re that age you just don’t think ahead. I probably would’ve gone back and done that and then carried on to accounting.
