Today, we spoke with a team member whose story inspires us and reminds us that it’s the simple things in life that matter the most. An invaluable asset to us, our Merchandiser Derek Maguire has been working at Codex for the last 15 years!
Derek’s career trajectory is simply awe-inspiring. He applied for a temporary role at Codex and 15 years later has grown to become an indispensable part of our company. Originally hailing from County Meath, Derek is extremely passionate about running. According to him, his biggest achievement to date is completing the Dublin Marathon in 2019 at the age of 43!
Here is his a glimpse into his exciting life as a Merchandiser -
My current role in Codex is merchandising. As a dedicated merchandiser to a number of corporate accounts, my role is to visit their premises on a weekly/bi-weekly basis. I take stock of what is needed and note what goods are required.
After multiple site visits, I place online orders for each company on a Codex system called EVOx. These weekly/bi-weekly visits help ensure stock availability for customers. I also deliver the stock once it has been picked from the warehouse. I deliver and organise goods onsite to dedicated areas removing all packaging in the process.
To me, success is having a roof over my head and a happy family. Keeping a lifelong close circle of friends, maintaining a good work-life balance and of course, enjoying my hobbies whilst staying fit and healthy.
If anything, this pandemic has shown me how much more time I could spend with my family and less time online.
We have started many new projects in the past few weeks from painting the house to Lego building (Hogwarts Castle is next on the Lego hit list!). So I think the one new thing I am trying to make a habit of will be less screen time and more family time.
The best advice I’ve ever received is — Don’t back horses (you might lose that roof over your head).
As a driver, I find that I need to be meticulous when loading up my van each day. This is to ensure that all goods are accountable for each order. This is important to avoid making countless return trips per order. This also applies when you have multiple jobs onboard to avoid them being mixed up or misplaced between jobs.
Overall I would have to say that organisation is my productivity trick as it is the key to a successful day.
I am most definitely a morning person. My wife hates it when I insist on picking a movie as I am always asleep within the first 10 minutes. As a merchandiser, I start work at 6 am and by early evening I am struggling to stay awake.
Unfortunately, as this has been my routine for so long that I still wake early at the weekend and find that I can’t stay awake late then either. My inner night owl died with my clubbing day’s years ago.
Founded by Brendan Murphy in 1979, Codex is proud to be celebrating 40+ years as an Irish family business. From our inception to this very day, we have grown to be a much bigger company — yet still share those same family values of integrity, leadership, innovation and support across our Codex team. Find out more about our story here.
Originally published at https://www.codex.ie on June 18, 2020.
