‘The StairSteady was once a tool for rebellion’

Hello, this is Fionn C. Wills, I've been working for StairSteady as a temp for the past two weeks and I think I can shed some light on an unexplored aspect of the StairSteady's history. Believe it or not, the StairSteady was once a tool for rebellion. This seems strange for a mobility aid but to a small group of boys in Eckington Comprehensive School it was an instrument used for mischief. Let me show you. If you go to Eckington Comp and sign in at the reception you will notice a small waiting area to your right in situ with many of the projects and accolades that award the school its status as a specialist engineering college. There are books, glass cases, certificates, the whole nine yards of academic achievement. Of all these displays the StairSteady demonstration stand takes pride of place, complete with rail, grab-handle and stairs. Ready to use and seduce any passing Ofsted inspector.
So here is your dare, your small act of defiance. The game is to enter the reception waiting area as if you are in fact waiting for something, then use the StairSteady to ascend and descend the steps as many times as possible, before being told to get out. Extra points are awarded for pretending to be the Headmaster, or 'Ted' as he was affectionately known. Simple, yet effective. It certainly passed the time on a few lunch breaks years ago but the significance of that time to me is that it highlights the oddity of now being part of the StairSteady office, dealing with the day-to-day things that make the business tick.
In the interest of honesty, and maybe also not to offend the Managing Director of StairSteady, Ruth Amos, who also invented the product, that 'game' was played twice, three times at the most before everybody’s bravery was cut short by an evening detention. Karma was restored and rightly so because it’s now obvious having seen the benefits the StairSteady brings to so many that while me and some daft friends were annoying humanity Ruth and the StairSteady company were doing a much better job at helping it. Admittedly, it feels better to be on the winning team.
To anybody who has ever started a new job there is nothing more equally nerve-racking and exciting than familiarizing yourself with exactly what your job entails and before I declare myself part of the winning team I need to earn my keep and impress while doing it. This is daunting to someone who has never answered a phone with anything more sophisticated to say than ‘Hello?’. When your job is temporary it is like the training, working and retirement has been distilled into an essence. You get a short, sharp taste of everything. My training is brief, succinct but thorough, as soon as work begins and becomes routine it ends and as for ‘retirement’ a picture of myself is commissioned (twice) by Abigail and Nathaniel Dye. Which, as I said when presented with them, are far more heart-warming than any gold watch.'The full bag of mashings’ as my dad would say.At first, this feels as though you need to learn everything with the kind of speed Muhammad Ali described when he said 'last night I turned off the light switch in my hotel room and was in bed before the room was dark'. And despite that initial overwhelming feeling, it is soon relaxing, my heart doesn't pound at the sound of the telephone and I remember the documents lay out off by heart.9-5 quickly becomes a cathartic exercise and keeps my mind away from looming exam results and a hopeful move to University. Also, who doesn't enjoy work that offers a chance to be creative?
Overall, it’s been a learning experience and without getting too emotional, I’ve learnt a lot about what can be done to help people on every level. The phone manner is sorted but more importantly I’ve learnt that StairSteady isn’t something to be messed with; it’s a genuine commodity.So in the future if you're offered a job at StairSteady go for it, it comes with my recommendation.I hope that with this post I have shown the versatile roles of a StairSteady from unlikely entertainment to employment and maybe one day who knows I might need one... not yet though, eh?
Finally, I’d like to take the chance to thank Ruth and Rachael of StairSteady for the opportunity and kind guidance throughout.