When I was made redundant after twenty years in the mining industry, I became a self-employed interim manager and did this for a further twenty years.

Interim management is, as the name suggests, what Rafa Benitez did at Chelsea – taking on a managerial role on a short-term basis.

The disadvantage of this is that there is no security.  After your contracts up, or even before sometimes, you’re out.  The advantage is that to compensate for the greater risk involved, greater rewards can be gained.  And this opened up for me doors into many, many top-brand companies like BMW, Barclays, Wilkinson Sword, Fujitsu, National Power, AON, Shell/BASF, Royal Mail and Rentokil Initial to name a few.  But why, you might wonder, would any company want to engage the services of a clog-lump like me and pay them three, maybe four, times the going rate?

Well, here is the answer.  Desperation.

They have found themselves in a spot of bother.  Perhaps the incumbent has got another job and recruiting a permanent replacement will take months.  Perhaps the incumbent has taken ill or inconveniently died.  Perhaps they have been sacked summarily for Gross Misconduct.  Perhaps an unforeseen project or problem has just confronted the organisation.

And then there’s Stress – that wonderful Gatekeeper of Opportunity for the Interim Manager.

In this case the incumbent was too fragile for the rigours of the role and has chucked in a sickie which, everyone knows, will go on for months.

Enter Coopey.  Nottingham born and Yorkshire bred, strong in th’arm and weak in th‘ed.  “Where there’s no sense there’s no feeling”.

Happy days.