Although whilst we are the subject of age it may seem a strange statement to make, particularly if you are fresh out of your A'levels but even in the shadow years of my thirties (ahem!) I promise you that inside you still feel the same as you did when you were 21, it's just the outside that doesn't look too good any more.

This process continues until you are 50 and then your body begins to decompose from the outside inwards. Don't laugh, it is your future, or try and stop it with hair dye and trendy clothes, your 'Dad /Mum dancing' will betray you in the seemingly distant future.

So where was I? Holiday jobs. My overdraft reduction action plan was coming into focus (On a Management course eh?). I was to closely assist Brian and Mark, two Project Managers who had unrivalled hands on experience in the Construction & Fabrication market place.

Big Brian or more commonly known as L.O.Bri. Because on nights out drinking, all the fat birds would always say "Ello Bri" and pinch his kebab. His business partner Mark "Your in my chuffin seat" Brown assured me that they would show me the ropes.

Mark and L.O.Bri who had to show Iain the ropes

Busting with enthusiasm I leapt from the company vehicle that was once a van, but now a mobile skip, ready to challenge the 'status quo' with my 'out of the box' thinking.

The first job in the morning was to start the Diesel driven Concrete Mixer. Never heard of a diesel driven concrete mixer ? That's because most of them have been smashed to pieces with a lump hammer by a deranged brickie after being unable to start the thing on any day that it's needed.

Iain's source of pain

I'll swear this thing had a brain, and a bitter and twisted attitude, it knew you wanted it to begin mixing gobbo (technical term) so it would sulk like a spoilt child on a bank holiday. The only way to beat the thing was to outwit it, by craftily sneaking up on it's blind spot and hope to surprise, the thing before it had time to realise.

Once the mixer was mastered the next job was Supply Chain Management and Accreditation this highly important issue included making sure all the right coloured bricks were in the right size piles in the right places on the building site.

Now this Management role was causing me a little trouble, I had understood the initial concept but the execution of this time critical task was transcending mental stress to achieve a physical complexity that my MBA course had not prepared me for. Or in a "real time management reporting dialogue" my back was killing me.

By the time the next lot of bricks had arrived on the flat back truck I had shifted by hand about 8 ton of bricks. This was real hands on management stuff, and to top it all I had been accepted into the local culture and office banter. "Where's my gobbo and bricks you prat?" was an efficient management diatribe for "Please tell me what are the Key Performance Indicators today and their relevance to the Supply Chain management System?".

I later found out that the "Prat" tag was a colloquial term of endearment .

I was learning bucket loads by the minute. On the third day I was sent to the Builders Merchants for "A long weight (sic), a bucket of steam, a sky hook and some striped paint."

Oh how we laughed at lunch time when I returned empty handed. Particularly when I suggested that they weren't managing their supply base efficiently and changes in the product mix were required. I later rang to offer my services to the Builders Merchant as part of my dissertation, they were very interested, although no one has rung me back yet. Perhaps they also require a review of their Internal Communication Policy?

The holiday ended all too soon and I returned to the world of theory and books all the more richer for my experience, fuelled with great ideas for my rise up the management ladder of business. I wondered how many other future captains of industry had a similar cutting insight into the real world?