TeaBreak: Memoirs of a Motor Mechanic sponsored by 52 www.aftermarketonline.net OCTOBER 2024 Spectre of Halloween haunts the books Ihad put on a few extra pounds over the holiday period and while being back at work helped boost my activity, I knew I had to do a fair bit more to help get the weight off — especially, dare I say it, with Christmas just around the corner. Mrs Parkit suggested I join her at the local slimming club, but I had a better plan and it did not involve splashing out on an expensive gym membership either. Instead, I dipped into the marketing kitty and decided to head off for a few days to Automechanika Frankfurt. I knew that touring the halls there could work wonders for the waistline, while also catching up on the latest products and innovations. I’ve got one of those tracker apps on my phone and was amazed to see that on the first day at the exhibition alone I clocked up around 20,000 steps. I had similar results for the next couple of days there too. All that just for taking a look at the latest the aftermarket has to offer and chatting to suppliers and contacts. My favourite thing about the app is that it ‘translates’ the steps you’ve done into all the calories you’ve burned. It was very comforting to know that I had earned enough ‘calorie credits’ to enjoy some beers and snacks at the end of the day in the show’s happy hours — all while doing some valuable networking. One of my suppliers that I shared a beer with asked me how I was getting on with the stock system that I bought a short time ago. It’s a fantastic bit of kit, but he persuaded me to buy a software update which my apprentice, Jay, helped me install when I got back. But, horror of horrors, as we were rebooting the system, it appeared a whole bunch of valuable stock was missing. Faulty system? No! The reason for losing a fair bit of the expensive inventory was that it was spirited away by none other than Mrs P. I wondered why the new-look Halloween-themed reception looked so good when I returned from Germany. Turns out the high-tech lighting giving the place a suitably atmospheric feel and all the spooky decorations had been raided from the storeroom. If you think the onset of autumn has ushered in a seasonal chill that’s nothing compared to the atmosphere in the Parkit household right now!
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