David Hartley – Part 1: The Letter

David Hartley Part 1 of 2

I want to tell you about the best day of my working life. But to understand why it felt

so good, you need to know what the three years before it were like.

My name is David Hartley. I worked for the same logistics company in Leeds for

eleven years. Started on the warehouse floor, worked my way up to operations

manager. I knew that place inside out. I hired people, trained them, covered shifts

when we were short, missed my kids school plays because the warehouse needed

me.

My boss was a man called Gary Simmons. Regional director. Wore suits that were

slightly too tight and talked about the team constantly while doing absolutely

nothing for any of us.

Gary and I never clicked. I knew it, he knew it. But I was good at my job so there

was nothing he could do about it. Until the company brought in a new performance

review system in January 2022.

Suddenly everything was being measured differently. My numbers were fine but

Gary had discretion over the written assessments. And his assessments of me

started coming back with words like resistant to change and struggles with the new

direction.

I flagged it to HR. They noted my concern and did nothing.

Six months later I was called into a meeting with Gary and someone from HR I had

never met before. They told me my role was being restructured. They handed me a

letter. I was being made redundant.

Eleven years. A letter.

I didn’t shout. I didn’t cry. I just looked at Gary and said fine. He couldn’t even look

me in the eye.What Gary didn’t know was that the month before, I had quietly started talking to a

competitor. A bigger company. Better run. They had approached me at an industry

event and I had been flattered but loyal. Until that loyalty stopped making sense.

Three days after Gary handed me that letter, I signed a contract with Henderson

Distribution as their new regional operations director. More responsibility. Better

title. Thirty percent more money.

But here is the part that still makes me smile when I think about it.

Henderson’s biggest contract, the one they had been trying to win for two years,

was with a national retail chain that Gary’s company supplied. I didn’t engineer it. I

didn’t plan it. But when Henderson asked me to lead the pitch because I knew the

client’s operation better than anyone, I said yes.

We won the contract in October.

Gary’s company lost it the same week.

I heard through someone we both knew that Gary had to explain to his board why

their biggest client walked. I heard the meeting did not go well for him.

I never contacted Gary. Never sent a message. Never needed to.

Some things sort themselves out if you just keep going.

Read Part 2 here: https://justiceserveddaily.com/david-hartley-part-2-the-silence-that-followed