DJS Research Ltd

Do you remember a school trip from your childhood?  The joy and the excitement as you were finally released from the classroom, free from the unpleasant glare of teachers to have fun with your friends and make some memories...

Here at DJS Research we held our very own school trip on June 30^th as employees gathered from across the country at Drayton Manor Theme Park for a day of fun and meeting up with old friends and colleagues, and new ones.  DJS has very much embraced hybrid working over recent years and our staff are spread throughout the country.  It is not often we all meet up, but when we do we like to do it in style and a generous budget had been set aside.

The day got off to an early start as people began their journeys, but then we were all too excited to stay in bed anyway.  A large coach of reprobates set off from Strines with another pick up in Stockport.  A smaller coach captained by a lunatic driver set off from Leeds and then a number of passenger vehicles were launched from across the country.  Despite trying to choose a destination easiest for the majority, the shortest journey was 15 minutes and the longest was near to 5 hours. Kudos to the Kent CATI ladies, for their commitment and their 5am start!  It was nice to meet you all and thank you for making the effort.

We arrived at different exits it seems and the Strines coach was a little delayed by a longer than planned toilet stop, but with the expert day trip leadership of Kelly and her lieutenants we were herded together like one giant herd of cats and released into the park.  It did not matter to us one bit that the entire park had been taken over by 14-year-olds with just a few teachers in high viz, we were here to have fun and they were not to get in our way.

It takes many different types of people to make an agency and we are many different characters and temperaments.  Some sought out the scariest rides in their search for the buzz and kudos of the risk seeker.  Others were happy to take the more sedate approach and enjoyed a leisurely train ride round the park.  And yes, some spent the whole day in the pub, led by Alasdair Gleed our Managing Director and his happy band.  We are an open house at DJS and all are welcome to enjoy their day as suits them, as long as they meet the height requirement, look after themselves and don’t stand on any school children.

Lunch was a welcome respite from the craziness of the park.  We were treated to a fabulous array of hot foods, the likes of which you would not find on some street stall in the park.  While the 14-year-olds in the park had to make do with their plastic sandwich, we dined like kings and queens in our own space sat outside in the bright sunshine.  It was nice to mingle and reacquaint ourselves with each other and honestly, we could have stayed there all afternoon, but there were rides to go on and the 3 courses and alcohol we had consumed could only make those rides that bit more exciting.

My little band decided to head for Shockwave, the scariest ride in the whole park.  In this you are stood up, loosely strapped in and then launched onto a circuit where it stops mattering whether you are upside down or not because you have lost all sense of physical reality anyway.  The queue is essentially in an enclosed tower that runs up a few flights of stairs in an airless and windowless space and was in many ways worse than any ride, but we had to commit to the ride and we waited for quite some time.  Only for the closure of the damn ride to be announced!

Not to be deterred we went on some other rides (a very pleasant river trip being one), but constantly with an eye on Shockwave.  As dedicated researchers, many with years of training, we understand the value of insight and gathering constant intelligence on a situation and we were to be rewarded as the ride reopened, we legged it and beat the 14-year-olds right to the front of the queue!  I can’t tell you much about the ride though as I had my eyes firmly closed.

As the day drew to a close many of us had the same “clever” idea to go on the log flume.  For those of you unfamiliar with a log flume you basically sit in a log shaped vehicle and are repeatedly thrown down from a great height into a pool of water.  At no point does this ride hide the fact that you will get very wet.  Everyone leaving the riding is soaking from head to foot.  You can actually see the ride from outside it and see how wet people get.  It is an unashamedly wet, wet ride.

But despite the obviousness of all this we all thought it a good idea to go on this ride just before we were due to get back on the coach.  In my group I had the fortune of being sat behind quite a tall colleague and that shielded me from the first blast, but then of course the ride decided to go backwards and that’s when it all got very wet, and after a few more soakings there was no dry part of me left.  Even the drying tunnels we found could not eliminate the dampness we carried with us back to the coach and indeed into the rest of the evening and weekend.

Tired and damp, but happy, we returned to our vehicles and said our goodbyes, vowing to do it again soon just without the log flume bit and maybe at a time of year when 14-year-olds are busy.  At our last day trip in 2019 we had no idea what was round the corner. Many of us have been through so many highs and lows, wondering if we would make it through and that is still true of today. We do never know what the future will bring, we all know that.  But as long as we have each other and are willing to embrace the ride then I know we’ll all be OK.  Even if we do get a bit damp at times. 

It was such a pleasure to see you all and I look forward to the next time!