Judy Stuckey - Quality Control - 25 Years
Judy Stuckey inspects some natural kernel, making sure they meet specification.
JUDY Stuckey’s 25-year career at Almondco is a credible achievement in itself but how she secured full-time work having left school barely knowing the alphabet up to the letter E is simply incredible.
She completed about half of grade five.
“The last part of my schooling I did with my own kids,” Judy explained.
“I didn’t even know the alphabet past E until I sat down and watched Playschool with them
“I liked the tune, that’s what got me.”
As her children learned more, so did she.
“I had a son, Neville, who didn’t want to sit down and do his school work,” Judy recalled.
“He had a project to do on the Olympics and I said to him ‘I’ll do the research for you, write it out for you but you’ve got to copy it with your own handwriting’.
“I got a phone call from his teacher, she asked me to come to the school.
“I went there in the lunch break, Neville was sitting in the classroom and I thought ‘oh no, what’s he done now?’
“The teacher asked me who did the project, I told her Neville did it.
“She said ‘no he didn’t, because he got an A for it’.
“She added that next time he had to do it himself.
“I couldn’t wait to get out of the school yard, because the next minute I was hopping and skipping down the street singing ‘I got an A, I got an A’.”
While reading and writing was a challenge, understanding numbers came more naturally.
“I can pick up numbers ok, sometimes people are trying to work things out on a calculator and I’ve already worked it out before they’ve punched a key,” Judy laughed.
“I am proud, for what I’ve done considering the education I had.”
Judy is part of the furniture in the Quality Assurance arm of the Renmark facility.
She is known for her extremely high standards and commitment to please the customer.
Judy was born and raised at Barmera and after marrying young, she had three children.
She now has give grandchildren and two great grandchildren.
Her arrival at Almondco, like a lot of successes in her life, was borne out of adversity having lost her job when the almond room at Berrivale closed down.
“I pushed to get here,” Judy recalled.
“It was only because one lady pulled out of the application process that I got in.”
After a week’s intense training at Paringa, Judy joined Almondco for the first time.
“That week’s training we had was very strict, in my mind,” she said.
“It set extremely strong values, with the most central to my role being you’ve got to please your customer.
“If you don’t have a customer, you don’t have money, if you don’t have money, there’s no company and no job. That’s my motto.”
The early days were interesting, with no lunch room, the toilets were portable, and wild animals roamed the site at times, much to the delight of Judy and other employees.
“We had a family of emus here, that sort of thing sort of boosts people’s morale,” Judy said.
“People would come out, have a look and go back to work feeling good.
“This was before the automated gates, wildlife would just come in and out.”
The site today is vastly different to her first day on site.
“All the old machinery is virtually gone, there’s new technology, and now the new sorting system is going in,” Judy said.
The tech revolution hit its straps and computers were brought in.
“I didn’t even know what a computer was,” Judy said.
“But I figured you either learn computing or you don’t have a job.
“I just bought a second hand computer and mucked around with that.
“Then I was waiting for Almondco to put me through a basic computing course but I decided to put myself through one.
“I wanted the job and the basic skills.”
An enclosed quality control area seems like a formality as most export sites these days but it wasn’t that way when Judy started.
“I pestered them for it,” she laughed.
“We used to be under the old packing hoppers, the noise was horrible and on a frosty morning, your fingers just stung.
“We’ve got a nice quiet, clean area with air conditioning, so it’s a different world, 100 per cent on what we had.”
Her initiative when solving problems is iconic at the Renmark site.
“My boss calls me ‘Miss Investigator’,” Judy chuckled.
“If someone comes in and says a label doesn’t seem right, I’m off before any questions are asked, investigating it.
“I believe in doing things right, do your job and do it properly.”
Her passion for the job has not faded.
“I love my role, I love what I do, every day is a challenge,” she said.
“Some days are tougher than others, but you’ve got to stand up in your dig, don’t let your guard down.
“I’m persistent, when something's not right, I’m determined to sort it out.”
As for the future, Judy is content to keep pressing on.
“I’m here month by month, it depends on how I feel,” she said.
“I am happy where I am, I still take my job seriously and I’m still enjoying it.”