Meet the team.  This week we’ve been chatting to our Commercial Services Manager, Inga Parnell, about how she went from running a bar in Zakynthos to working at ServiceMaster by Deeland.

Inga’s first job was working for the West Midlands Police Force in Birmingham.  She was a punk with pink hair at the time of her interview, so was pleasantly surprised when she got the job! At 18 years of age, in a time when the police force was still very male dominated, she found her naturally tom-boy personality fitted in well.  She spent 12 years working for the police, including undercover work policing football violence.   Learning how to handle herself in difficult situations was an essential part of the job – including one memorable time she had to climb out of a pub window in Chelsea when surrounded by hooligans.

With changes in the police force Inga decided to take a career break and go travelling.  A friend working for BA got her a standby flight to Athens.  She arrived without anywhere to stay, walked into a bar and got chatting to a man who was sitting there.  A couple of hours later he mentioned he was selling his bar in Zakynthos… and she agreed to buy it, unseen! Her courage paid off and she had a fantastic couple of years really becoming part of the tight knit community in Zakynthos, and loving all the friends she made, including the various teenagers who ended up working there in exchange for bed and board for weeks at a time.

Owning and managing her own bar gave her the perfect experience to return to the UK and work as a pub manager for various breweries.  Her police background meant she was expert at handling people in tricky situations – like her pub in Tottenham with Spurs and Arsenal fans drinking on opposite sides of the bar.  It also gave her the confidence, when a customer came in one day asking her to open early for some drinks before a wedding, to say a firm ‘no’.  However, with this particular customer he actually asked her to marry him just ten days later and she said ‘yes’ – and that’s how she met her husband, Keith, to whom she has now been married for many years!

Several pubs later, Inga decided it was time to move out of pub management and applied for a job at ServiceMaster.  Her strong work ethic and fantastic customer service skills have suited ServiceMaster perfectly and she is now head of our Commercial Department and has been with the business for over 20 years.  We are lucky to work with someone with such interesting life experience behind her!