Staff Spotlight: John White

We recently had the pleasure of catching up with John White, one of our Customer Care Experts here at Blume to delve into his incredible journey from studying History of Design at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), through to living the high life in Rio De Janeiro, to coming full circle and settling back in Didsbury as a family man to prioritise his daughter’s education.

All in all, John’s life has been a fascinating adventure, and we thoroughly enjoyed sitting down with him to find out all about it!

Tell us about your role at Blume

My position at Blume is as a Customer Care Expert, so I spend the majority of the day handling calls from people who have experienced medical negligence, taking time to understand what they’re going through and providing answers they need to any questions, concerns and what options are available.

How did you get into your role?

When I returned from Brazil I headed straight into a position working for the Government’s electronic monitoring service which was certainly an interesting position…but the hours were often night shifts, which didn’t always work with other commitments so I was ready for a new challenge – when I saw a position at Blume, I went for it!

Can you tell us a little more about your life before Blume?

Sure! I started off as a drawing board artist working for the Co-Op as my first position after finishing school, which was great, but I wanted to find out more about the inner workings and history behind the approach so signed up to MMU as a mature student to study Design History. This was all in the late 90’s before I headed to Brazil at the turn of the century to teach English to teenagers and adults.

After four years in Rio enjoying endless weekends on Ipanema Beach – DJ sets  and long nights of dancing until the sun came up – I married my wife Isabel in 2004 and we returned to England the following year.

We were in the UK for seven years before heading back to Brazil, this time with our lovely daughter! Returning to Brazil for the second time was an entirely different experience, this time round we stayed closer to my wife’s family in the country, so it was a lot more cowboy hats and rodeos than all-nighters!

We absolutely loved every moment of our time there as a family, but decided to return to the UK in 2017 to prioritise our daughter’s education.

We do miss it, the Brazilian people are hilarious and very warm, and the food, music and football over there are all great too!

Where are we most likely to find you outside of work?

The pace is certainly a lot slower than it used to be. I still keep up with the football and love to attend Manchester City matches regularly, but to be honest a lot of my time is spent pottering around Didsbury and driving my now teenage daughter to and from her friends’ houses.

Is there anything else you feel we should know about you?

One of many jobs I tried a hand at in Brazil was doing extra work for their TV stations, like many things over there it was great fun but unfortunately quite poorly paid