Month: May 2013

47 not out.

It was my birthday! Huzzah! I was working, and I don’t drink or do other drugs, but I celebrated by not dying. Again. Quite the party animal, me. However, it got me to thinking; all I do is work, sleep whenever I can, and train whenever I can force myself to do so. Life is passing me by. No more. I have a plan! Yes, all who know me or have read this blog before will know I make plans, get all excited, then quietly give up shortly thereafter. Not this time. I’m saving up each week and for my 50th I’m getting a Harley. I think I have finally reached the age where I could just enjoy puttering along at the speed limit. I’ve given up on boy-racer-ing in the car. I don’t take the piss even on the motorways. If I can ride a bike like that I can stay in a job, with a bike and out of hospital. I’m saying my 50th, arbitrarily, as it will give me time to save and also time to tick all of my other mid-life-crisis, (pushbike subsection) boxes before I get it. Which is to say; the Fred Whitton (a 112 mile ride around the most hideous hills in the Lake District: ) Now *that*, my friend, is a ride! Also there’s the Lands End to John O’Groats thing and a brand name Ironman. I’m not going to go through life saying “I did an Iron distance tri” For brevity if nothing else, I need to do the brand name event. “Yeah, did the Ironman.” See, so much neater. No-one respects a man who says “I did a generic Iron distance triathlon” I digress. Harley! I’m thinking a second hand 1200cc Sportster. The good thing about it is; 99% of Harley riders only bring them out of the shed on the one glorious day we have each year. So even one that’s a few years old may never have seen rain (or rust) and will have covered a pitiful distance. Some of them are a few years old and don’t have 5,000 miles on the clock! This for example: 2004, one owner from new, 3,981 miles! That’s going for £4,850 right now. If anyone wants to buy it me I’ll reluctantly accept. There is a possible non sequitur there. I have to do all my box ticking (cycle section) before I get a Harley as I’m never getting back on a pushbike once I have one. Phase II of my midlife crisis involves me getting back on a Harley and getting fat. (Fatter!) I have the incentive this time of knowing that my livelihood (as well as life) depend on my riding like a sane commuter. I reckon I can now.   That’s for the future, though I started the saving this week. If I get a well paid job I would prefer a ‘big’ Harley. At nearly 13k I would have to be on a massively well paid job […]

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Same ol’.

It’s been tweaking of the norm at work. I was getting in for 1500hrs, sitting around for 30- 90 minutes for that jobsworth I’ve been sharing a unit (truck) with to get back then trotting off up to the Scottish border, doing a trailer swap and then back to Crewe. This takes until about 2330hrs. Then on Tuesday the guy at Crewe went on one. “You’re supposed to be here by 8 o’clock! Now we’ve missed the connection for the next driver” etc, etc. I let him rant a bit then told him that was a good run. I couldn’t get there much faster. If he wanted an earlier delivery I’d have to start earlier. “It’s not rocket science.” That went down well. I put my ‘phone on silent when I go to bed otherwise I get random tweets and emails waking me up. On Wednesday I got up at 1210, had a quick shower, turned the volume back on on my ‘phone and saw I had two missed calls and a text. From the agency. Start at 1300hrs from today. Aaaarggghhhh! Flap on. I got in for 1315. (In the car.) The change of times means I can get back to Crewe for 2115. Not what they want but near enough to stop them whining. The great things about the change are; not having to sit around waiting for Bill to get back, not having to talk to the brain-donor security guard at Aspatria and a more reasonable finish time. I can get to bed by 0100. The downside is as it’s a straight run with no waiting around now I’m only averaging about 9 hours 15 minutes (paid) a day. This is piss-poor in the lorry driving world.   Then they were desperate for drivers at Iceland this weekend. So after a full week at Ceva I went in today (Saturday). It’s not so much the money (which, let’s face it, never goes amiss) but the fact that I want to keep my foot in the door there. They sent me out with a 9 metre trailer. Titchy. To Ashton. I noticed it was marked as a “RED ROUTE”. This did not inspire joy. They have some awkward bastard stores as it is, which aren’t marked as red route. Hence this had to be bad. It was. I had to drive an (admittedly relatively small) artic through a pedestrianized zone in a town centre, then reverse in a tiny street on to the bay. I managed it after a couple of attempts. It was that tight that I took up all the road and I still wasn’t straight. ie, my unit wasn’t in line with my trailer. I asked the guy who worked there and he said that wouldn’t do, I had to back it in and leave my unit at a right angle to my my trailer. I was less than chuffed. In the end I had to get it like this: It was totally weird. You […]

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Oh how we laughed.

You know that little incident I had last week with my TomTom (supposedly) Trucknav? The one that nearly had me ringing the police and blubbing like a girl? I got on to TomTom. There was no way to contact them on the ‘phone so I ended up in a protracted email exchange. I said that I’d looked it up and there were two versions of the model I have, one for cars and one for trucks. They said they only sold the lorry one, so I couldn’t have the car one. They told me to check my settings. I did. Then tried the test route again. (Irlam  to Lymm. The quickest route takes you down a B road and over a 3 ton bridge.) The satnav told me to take the bridge. In a 40 ton, 53’ artic. I told them. They said I had to turn my notifications on. I found the buggers hidden in a sub section of the menu. They were on and had never warned me about a height/ weight/ width restriction or dead end. I told them. And so it went. I was looking up different devices in the lag between emails. I came across one called a Snooper. It actually does all the things the TomTom had claimed to. Guide you on suitable roads, avoid restrictions, warn of speed cameras, etc. They had links to several articles where they’d won the best trucknav category from Truckers World (or whatever) for the last three years running. There were three different publications and they’d all said the Snooper was hands down the best kit. After I’d sent my last email and heard nothing for several hours I thought they’d given up on me. Their whole attitude was that I was doing it wrong and their kit was bob on. I thought “Screw it!” I went and bought a Snooper. £400! I need it if I’m doing store deliveries all over the place. My job depends on it. later that evening TomTom emailed me saying they were going to put an upgrade on my account. I plugged in and it automatically downloaded and upgraded me to all of Europe maps, car or Truck mode. No such option prior. I clicked truck mode, suddenly it was saying “confirm settings; 40 ton, 53’3” long, 13 ton axle weight, starsign Gemini, favourite colour blue, etc”  I tried the test route; perfect. Obviously. Bollocks. Now I have two perfectly splendid satnavs. One for a snip at £355 the other a bargain at £399. Still, I need one for the job. Then they said I’d got my old run back at Ceva. Trunking from Irlam to Aspatria to Crewe and back to Irlam. Which I can do blindfolded. Ho ho ho ho. *beats self senseless with irony stick*   So that was hilarious. I immediately decided I wanted another job. I can’t be arsed with being Ceva’s agency bitch. Iceland take on from the agency and it’s good money I happen to […]

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New gig.

It’s Sunday. It seems like a lifetime ago I was stressing about the induction. That was Wednesday, I think. On Thursday I was in for my first shift. Surprisingly I slept OK, the problems on the road are are manageable because you are not being watched, so you can just work through them. That is not quite the case, the trucks all have satellite trackers to monitor your every movement, stop, and speed. All trucks have tachographs which monitor your speed, when you stop, when you take your break, etc. Plus these one are fitted with a forward facing camera which activates every time you brake harshly, go over a bump, or hit anything. Apparently there has been a huge rise in false insurance claims. People pulling in front of trucks then slamming on the brakes. Claiming they had a car full of their mates, all of whom claim for whiplash. So, in that instance it is good tech, as it protects the lorry driver. However, it also activates if you clip a kerb, or go over a speed bump. So every incident is recorded and can be cross referenced with your speed and location to determine if you were speeding or not paying due care and attention. You have to just drive like normal, with an eye to the speedo, and try not to think about being monitored every single minute. And hope you don’t get lost. Anyway, I was OK about it the night before, and fairly relaxed about it on the day. It was a bit of a flap trying to suss out the new paperwork and the correct procedures, but that was to be expected. My main worry was the stores. Iceland bought out half of the Woolworth stores when they went tits up, so it’s loads of town centre, poxy little places. My first day was two local drops, I forget where, then back to base to take out a second trailer. The stores were less than ideal to access, but within my ability. The second day was just two stores. Harder, but still manageable. I was getting cocky, thinking I had worried over nothing. Then on Saturday they sent me to Salford (a store delivery point on the roof of the complex, loads of really, really tight corners) then Macclesfield. Up until Macc the combination of satnav and the driver-written notes had got me everywhere perfectly. Not Macc. The satnav took me by a car route. I ended up down a twisty country lane a few hundred feet from a narrow, height restricted bridge. The road signs leading up had said ‘low bridge, 1 mile’ the satnav had seemed to say my turning was just before it. I got there and was totally stuck. I was an inch and three quarters too tall for the bridge. There was an open gate into a farmers field to one side, a mile of twisty B road to reverse down to the last turn off, or a […]

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The wheel turns.

Work has totally gone tits up with Ceva. 3 shifts, at random times and with no notice for two weeks on the trot, this week it has got to Wednesday with no work. They don’t work weekends, so best case two days work. Then the agency called me on Tuesday and asked if I’d be OK to do the DHL/Iceland induction on Wednesday. It’s massively out of my comfort zone, but it always will be. You can’t move from trunking to store deliveries without adjustment. Now is a good time to do it as I’m getting no work at Ceva. So I went for the induction. Again. My third time as a driver for that site. I failed the first one (I’d only just passed my test and had no experience.) I passed the second but bottled it and told the agency I didn’t want to work there. This one was, as ever, a nerve wracking event. They said turn up for 0600 for a six hour induction. Five of us turned up. They started us off with a breathalyser for alcohol and a urine test for other drugs. Then there were two. Three of the drivers failed the drugs test! So that was a good start. After that we went out for an assessment drive. The one good thing about that is the fact that the whole of DHL/Iceland’s fleet (out of that site, anyway) is automatic gearbox, which is one less thing to worry about. You guessed it. They had rented some manual gearbox trucks! D’oh! A few issues with the gearbox (and the fact that the trailers were twin axle not triple, which oddly means you take the right line for a corner, glance in your mirror and your trailer is heading for the pavement! Weird.) aside it was an OK drive. I passed that. Then there was the written test, road signs, driver hours regulations, geographical knowledge (on which I only got two wrong! Ha!) etc. Then it was death-by-powerpoint. From about 0900 to gone 1500. I’d hardly slept the night before with nerves, up at ungodly o’clock, then once I’d passed the three test (drugs/ alcohol, assessment/ written) I relaxed. The mind numbing boredom of sitting through hours of slides on safe lifting/ manual handling, coupling a trailer (!), and a gazillion other things we already knew was tantamount to human rights abuse. The worst of it was by the time we were finally released and I should have been able to celebrate I had a stinking headache. Bah. In the course of the day we chatted about me having worked there in the warehouse and I said how I’d originally taken my training to do ‘warehouse to wheels’. As you know that amounted to nothing after we’d spent all that money on training to get my licenses. The induction guy said “They’ve just started three guys on warehouse to wheels. One already had his license but they are putting the other two through theirs.” […]

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