Well, it’s all change again. I went into Human Resources again today, but the HR chick I spoke to a few days ago had been off for two days and by all appearance had forgotten about me. She took my name and number and said she would see the main manager then contact me. This was in relation to my request to have a bit of help in my driving progression. The company boasts of it’s initiatives for its employees, one of which being the ‘warehouse to wheels’ scheme. It’s on a big board as you walk into the main building, yet when I’ve asked the transport hierarchy all they’ve done is provide excuses why our site doesn’t run the scheme. So I asked the HR bint the other day if, now I’ve paid for the expensive bit out of my own pocket (getting the training and licenses) if the company could put me on the final part of the scheme. I wasn’t placing any great hopes on getting a reply, but as I was having a shower (typically!) she rang me. She said she’d talked to the MD of the site and he’d told her to contact the site that does run the W-T-W scheme to find out if it was practical for it to be implemented on our site for me! Apparently the person responsible at the other site is on holiday until Monday, but my new best-mate has sent them an email and has told me to get back to her Monday dinner time, when she can tell me more. That’s not a no. Hope springs eternal. We have qualified driver assessors on site, a whole fleet of trucks and the truckers to man them, what more do they need to get me up to scratch? I’ve passed the bloody test, all that’s left is experience. Yesterday at work, at 13.50 hrs, ten minutes before my shift ended and I was due to speed home with a glad heart and start making ‘phone calls about the jobs advertised on the interweb, a siren went off at work. As is common practise, everyone ignored it. However this time it was for real. We had a major ammonia leak from the cooling system in the freezer. Apparently that’s bad in a terminal way. The fire service and police were on site in minutes, they closed off main roads around the site and banned us from returning to the building until we weren’t going to die. 17.54 they finally let me go back inside to get my keys out of my locker so I could go home. My sinuses had kicked in again so I was suffering from a progressively worsening headache, I was sat outside for the four hours, with no idea when I was going to be allowed to go home. Less than fun. Today, as soon as I got home (without headache, hurray!) I set to ‘phoning around. One of the jobs was a flat out ‘no’ […]
Continue readingTag: Employment
Believe nothing that you hear…
…and only half of what you see. As they said in the army. That union rep I said about a few weeks back, the one who spontaneously announced that he’d been in the office and sorted out a training programme for me, is full of shit. I went into the transport managers office today and whilst I was waiting for some drivers to sort out their business (so I could get to see one of the managers) Nick (the rep) walked in. I collared him and asked what to do next, and basically he told me to go and get some experience elsewhere, then apply for our place. Thanks for nothing, Nick. Why, though? I didn’t stress him, or even ask, he said to me he’d been in and sorted it out. Did he think my license would never get back from Swansea so I’d never realise he is nothing but a bullshit merchant? I just don’t get it. If he can’t do anything for me that’s just the way it is, but why get my hopes up? What purpose did it serve? I do not understand why he would do that. So I’ve been scouring the interweb looking for work. Surprisingly I may have found some. There were about five jobs that didn’t categorically state ‘no new drivers’ and one that actually said ‘new drivers welcome’! OK, so it’s all agency work, crap pay, and two of the jobs state that it’s only for thirteen weeks, but I’ve got to get the experience somewhere. The two thirteen weeks one will be my last option, that would mean they are just wanting agency cover until xmas, then I would be on the dole in January, when there is no agency work. Wendy pointed out that I will have to take a chance at some point. If I end up taking one of those it will be with a goal to secure other work ASAP, well before the thirteen weeks is up. Once I’m up and running, already a driver, surely it will be easier to convince other prospective employers to give me a go. Off my own back I have been in and seen HR at work, to see if there is anything they can do for me, I’ve filled in an online application for Eddie Stobart’s, and I will be ringing about those jobs tomorrow. Also I will be tracking down all the local supermarket distribution centres to put in speculative application forms. Th’Asda, th’Safeways etc. Bugger. Anyway…, other stuff. It wasn’t just that I’m fat and old and lazy, it was also that damned mountain bike! (I KNEW IT!) Tried out my spiffy racing bike this morning and it was so much easier. The riding position is right, you’re not sat upright with all your weight squashing down on the saddle, your nethers are more or less in the air, and instead of having a contact patch of about three inches of soggy tyre, I have a little […]
Continue readingBreaking News!
Just a quick one. Whilst being dicked about something fierce in work this morning, I was walking across the yard from one department to another. I met up with Nick, the union rep for the drivers, (he who said he would clear it with the management for me to get some practise in at my reverse in one of the works trucks. Which, after some arsing around he duly did.) Well, I was minding my own business, and was in a fairly foul mood due to the aforementioned dicking- about- ness, when he pulled up alongside me and congratulated me on passing. I thanked him and said it was about time. He then said, unbidden, that he been in to the transport office on my behalf, and they (the transport management) were on about setting up a training scheme for me! Happy days! Frown upside down. As I say, it was unbidden so he had no need to invent it, so I’m hoping it is genuine, and that the deed follows the intent. That would be perfect. Whatever they have in mind, and however long it takes, I have my foot in the door. I have been on professional drivers websites where newly qualified drivers were offering to work for free to get experience. That’s how tough it can be. If they come good on this, it would be ideal. Work to their standard, get known, then when they need me I’m there. The drivers all reckon our place is the best paid driving job in the area, and they don’t ask for nights out, sleeping in your cab. Most of the jobs on the interweb expect it. This is before my license has come back from darkest Wales, and therefore before I’ve stepped into the office to present my case. There is hope for me. Yay! I’m going to leave it there, just a quick but really hopeful entry. Later, Buck.
Continue readingAnd there’s more…
Well it’s proving a good week for us. Wendy had her interview today, passed with flying colours, and is back to being a (part-time) wages slave as of next week! When she was last with the C.A.B. she worked on a project called G.P. Outreach as a sort of independent advisor. She would go to doctors surgeries and deal with people the doctor referred, such as people with debts, housing issues, benefits problems etc. The idea was that she could then deal with people who were too loony or simple to just attend the regular bureau. Then, in dealing with the some of the causes of stress and misery in their lives it would let the doctor offer a more holistic package whilst freeing the doctor up to just deal with the medical issues. I only mention that to explain that in her last role Wendy had to take on a whole lot of issues then deal with most of them herself as the clients weren’t capable, and keep on dealing with every little issue that arose in their lives. She was constantly having ongoing clients calling her and then she was worrying over every thing in their sad lives. Although on the one hand rewarding, it was emotionally draining and too much of a burden for her. Which brings us to her present job; trainee debt specialist. In this capacity she is specialising in her favourite subject (debt), she is part of a team, and because of the massive (and inevitably increasing) workload in that field that the bureau faces, it is her boss’s policy to deal with all of the clients problems in one, or at the most two interviews. Then case closed. These are going to be compos mentis clients so there is no need to hand-hold and take over their cases. It’s sort everything out, tell them what to do, or arrange it, then let them get on with it. Also it is one very short bus ride away from where we live, her previous job entailed two buses, or a bus and a train, or if I happened to be off, an hour’s drive in rush hour traffic (to cover about seven miles!) So, old job bad in all sorts of ways, new job better in just as many, and having the added bonus of letting Wendy specialise in her favourite subject. Also she’s lost the best part of another stone since we returned from Scotland, so everything is peachy in the world of the Wendster. I have made a decision about my martial arts. I went to a Karate class the other day to try it out. It was weird, but I expect it was good if you stuck at it. The only reason I went is, as I’ve mentioned previously, Taekwondo more or less ignores the fact you have hands. They are just handy (as it were) counterbalances for when you are kicking. This is fine in a competition where your opponent won’t […]
Continue readingI knew it!
Hi. It’s official, finally. We are being kicked out of our department. They finally came clean today. Perhaps it’s due to the tactics of industrial action/ sabotage we have been unofficially employing. We let the whole department go to shit. You could barely move for the pallets and rubbish. We slowed down to a walking pace (we had de-kitted seven trailers by breakfast one morning, where we normally have been looking at around twenty) so they were forced to send senior management to oversee every shift (we were abusing the junior management). Then we stood back and let the management try and run it, when they had no idea how it all operates. Finally on Saturday the shift manager for the whole site came up and told us we were desperate for sixty trailers and I laughed. She said "You used to be able to do that many" I replied "That was before we were getting kicked out of our jobs." She denied all knowledge, as have all the managers I’ve been challenging about it, but I think the message finally got home. Today they started taking us in, one by one, to be officially informed. I was the first of the lads to be taken in. So to speak (I wasn’t taken in for a second!) The 2IC (second in command) for the whole site sat and gave me a five minute waffle about how they needed to outsource to specialist recycling operatives to ensure full separation of the de-kitted materials in an hours relevant manner. Which translate as: they want to give our jobs to Eastern European agency workers. Reading between the yuppie-ese jargon, they want them to come in, magically separate the card, poly, and crap (when half of the time it arrives in huge cardboard containers, so you can’t see in it until you’ve tipped it into the baler, the top layer by which you judge it’s contents often being camouflage for the crap contained beneath) then as soon as they have finished all the trailers send them home. Even if this wasn’t unscrupulous, callous, and exploitative, it is still wrong. We take three shifts to keep up with the workload, and I’m here to tell you it is graft! That is twenty four hours a day, except for Weekend nights. If they are trying to run it on less men then we employ, they simply won’t get the job done. They can’t save on the wages bill therefore, and every other department will suffer the knock on effect. So hardy-har-har (he says, maturely). The good news is if that talk today is to be believed, they will let us choose our department upon leaving de-kit. So I don’t have to return to the dreaded freezer. Huge silver lining. However, that muppet today is not to be believed wholesale. He asked if there was anything I would like to say (at the end of his self-important waffle) and I told him, for future reference, if he’d […]
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