That was the Week That was : Episode 87 -The Logic of Logistics
It was a hot humid day…………most days of last week. Driving a courier van in that weather is like driving a baking tin in an oven regulo 6.
So much so that when I delivered rolls of fabric to the Silk Centre the Indian woman said to me “have you come from Bombay?” No it was not a late delivery, my reply was “Northampton, a bit closer than Bombay” so she might have been nuts or just remarking that I looked hot and bothered.
It’s a job. On Thursday I was out of the house for 14 hours making 70 stops. The depot is half and hour from my house, the depot is an hour from Peterborough city centre, my zone. As it’s pedestrianised series of shopping areas there is a lot of walking with a set of wheels for boxes. I do like the job, don’t like the hours, but none of the drivers do. One driver keeps a photo of himself on the mantelpiece – “who’s that Mummy”, his children ask, “that’s your Daddy children, he’s at work”.
I have my own bay at the depot and the only one with my name printed out, everybody else has post codes, I have my name. I don’t think it’s ‘cos they think I am thick, I think it’s to help the depot unloaders to put my loads in the right place. I also have a bigger truck now, the other one’s were to small………………. So everyone says Good Morning Allan, and I know about 5 names, so the rest of the time I just say Hi back.
I won’t mention the names, because last time I did the agency that got me work was asked to attend a meeting with this other freight company about my day in the life of with them and a manic co driver intent on wrecking the truck and getting the sack. Though the agency had a good laugh at my observations, I need this current job, hence no names. For the curious followers of this blog go back to the week leading up to Christmas and my account of the passenger and the driver from hell.
Getting back to present day, it was Thursday that was my worse day so far , the highlight low light being this scenario:-
I drive up to the service area entrance shutters, ring the security bell, I am told the shutters are jammed shut, the computer has gone wrong. Pause for thought there. Has it come to this that we now need a computer to pull up a roller shutter, and is there no mechanical override like a chain, no health and safety can’t use the chain…cobblers.
Impossible to park as well in the streets, buses and taxis only, one way systems, road works, barriers you name it, it is there. 4 drivers have been tried and failed on this route in 2 months, I am the 5th, I am winning so far. Developers and Architects build these shopping centres but never think shops have to sell things and it is not all washing machines from the planet Zanussi beaming down through the roof.
So, the immovable shutters, no oxy acetylene torch to hand, I decide to get this small parcel to the shop in the shopping mall, like a 5 minute walk. The Manager can’t sign for it over the front counter, why not, it’s the rules, the shutter is down, no matter, the shutter is down and his lights are not on. OK I say I will walk through your shop to the back. Can’t do that he says there is no way from the front to the back. Blimey, we’ve got a right one here. So how do you get your stock from the back to the front then, tell you what don’t worry I take this box back and when the shutter is fixed in a few days you can have it then, bye.
Well Mr Jobsworth you win today’s star plonker of the day award.
I am not paid to think, just to do what I am told………………..derrrrrrrrr
Me, no lunch, nothing to eat all day, just drinking water, working time directive ??? yeah sure, no time to stop that day.
On the flip side I was asked by the depot to collect from a shop that had been closed for 3 months……………dooo doo do do !!!
And I have had 3 vans, all defective, some of the defects I fixed myself. Got stuck outside the passport office on double yellow lines and a bend, the van was dead when I got back in, but after 20 minutes I got in going again. The week before the clutch on another van, just fitted with a £500 new clutch, was burning and all the dashboard warning lights were illuminated in competition with the Blackpool Pleasure Beach Illuminations. I still got that one back too.
No overtime, just s slavery salary, just below the national average. But it’s a job. I must admit on Thursday morning waking up by alarm at 05.45 hours, it took me to 05.50 hours to figure out what day it was, and one tends to wish one’s life away, can’t wait to finish, thank god it’s Friday. But it’s a job, and Gordon Brown, our Prime Minister, and Alistair Darling, his Chancellor, have good jobs, allowances and salaries, but the rest of us fight to survive. Unlike the fat cats at the banks that have all the taxpayers money to bail them out of the mess they put us in and keep us in.
3 wheels on my wagon, but I’m still rolling along, no Cherokees after me, no flaming spears to burn my ears, and I listen to the test match as I go along, singing hippytty happytty hoppitty hi, pioneers they never say die, and we can watch our lives …… go galloping by.
Saturday, 22 August 2009
Sunday, 16 August 2009
Words of a Friend Indeed
The words of Ken my oldest dearest friend from school:
"Since we met, all those years ago our lives have moved in quite different directions and out journeys have been different too. I have always admired your independence, determined to be your own man. I know it has brought you highs and lows, but for me it brought great memories. Glad we are still pals long may it last".
"Whenever I think of our teenage years together,,,trips to Wembley...Bank Holidays in Brighton....our scooters...your cars...our nights out at Club Druane..the motown and soul music....Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band......a smile comes across my face as I reminisce and remember the fun times"
"Since we met, all those years ago our lives have moved in quite different directions and out journeys have been different too. I have always admired your independence, determined to be your own man. I know it has brought you highs and lows, but for me it brought great memories. Glad we are still pals long may it last".
"Whenever I think of our teenage years together,,,trips to Wembley...Bank Holidays in Brighton....our scooters...your cars...our nights out at Club Druane..the motown and soul music....Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band......a smile comes across my face as I reminisce and remember the fun times"
Tuesday, 11 August 2009
today its your birthday
Today its your birthday we're gonna have a good time.... !!
How I love birthdays not. Yes I am a Leo, proud, like lazing in the sun, prowl a lot, has been known to roar and defend with pride.
Well I have asked every year for the elixir of life and Father Christmas has never brought it, nor the women in Christmas stockings, so I don’t believe in him anymore.
But this year was a milestone, that I would rather ignore, but cant avoid, its called life as we know it. I did get some nice phone calls, ecards, birthday cards, presents. I got some tender words, that meant a lot to me from close friends.
I performed karaoke to Status Quo and pretended I had a guitar . I performed the video to Amarillo by marching round the dance floor and occasionally grabbing some unsuspecting volunteers. Because on the Saturday I went to a wedding reception and on the Sunday I hosted a bbq at my sisters house. All those that attended had to listen to my classic music taste, after all it was my party and I‘ll play what I want to. Good enough for a bop, You could call me Al and Sharp dressed man. Of course Status Quo live was the highlight, and Mr Blue Sky. My Way got me sad, yes even in celebration of my birthday I can put on an act and lark about, but deep inside I was blue. I find it tough being alone, even surrounded by family and friends.
Still it’s done now, onward and upward and though not the best party the world has ever seen, we had a few laughs those that turned up, and I give them my thanks.
How I love birthdays not. Yes I am a Leo, proud, like lazing in the sun, prowl a lot, has been known to roar and defend with pride.
Well I have asked every year for the elixir of life and Father Christmas has never brought it, nor the women in Christmas stockings, so I don’t believe in him anymore.
But this year was a milestone, that I would rather ignore, but cant avoid, its called life as we know it. I did get some nice phone calls, ecards, birthday cards, presents. I got some tender words, that meant a lot to me from close friends.
I performed karaoke to Status Quo and pretended I had a guitar . I performed the video to Amarillo by marching round the dance floor and occasionally grabbing some unsuspecting volunteers. Because on the Saturday I went to a wedding reception and on the Sunday I hosted a bbq at my sisters house. All those that attended had to listen to my classic music taste, after all it was my party and I‘ll play what I want to. Good enough for a bop, You could call me Al and Sharp dressed man. Of course Status Quo live was the highlight, and Mr Blue Sky. My Way got me sad, yes even in celebration of my birthday I can put on an act and lark about, but deep inside I was blue. I find it tough being alone, even surrounded by family and friends.
Still it’s done now, onward and upward and though not the best party the world has ever seen, we had a few laughs those that turned up, and I give them my thanks.
Tuesday, 4 August 2009
rainy days
What a wonderful summer. When I am out in the rain my hair reverts to my toddler hairstyle tight curls and frizz....yuk yuk yuk
So you guessed it, in the new courier job 2nd week, and I got wet. Now today in the rain, I had to deliver to this dirty house, well it was a near new house near Buckingham and it made Steptoe & Son's rag and bone yard look like a Palace. 3pm and the painted sheets were covering the windows, posing as curtains, the front door had never been cleaned, the front garden grass never cut, a true blot on the landscape. He came to the door, I held my breath and looked away, minimum contact, yuk yuk yuk. I wanted a Domestos spray, kill all known germs and this dirty git dead.
Anyway it reminded me of life of others as they know it, squalor. I have delivered furniture where bras and knickers and vests and tights were on the floor, in the hall on the stairs and here comes the delivery man tread tread tread. I have been in flats inhabited by Chinese DVD pirates and their pet cockroaches all over the carpets in every room, crunch crunch crunc. The Taxidermist in Milton Keynes, 3 cabinet freezer chest of dead animals, stink stink stink. In fact his house was so bad (he dabbled in fake printer cartridges as a side line)I opened the car window and stuck my head out down the M1 after to get the stench out of the back of my throat, yuk yuk yuk.
Finally..............one of the last deliveries, it reminded me of house hunting once, the psychedelic wallpaper purple and orange, mmmmm, and the well in the garden newts and toads. Yes witches do exist and they look and dress like witches, no broomstick, no pointed hat, but a dark evil sinister mysterious aura, ugly, big nosed, painted ladies showing a lot but not a lot worth seeing.
oooooooooo creepy, exit stage left, foot down on the accelerator, veerrrooommmm
don't come back now, hear !!!
So you guessed it, in the new courier job 2nd week, and I got wet. Now today in the rain, I had to deliver to this dirty house, well it was a near new house near Buckingham and it made Steptoe & Son's rag and bone yard look like a Palace. 3pm and the painted sheets were covering the windows, posing as curtains, the front door had never been cleaned, the front garden grass never cut, a true blot on the landscape. He came to the door, I held my breath and looked away, minimum contact, yuk yuk yuk. I wanted a Domestos spray, kill all known germs and this dirty git dead.
Anyway it reminded me of life of others as they know it, squalor. I have delivered furniture where bras and knickers and vests and tights were on the floor, in the hall on the stairs and here comes the delivery man tread tread tread. I have been in flats inhabited by Chinese DVD pirates and their pet cockroaches all over the carpets in every room, crunch crunch crunc. The Taxidermist in Milton Keynes, 3 cabinet freezer chest of dead animals, stink stink stink. In fact his house was so bad (he dabbled in fake printer cartridges as a side line)I opened the car window and stuck my head out down the M1 after to get the stench out of the back of my throat, yuk yuk yuk.
Finally..............one of the last deliveries, it reminded me of house hunting once, the psychedelic wallpaper purple and orange, mmmmm, and the well in the garden newts and toads. Yes witches do exist and they look and dress like witches, no broomstick, no pointed hat, but a dark evil sinister mysterious aura, ugly, big nosed, painted ladies showing a lot but not a lot worth seeing.
oooooooooo creepy, exit stage left, foot down on the accelerator, veerrrooommmm
don't come back now, hear !!!
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