I set my alarm clock for the crack of 9.45am, up dressed and on the road for a 50minute drive to work at Middlewich at 10.30. I get into work and start at 11.30am, the company i work for is a very large grocery retailer whose name i am not at liberty to disclose. I check in with "Kermit", (not his real name, this is to protect his privacy). Here's "Kermit" hard at work;
I take a seat and wait for my days work to be given to me. It turns out to be a long wait as i end up in the office waiting for 2 and quarter hours on POA. There are other Proffesional HGV operatives in the waiting room with me, waiting like coiled springs for the nod from Kermit and they are ready at a moments notice to be going up the road in a 50ft rig taking a delivery anywhere in the country;
The company motto is "you shop,we drop" and after a few hours one of our operatives does exactly this, he's a real jobsworth and if the company say it, then he does it;
Anyway 2.45pm and i've got my job allocated and got the keys to my truck for the day, here it is, nice hey?
So i fill out my check sheets, check my paperwork, make sure i got my maps etc. and then fit this little beauty in it's cradle in the cab with me;
Now this is called an "Isotrack" and this little wonder of modern electronic gadgetry will relay all my movements,speed,time spent idling infact everything i do back to Kermit in the office. Progress hey! Anyway, as i'm sorting my stuff out i hears a bang and looks up to see;
Well who would try to get a trailer in sideways? Typical it could only be a ......
Stobarts driver!!! Well there he is inspecting for any damage. Whilst i'm busy looking at the pics i took of him, unbeknowns to me he has come over to my cab door and knocked. I got a fright, i wound the window down and he said "thanks", i looked at him suprised, he said "thanks for tooting your horn". I put my thumb up,smiled,nodded and said ok all at the same time and he turned on his heel and went back to his cab. I wasn't sure if he was being funny or not as i never did toot nor did i hear anyone else toot! I spoke to the driver ,who wished to be know as Ivan Milosevec, a short while after he said he was very happy in England and, of interest to those who have asked recently,said Stobarts was a very good company to work for. I bid him farewell and set off to deliver to two retail outlets in the north of England who's exact locations i can't reveal for security reasons. The journey is an uneventful one really, interupted by bursts of the "Irish Turbo" kicking in on the downhill slopes of the M62 taking the speedo to 60mph+ and the weather being cold had seen me turn the heater up. This heat had made me thirsty, and remembering the old adage "never drink from pop bottles you find in your cab" this made me pull into the services on the M62 for a quick BurgerKing meal and a drink. 15 min break and i'm on my way again.I arrive at the first delivery location at 5.10pm and have about 20odd roll cages to deliver. Now some people think roll cages are easy, but they're not. You have to undo a strap. And another tricky thing is getting the "steering"wheels facing the right way and then considering whether to puch or pull, and this has to be done for every cage. I still marvel at the skill the delivery staff have as i watch them manoevre them about with ease, making it look easy.If you thought it was impossible for someone to load boxes of household products onto a roll cage with a shovel then a look at the cages that our warehouse has loaded confirms that it is possible. Just after 6pm and i'm on my way to my second delivery. I take a half hour break before i get there as i need to read the Daily Mail and get my fix of how many immigrants have come in to the country and see what the poloticians are upto etc. 7.50pm and i'm at my second delivery point, again the exact location is secret for security reasons. This time as well as roll cages, i also have to deliver MU's (merchandising units), they are a small four wheel dolly basically and if you can manoevre a jelly on wheels by pushing the jelly bit then you can master the art of MU's. Quick chat to the backdoor man who is actually a buisnessman and gangster and just does this part time(so he tells me) and i'm off on the journey home, down the A1 and back along the M62. Going over the tops on the M62 it got very foggy and visability was not good at all, most of the cars had slowed down to 40mph or less. Now there is nothing i hate worse than selfish drivers, and whilst the cars have very limited visibility, us in trucks can generally see the road ahead more easily and our lights are higher up and tend to go further so instead of undertaking and overtaking the slow cars like the other trucks i seen a poor guy struggling at 40mph in lane two. I got up close to his rear bumper and put my full beam on, this has the effect of enabeling him to see more of the road ahead and we managed to get his top speed upto 50mph. He was very grateful, he was waving out of his window to me with his arm, and his wife in the passenger seat kept looking back at me for reassurance tha i was still there. Once we dropped down the hills and the mist cleared he give me another wave and a toot and he scooted off, now why we all can't help each other more like that i don't know. After such a publicy spirited service i pulled into the services to grab a well earned coffe to go, one of them "costa bomb" ones out the blue machine for nearly two quid. A steal, i don't know who for though. Back at the depot at 11.10pm where i see our trained "ninjas" on the gatehouse;
These guys are trained to kill, luckily for me, he just wants to write my registration down. I drop my trailer off, just anywhere and quickly so as i don't get a shunter on my case and go and fill up. Well i've had a real party today and a quick look around the cab and it looks like i've had a party in the cab:
I generally leave this stuff in for the next driver to remove, by the time he has done a couple of trips over to the bin his heart rate will have risen considerably and , little does he realise it but i am actually helping to keep him in shape. Book off with Kermit in the office at 11.30pm and i'm on my way home,leisurley;
Hope you all enjoyed my day, i know i did!
12hours,113litres of fuel,346kms,2 deliveries and one happy bunny.
![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Many rookied screw up by not asking for help, I learned this the hard way, quickly.
