UPS Haulfast : [zb]

Been with UPS Haulfast on agency this past week on tramping week. Money was right enough and was very impressed with the R-reg XF380 I had.

Did a sterling job for them, arriving everywhere well in time for bookings and was my usual pleasant self.

All was well until Friday when I got a delivery to Asda (George) at Newcastle-u-L. The address on paperwork consisted of :

Asda
Lymedale Business Centre
Newcastle-under-Lyme

Having no knowledge of said area whatsoever I belled the office and asked for a street address. (Over the years I’ve purchased every available OS county map going as I detest not knowing where I’m going and having to rely on randoms in the street to tell me how to get to places). The response from the office was : We haven’t got a street address. No-one else has ever had a problem finding the place (as usual, typical expected answer more than likely generated from the… yeah you’ve guessed it… automatic [zb] machine).

Annoyed at his response as it hadn’t helped I asked how I was meant to make the delivery to the place if I didn’t know where it was - lacking a street name. He said, “you’ll have to stop and ask someone”. That was the end of the call basically. I stopped and asked two people who directed me to the Asda superstore, not the RDC. Gave the office another bell and said that no-one I’d asked knew and the response was, “keep asking”. Naturally, tempers were beginning to fray and I pointed out that I was employed as a driver not an admin clerk. You provide me with address details; I go to places listed. No address=no go. If you require me to find the address details myself, ie. YOUR job, then that’s admin and I charge £25/hr for those services.

Needless to say it didn’t go down well which resulted in me downing the phone on him. 5 minutes went by and then he belled me up with the street address and I made the delivery.

At the start of the week I was informed that it was a long-term on-going contract but then come Friday night, wasn’t required next week. Wasted no time in belling the agency up and finding out the crack. That was when I learned that, apparently, I’d damaged the truck , never answered the phone, didn’t make any of the deliveries on time and didn’t put on the trailer brakes when dropping them (guilty of last one ). I was well raged about it and explained to Neil (agency bod) exactly what had happened but it didn’t change a bean because UPS didn’t want me back. Turns out that this was the 3rd time in the space of 12 months that they’d knocked back his drivers for no good reason.

So, seems like UPS employ [zb] in their Shaw cross t/o.

Back on the work hunt next week then.

Just a small one, tad too obvious!L.

you were knocked back for using common sense…get addresss get there pronto…instead of what they required which was wasting your time and their fuel…so some office donkey didnt have to do the job right

I cant understand you why did you want an address , surely that would hurry things up if you are on agency and getting paid by the hour chill out man pull in to the services aska few drivers, drag the job out.

Knowing where you were going would only speed the job up and when you are on hours you dont do that. DO YOU?.

Ok i know you want an address but so what if it takes you an extra 2 hours to find the place?.

Not paid by hour on that job, paid by day and in fairness it is was a good rate as I never went anywhere near 60hrs. Nevertheless I still like to know where I’m going/know where the place is so I can plan my route accordingly and if not booked in for ages, park up and have a snooze etc. As it happened, the booking time was tight anyway.