Hello
I came across this description of a typical day and thought it was really helpful for newbies looking for insights into different jobs - thanks Santa. It was written in 2015, so I hope it’s still representative of pallet work.
There’s obviously a huge range of HGV jobs being done up and down the country every day.
What’s your line of work and what’s a typical day (or night)?
I worked for one of the Palletforce companies. Their delivery area was East Birmingham, parts of Warwickshire and worcestershire.
A typical day would start at about 8am with being handed a stack of delivery notes. I liked to sit at a table and read every one, because there would be details that I needed to decide the route. Some would be ‘before 10am’ some might be ‘am’ etc. Then I knew by experience that ABC Company closed at 12am for lunch; CDF Company’s yard was full of their own trucks before 10am and so on. Also I would know which were FLT deliveries, which were tail lift and any handball. I would also know by experience which were big and wobbly (plastic bottles and stacked plastic bags). For private house deliveries, I always phoned them to give an ETA. This made the company look good, but mainly I wanted to be sure that there would be someone home.
Once notes were sorted I would head for the yard to get loaded. There were at least half a dozen others doing the same thing so FLTs flying about. First find the pallet and then a FLT driver to load it. Naturally I wanted the first drop at the back, but that was not possible if it was a big wobbly one that needed to be against the headboard. A lot of the deliveries were forked off and it paid to be nice to those guys because you wanted them to re-sort the load sometimes after they took their 2 metre high stack of compost off.
Once everything was loaded and scanned on (everything gets scanned at every stage) I would strap anything that needed it and head off. Unless I was late and in a hurry, I would stop in a layby, go through the paperwork and check the AtoZ (no satnav for me) and drink some coffee before setting off.
Most deliveries were regular and I knew the guys at goods in by name, or at least by sight - I also knew where to go which is a big problem in some places. As I said, it not only makes for a more enjoyable day if you are seeing friendly faces, but you also need their cooperation. After each delivery I would phone in to say the time and the name of who signed. This was important because some of them were pretty disorganised and would deny having received the pallet.
I always tried to get a 15 minute break in the first couple of hours (often while waiting) and would stop for at least half an hour around 12 or 1 O’ Clock. There was never pressure to do anything dodgy. Collections in the afternoon (sometimes overlapping with deliveries if it made geographical sense) would nearly all be forked on - again it needed cooperation as the load would often have to be re-arranged. Usually I would get back to the yard at around 5pm. At that time the yard was heaving. They would take the pallets off and sort the pallet system stuff from the rest (mostly Irish) and load the double deckers for the hub.
Household deliveries were nearly always to people who had ordered stuff on the internet and had no idea about the problems of hauling a pallet of bricks across a gravel drive, or even up steps. The rule was “delivery to the kerb” but we all tried to be as helpful as we could. I remember carrying patio furniture round to the garden; opening the boxes of trampolines to carry the heavy parts a bit at a time; ■■■■■■■ wraps of flooring into someone’s hall. I also remember delivering a large oven to a house where the owner expected me to carry it up the path - when I said that it would have to go back, she whistled up a gang of kitchen fitters. Negotiation was the key, but in the end, my office would always back me up.