Zeethron:
Having spent the last 6 months delivering pallets, I’ve learnt that in cases where the customer says put it there & I say it can’t get there, we are positively encouraged to ring the office whereupon our trusty TM will politely but firmly tell the customer that it really ain’t going to happen and that we are paid to deliver pallets kerbside - and no more. Stops dead 90% of all arguments and either I deliver the pallet kerbside (job done) or I take it back to the depot (no skin off my nose) & the TM gets on to the originating depot and tells them the same.
I had my doubts initially that my TM would back us up but fair dos, he has always come through. Only got stuck once, when I had taken off a pallet of slabs (well over a tonne) and the customer then decided that as I couldn’t put it next to his garage down a shingle drive, that he was going to reject the load . I then couldn’t get the friggy thing back on the truck (all the time sitting on a busy road with a slope) so eventually had to turn the truck round so it was facing downhill and after much heaving & shoving got the flaming thing back on board. Lesson learned that day was to make sure the customer was going to accept the load BEFORE I got it off the truck…
Our service is kerbside only. Try finding a kerb on a farm!!!
there is alway a kerb ( not alway as obvious though could be boundary or similar
If they run 7.5tonners then a polite courtesy call to VOSA will slow them down a bit. VOSA will get a guaranteed cash prize for weighing a loaded scaff’ wagon, even if’s not full of poles (metal ones not flip flops). Never seen one capable of getting “Nil defects” in the pre start checks.
Kerbside is only a phrase used by pallet networks. If you look at delivery terms and conditions it will say something like, kerbside or suitable place at drivers discretion.
I worked at a firm where the drivers were always assaulting other drivers ,general public etc , right bunch of head cases including the boss who had done time for gbh ,one of them was a boxer who caught the car driver who’d give him the finger at traffic lights and terrified the blokes Mrs trying to get at her husband , drove off and cops arrived at depot and there was a standoff as he wouldn’t get out of truck and cops didn’t seem keen on trying to get him out , boss talked him out in end ,arrested etc , he ended up doing time for doing a safe at b+q, day didn’t go by without some kind of incident , zb nutters , but if you had a problem theyd sort it ,ring them anytime and they’d be there , loved a tear up they did ,
. I then couldn’t get the friggy thing back on the truck (all the time sitting on a busy road with a slope) so eventually had to turn the truck round so it was facing downhill and after much heaving & shoving got the flaming thing back on board. Lesson learned that day was to make sure the customer was going to accept the load BEFORE I got it off the truck…
