This struck me as weird today, dunno what made me think of it
All the time I drove for a living, I rarely got offered a drink by a customer / delivery point & when it did happen it was greatfully received. A fresh cuppa rather than an RDC drinks machine … magic
Now in 4 years of being a signmaker, I have worked full time with Donna & we drink T&C all day long (lots of it !!). We have on average 3 or 4 deliveries a week, mostly by the likes of citylink or business post but also from 2 suppliers that use their own 7.5 tonners, one of which uses all agency.
I ALWAYS offer the driver a drink & I can’t remember the last one that said yes Customers accept time after time so it can’t be that bad (some of them even come in for Tea because they’re passing )
I am biased because if i did a delivery a mile up the road I would have one before i left & if the customer offered, I would have one there too .
Many van sales type people get offered a drink on every call so they have to refuse or they’d spend most of the day in the lav.
I got a cuppa on a building site this week in Hackney, becuase of the truck and the crane we had to close the road so while the crane was setting up the boy made everybody on site a cuppa including me and the crane driver.
I never refuse an offer of a cuppa , even if im late a few minutes wont make any difference, politeness and good manners reap their own rewards as far as im concerned. Its about time people were more civil to one another anyway!!
enjoy your weekend,
roy…
i’m not one for drinking alot of tea when at work,but i go to a company called xel who are based in dumbarton (vale of leven ind est) and when i park up and open the curtains the lady there in the office has got the kettle on and say’s would you like a tea/coffee driver.i never decline her as she has a chocolate digestive to go with it mmmmmmmmmmmmm.very nice lady indeed.
When I was working for a Plumbers Merchants driving their van, we had regular customers I’d deliver too and would often have a cuppa with them when they offered. Cos I used to be behind the trade counter sometimes as well as delivering, you get to know the customers really well so I guess that was a big part of it.
Now I’m with an agency mainly doing pallets in 18 tonners and I’ve been offered a cuppa once, which I had to refuse cos I was parked on yellow lines (high st shop).
I think it depends on the size of business you are delivering to, when delivering containers, and you are informed there may be a delay, the big firms don’t give a toss, a small firm are soon putting the kettle on.
Once I was delivering to a Cash and Carry in Brum run by an Indian guy, he was having trouble getting enough staff to handball the box out, so after 4 hours he took me down the street to his brothers resturant and bought me lunch.
I can think of at least a dozen customers who offer me a coffee when i deliver there. There are more but those are the regular ones and at some of those I don’t even get a chance to refuse, as if I would, because they just get it ready when they see me pull up. There is one customer that I sometimes park outside on a Sunday evening and they knock on the door on Monday morning to wake me up and they have a coffee with them for me.
Some customers offer some dont. It depends on what time Ive got & how long it takes to load / unload. If I dont want one or havent got the time I always say thanks for the offer.
I know its going off the thread but can I say a
good word for Tesco,s ( Power Logistics ) Frozen
products RDC at DRIFT,( daventry).
Excellent canteen which drivers are encouraged
to use.
P.S. dont believe all the stories about long waits to tip at
all r.d.c,s have been turned round here in 25 minutes.
Usually people treat you as you treat them.
It’s quite common here to have free drinks (99% coffee) offered to drivers making deliveries, If ever I ask if there is a coffee machine I am usualy told to get a free fresh made one
Years ago, when I drove for Swifts, based in Northampton, England I had a regular run for Motorcraft, two days doing north east, then two days doing west London area and a one day run on Fridays, one of the drops was Advance Motor suplies in Egham, this was swapped every week with one of my work mates who was known as a practical joker. One week when it was my turn I arrived at the drop and the little blonde and her leggy mate who ran the shop asked me if if I would like tea or coffee I was taken aback because in all the time i had been delivering there, they had hardly spoken a word, I accepted a cup of tea and went on my way. Within an hour of leaving the shop I got the worst pains in my gut and spent most of the day stopping at toilets, dashing across open spaces to get to the loo before disaster struck
On return to the yard next day, my opposite number stood waiting and asked if I was ok It turned out that he had conspired with these two girls to put vast amounts of laxative in that cuppa. I got my own back on many following occasions, but it just goes to show that not all offers of drink are inocent
I never refuse an offer of a cuppa ,even if im late a few minutes wont make any difference, politeness and good manners reap their own rewards as far as i`m concerned.
I wouldn’t disagree with that.
I work on a large discount store contract,and we serve all of England and Wales from our base in Leeds.Our drivers get a cuppa at a lot of the Northern stores,but not all of them mind.But in our experience,the Southern stores are all ignorant,and don’t even offer,especially the stores in London.
While I don’t wish to start a North/South divide,this is just on our contract,and I can’t therefore speak for others.
However,I frequent the stores in Hull,and have my own cup at some of them. (And in some cases,my own clock card as I’m there that often.)
An offer is a very rare commodity even to regular drops, especially on an artic. When I was driving rigids for palmer and Harvey once the customer got to know you you were generally offered a cup
Manwells post made me think back to when i was doing multi drop with a rigid.
I always found Brum to be the friendliest place.Got to a drop in West Brom just as their tea break started.It was a small engineering factory and all the staff were Sikhs and a nicer bunch of workers you could not wish to meet, made me tea and fed me food until it came out of my ears.
Contrast that with Cearns and Brown at Park Royal, 2 and a half hours to unload 1 pallet, possibly the most ignorant and arrogant traffic clerk i have ever met and the tea machine broken.The place was/is a nigtmare.
Quite a few years back now i did a lot of work as a drayman, through the agency I worked for.
On my first shift (after training) I was instucted to be on site for 8am. I arrived and found the office at 7:45. I told the tm who I was and what I believed I was here for. He said something like, Ok, great, you are going out with this guy here.
This guy here said to me, " Where the [zb] have you been, we wanted to be away for half past seven".
Great, I thought, just the way I want things to go.
15 or 20 minutes later, we arrived at the first pub, which took a delivery of about a dozen kegs(11 gallons), and a similar number of cases of bottled beers. The cellarman offered us a drink which the driver and his mate accepted and asked for a pint, they asked me what I wanted and I decided on a half pint of special, (I thought it was a little early for me, but didn’t want to appear a complete wimp). I wasn’t asked again, every time a drink was offered a half pint was put on the bar for me.
I had 5 pints that day . Not only that, I had to drive 40 odd miles to get home, in my car .
Worse than that, I had 5 pints, in half pints, but the driver and his mate had a pint for every half I had. That was 10 pints, for the driver of the dray .
I remember there was a story in the press a while back about William Hague recounting a similar tale to yours Simon, and all the satirical comedians were taking the mickey outta him.
Surely this kinda thing doesn’t happen anymore.
If I had 10 pints I’d be lucky to be standing up let alone able to drive.
The 5 or 10 pints was spread through the day, from about 8am to 4pm, we didn’t sit down for a session. It wasn’t a big problem for the full time guys in uniform,unless they were involved in an accident. This was working for the brewery which had the contract to supply the police social clubs
The normal crew was two men, but this run had two drops with several 36 gallon barrels to be delivered to each of them, runs like that normally had three men. They were using the little Volvo FL7 urban artics, which had a third seat perched on top of the engine cover, for the odd occaision when a third man was needed.
We did 2 loads that day, the first was to deliver 11 tonnes, the second run only had 9 tonnes on it.
That was a normal days work. We also didn’t have a tail lift, everything was pulled off, by hand, onto a cork-bag or a sorbo-foam pad, then dropped into the cellar by the same method. Full kegs were stacked two high on the trailer and we then stacked the empties three high. We also stacked the kegs two high in the cellar, often rearrainging the kegs in the cellar so that the older stock was at the front.
With practice, you could drop a keg onto a cork-bag and shoot it across the yard or footpath where the second man would be waiting to catch it and stack it, ready to drop into the cellar. With three men, they wouldn’t be stacked, just dropped straight into the cellar and the guy in the cellar would put all the different beers into place, doubling up kegs as he went. (I say he, I never saw any lady drivers working on the drays , ■■■■■■equality my [zb] )(By the way, it was a condition of employment that males would have to take their turn on dray work ) Tin 'at on
I wasn’t fit to drive and I only had 5 pints, however I couldn’t afford to stay in digs and I had to work in Dundee the next day. Also I wasn’t really in a fit condition to take charge of myself and not drive.
However, I did drive and managed to get home safely, without having an accident at least (I may have caused a few though).
Customers accept time after time so it can’t be that bad (some of them even come in for Tea because they’re passing 
