It’s 4am and my alarm does exactly what it is supposed to do, alarm me. Getting up at this time everyday for work has its benefits, you get to see fabulous sunrises, hear birdsong in the city as the city is still asleep, get to work in 25 minutes as there is no traffic to battle with. Getting up at this time everyday for work has its downsides too, it’s dark, cold and eerie, you hear noises in the shadows and wonder if anyone is hiding in them. The cold spell has frozen your windscreen and you try to scrape it without waking the street, the sound as the plastic cuts across frozen glass is amplified by the darkness so you just manage to do the drivers side and let the slow warmth from the heater clear the rest as you drive.
5AM, you arrive at work, glance around the yard in search of your truck and you feel deflated when it isn’t there, you wonder if the night man has cursed your day by running late then realise someone in the chain has held him up too, what happens if the chain breaks is quickly shook out of my thoughts as he pulls into the yard.
It will be 30 minutes before I get into my cab, the night man needs to fuel it and park it on a bay, get his paperwork in order and clock out.
I get my paperwork to check and told that my trailer is loaded on bay 4. The night man wouldn’t dream of dropping his trailer so it is left for me to do while he heads off to his own dreams. Getting to work at 5am so I could be on the road by half past has now shifted back an hour while I secure the load and complete my daily checks, 6:30 and I set off for a 3 hour drive to miss a 9am booking.
During my drive, I wonder if offices ran 24 hours, how they would cope with sharing a desk…
Dave arrives for work at 8:30 to find that Claire is still sat at the desk they share, she has been held up with a software issue overnight and she needs to stay behind a couple of hours to finish off her workload. Dave asks her to use another desk as all his stuff is here, his request is ignored as Claire busies herself to try and catch up. Dave looks for another desk but the only free one is Stinky Pete’s and no one want to use that desk, uurghhhh. Dave considers himself lucky when Stinky Pete walks into the office, at least he wont be forced to sit in the stained chair and touch that keyboard.
The 3 hour drive to the first drop has turned into an episode of Whacky Races as the rush hour does the total opposite and everything grinds to a crawl. Any extra room you leave in front of your truck is quickly sucked up by someone desperate to get to either an early grave, or maybe the last spare desk before Stinky Pete’s is the only one available.
You watch the clock, tick tock tick tock and prepare yourself for adult equivalent of getting sent to the headmasters office. Being late for a drop, whether it be 5 minutes or 5 hours, always elicits the same feeling in a driver - misery. I arrive at my destination at 9:45 and the guy on the gate, who has worked there since the place opened, tells you that you’re late. No ■■■■ Sherlock is what you want to say, but you hope you can appeal to his human side and say “Yeah, sorry about that, got held up behind an accident” but this falls on his experienced deaf ears, he has heard every excuse in every language and not once has any of them worked. “Park up outside, we will shout you when we need you, get your head down” Those words have 2 effects on a driver and one word describes them both - Great.
Great, I needed to catch a few winks.
Great, that’s my day totally knackered.
I ring the office to let them know and they say they will see what they can do, sit tight. It is now 10 o’clock and I need a break anyway, so I park up and head back to security to ask to use the toilets, 5 hours at work, almost 4 hours driving and all that coffee has been through the system and it wants to go for a swim.
“We can’t let you in yet”
“I just need the loo buddy”
“We will shout you when we need you, there is a McDonald’s half a mile up the road, go there”
I have 6 pallets of goods that someone ordered and on my walk to the golden arches my mind wanders again to the front of house operation. I imagine the senior sales rep of the goods that I am trying to deliver has been stuck in the same traffic as me, he manages to get to reception at 9:45 for his 9am appointment. The receptionist books him in and offers him a coffee. He accepts and requests to use the toilet, he is shown there and on his return he is given a comfy chair and a steaming hot coffee. He is told that he will be seen shortly and if he needs anything at all, just ask.
I manage to resist the urge to pee in the gateway and workout in my head the benefits of a double sausage n egg over just a single and it was the walk that swung the decision. Calories were needed.
In an act of defiance, I decided to eat in and if they wanted me then THEY could wait for me. They didn’t want me, 11am and my return solicited a shake of the head from chief of security, at least I got to use the loo, had breakfast 6 hours after waking and I could now sneak in a power nap.
11:45 and I was woken up with a thud on my door, “Come to the gate” the guardian of the Universe grunted. Nothing gets you awake quicker than the promise of getting your load off, I was sat upright and engine running faster than my eyes could blink the sleep away. At the gate, I was told to follow the one way system, park in the holding area and go to the door marked ‘Goods in’. Just as he must get fed up with saying it, drivers get fed up of hearing it and I make a silent vow that on my last day before I retire, I am going to ignore these requests and drive in the exit gate all the way around to goods in. I won’t but I chuckle anyway.
I book in and get allocated a bay, told to bring my keys in and take a seat in the drivers room. The joy of that phrase brings the world into harmony, please come and sit on a plastic chair in a room with others of your ilk, you can tell each other stories of how you stormed the Iranian Embassy or how easy the job is now we don’t have to rope and sheet. The good news is that we have a toilet now and in an effort to recreate the days of the siege, it looks like someone let off a ■■■■■■ bomb and escaped with the trophy toilet roll. Again my mind floats to the rep and I see him getting offered a spray of the latest aftershave and linen towels to dry his hands on.
I am only in the den of despair for half an hour when my bay number is shouted and my keys and paperwork are shoved through the tiny gap seperating us from the goods in staff. I almost make eye contact but they have training to avoid that. I feel a sense of
excitement that my trailer is emptying, 1 more drop and then I can get my collections.
My next drop is only 30 minutes away and I set off keeping one eye on the road, the other on the clock. I should make it before the shift change at 2pm, knowing that the FLT driver will teleport to another world at 1:40 only to reappear through a black hole at 1:55 to tell me the next shift will tip me. Every red light and learner driver has been recruited to slow my progress and as I get to the gate I see another truck waiting in the yard, just as I pull up to the gate he is closing his curtains and I smile. I manage to get in, get tipped and get back out again just before 2pm.
My collections are on the way home and my spider senses are tingling, with good traffic I should make it home before my dog eats better than me.
First collection is ready and soon loaded and heading into my 2nd and the cab phone rings. Caller display is a godsend and I ignore the call, they will want me to go somewhere else so I put off calling them till after I get loaded, hopefully a full load so I couldn’t even if I wanted to. ■■■■ they are persistent, so I pick up the call to hear a panicked voice…“They have put the wrong stuff on you, you need to go back” and my heart sinks. It always amazes me that someone else’s ■■■■ up is now my problem and even if I had a date with the Queen, it would have to wait till this was sorted.
I head back to the first collection and the FLT guy looks at me with a puzzled face. I explain that he has put the wrong stuff on and it needs swapping. He checks with his boss and it was the wrong stuff yesterday, so today is getting the right one and the wrong one is being returned. I get back in my cab to a text saying “sorry, my mistake” from my planner.
Another hour lost and that means rush hour traffic back home.
I get a quick break in and manage to use the portaloo in the yard before setting off home. Another episode of Whacky Races as the rush hour does its thing and I roll into the yard at just after 6pm. Fuel up and paperwork done, I drop the trailer on a bay, throw my gear in my bag and head off home. I walk in the door and greet my wife, I get that look that knows how my day has been and I head off for a shower. I manage to beat the dog to my tea and by 8:30 pm I have settled down. I look up and see a card on the mantle piece and a look of shame crosses my face. Today is my wife’s birthday and she just squeezes my hand and says “We can celebrate at weekend, it’s fine” I kiss her forehead and go out to my car, grabbing her gift and flowers I return to the house and see her wiping a tear away. “Sorry I’m late” I say.
“You’re not late, you’re just in time” and I feel her hand in mine as she leads me upstairs.
I might call in sick tomorrow.
.