A driver from the depot in Manchester was verbally told ‘Norrich’ and the paperwork had a postcode for central Norwich, a street address and Norwich spelt as I wrote it above.
So, off he trundled in his rigid plant truck. He set off very early and made it for 8am. He couldn’t find the address. He tried rining the customer but the number was wrong, he even tried the police station, who told him that the postcode was for the city centre of Norwich but didn’t make sense. It was as if someone had selected ‘Norwich’, looked up the postcode and put that on. Nah, that couldn’t be right?
Finally he got a call on his mobile. The number was similar to the one he had been given but lacked a middle digit.
‘Where are you drive’ he asked
“Norwich, this address I’ve got is bad, noone can find it” silence
“Erm, no mate, we’re in ‘norrich’”
“Yeah, that’s where I am”
“No, ‘North’ ‘Witch’” he said slowly
“You mean Cheshire”
“Yeah, where you come from”
“Manchester” and swore down the phone, the customer chuckled, the driver read out the address and postcode
“I booked it yesterday, told them the address and it was in ‘norrich cheshire’ but couldn’t give them a postcode because the post office haven’t generated one for us yet”
“Great, let me call the company”
He had a rant at them, got in his truck and drove home. He put his timesheet in and the next day was kept in the yard. The manager wanted to see him. He was washing his truck when the boss turned up. All the driver did was hand him a photocopy of the delivery sheet showing the address and explained the phone call.
After that the call centre staff were made ■■■■ sure they got the address correct and verified with the customer so mistakes could be reduced. The driver got paid.
I had a truck for Leicester Road, Leicester and got there for 7am but couldn’t find the address. Finally got the customer and found it was Leicester Road, York. Rang the boss and told them what the customer had asked for. I didn’t have my maps for that area and it was pre-sat nav days so I trundled off and bought one on the way. I carried a fuel card anyway but managed to stop at a company depot nearby.
The job was over the road from a company depot. Litterally.
Then I had the drive home again afterwards. Quite a nice day out really 