worse transport manager foreman fitter or driver you have come across
The one-time foreman fitter of this firm…
was a real swine who thought he knew everything. He would take every opportunity to report you to the guvnor even if you’d done nothing wrong!
In my early tramping days working for Vic Wild, he had a transport manager that was lucky the small drivers hatch to the office was not big enough to drag him through!Several drivers grabbed him and tried.
A few years later I met him working as a driver for another firm I was on for,boy was he a groveller then!.
The first firm I was driving for on the middle east had a foreman fitter that was as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike,if you booked a problem off he would advise you to, “Let it develop”, some good that is when you’ve just got back from a ten thousand mile trip and you need to be prepared to go out again!
As I was formerly a truck mechanic I was happier doing my own repairs, and the boss offered me the foreman fitters job, but I turned it down as I was quite content as a driver on the m/e.
Anyone who drove for MAT will fondly remember the foreman fitter at Hull?. The way he had a massive downer on all drivers made you think if he had been abused as a child by a favourite uncle with a Tonka truck
The transport manager of this firm who I drove for in 1969/70 was a complete waste of space. I drove the Dodge picture front left,that one and the middle one of the three both used two gallons of engine oil each day, all he said was " keep filling them up and drive them " . The con-rod came out of the side of the engine of the middle one on a Saturday morning which meant a new engine. The one I drove was still going when I left. These lorries were only three years old at the time. They had four mechanics looking after their own fleet of 25 lorries and half a dozen tracked vehicles. There was hardly any servicing being done,no organisation. The bloke was an ex army sargeant major who was mainly in the pub. Hence in 1976 after several warnings he was given the bout, and the fleet was sold to Roberts of Knighton who replaced most of the lorries.
Cheers Dave.
Can we name companies and individuals? 
Why not?
And is your libel insurance paid up? 
Had a horrible little txxt at Aone in Bradford, he would talk to you like something he had trod in, I worked 10 hours on a Sunday once but he only paid 8 hours because he thought that was all it was worth!!! Things got worse and i gave him a right hander,went to work for a builder friend and he was totally the opposite. Read in the death column recently that the git had passed away so went out for a celebration drink. Hopefully the little txxt is in Hell now.
O.K. r.o.f. here goes. Jack Bradley and his excuse son. Cicely Commercials owner Brian … Old Billy Bowker. Prests Bakery foreman and manager in the 70s,to name a few.lol. 
Never mind, shirtbox. Come the revolution we’ll get our own back!
bestbooties:
In my early tramping days working for Vic Wild, he had a transport manager that was lucky the small drivers hatch to the office was not big enough to drag him through!Several drivers grabbed him and tried.
A few years later I met him working as a driver for another firm I was on for,boy was he a groveller then!.
The first firm I was driving for on the middle east had a foreman fitter that was as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike,if you booked a problem off he would advise you to, “Let it develop”, some good that is when you’ve just got back from a ten thousand mile trip and you need to be prepared to go out again!
As I was formerly a truck mechanic I was happier doing my own repairs, and the boss offered me the foreman fitters job, but I turned it down as I was quite content as a driver on the m/e.
Ian I thought it was just me that was absolutely rubbish at attempting to drag routing clerks through those hatches as I had several attempts and all ended in failure but I did manage to catch a couple in the yard and made sure I caught them hard enough so I had time to jack in before they came too so they could not sack me
cheers Johnnie
P S I did work for quite a few good ones though
Had a new TM join a firm and attempt to get us all under control, at the time we were running Austria/Greece/Italy/Portugal/Spain, so tacho regulations were forgotten once we got off the boat on the other side. Norman the new TM had worked it all out and we could do the job legally, rather than the way it was commonly done in those days, i.e. eating when you were hungry, sleeping when you were tired, getting ■■■■■■ when JFGOP events occured and driving when you weren’t doing any of the others.
company policy was that we called in once a day to let them know everything was going ok, so as Norman and his new rules meant that shipping out on Sunday evening now meant we had to drive all night, rather than camping out in Calais and putting in a couple of big days, on the boat going over it was the topic of the day, my suggestion was to do things Norman’s way, rather than telling him ■■■■■■■■ and doing our own thing like we used to. The other drivers were not happy about this until I revealed my little plan.
So after disembarking and getting everything stamped up, we set off, at 2am we stopped and I phoned in to the out of hours number (Norman’s home phone) his wife answered and Norman eventually got on the phone, he obviously asked what was up, I replied “Nothing, just checking in, I’ll be going to bed at 6am, so this is the only time I know I’ll be near a phone” he muttered something and put the phone down, ten minutes later the next bloke did exactly the same and was met with a similar response, we left it 20mins before the next one called in, just enough time for Norman to go back to the land of nod, this time when he answered he was having a complete sense of humour failure, meanwhile we were all ■■■■■■■ ourselves laughing.
When the fourth driver called in 20mins later poor old Norman blew a gasket, he told the driver to [zb] off playing silly buggers, he knew what we were playing at and we would not beat him, so we repeated the exercise the next night. I called in first again and he answered the phone on the first ring, I told him everything was fine and I would be clearing customs in the morning, he was all cheerful with me, asking me if I was still running with the drivers from the night before, which I was, I told him I wasn’t, thinking that he would tell me to tell them not to bother calling in. so now he was going to have to stay up until they called in, only this time they left it until the morning. When the first one called in Norman went off alarming, he had sat up all night waiting for the phone calls.
When I called in the owner of the firm got on the phone and told us that Norman had been told to leave us alone to get on with the job and that we were to stop phoning him in the middle of the night.
It took two days, Drivers 1 - TM 0 
loved that reply still laughing
Had a few that were pants IMO, but I have mellowed in time,
The most memorable pleb of a manager was when I was on the vans, we had a staff Xmas doo which was paid for and frowned upon if we didnt attend, I have the opinion that because I work there I dont have to socialise there, but being mithered I went, so off to the dogs we go,
The night starts, few beers, meal, abit of a bet, then the manager starts mithering, I kindly told him I wasnt on overtime so shop talk stops here. get abit more mither so encouraged him to behave by dangling by his throat over the balcony,
Fair to say I didnt get mithered the rest of the night, my runs were favorable for the next few months but I knew my time was marked, Shame really, my grip was good in them days 
Kevin Nattress. Tees Side. A real Airosol. I also very briefly encountered one of his relatives. Both are the Pants.
Thank goodness I don’t have to rely on these types of people for a living, I have my own private means, so work when I feel like it these days. 
. Before I was always an Owner Driver or a small Haulage Firm.