Let’s start a new regular Saturday thread. Here are some of mine:
That if you take a unique (to the dock, possibly to the UK) 45ft Russian gooseneck skelly into 43 berth at Tilbury docks, they will be incapable of loading it in the dark, and you will have to stand there wishing the quay would open up and swallow you whilst the Controller talks it on from your catwalk with a torch and the rest of the Control Staff sing and jeer over the tannoy. Then when you turn up a second time they will see you coming and start playing that text message alert which goes “Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…INCOMING” at you whilst you back onto the grid. Yes folks, if you heard the commotion coming from the Short Sea Terminal one night this week, it was me and my trailer.
That if you change a bulb in the aforementioned trailer, the brake lights will all stop working. This will prompt your Fleet Manager to comment that “It just goes to show you can break anything, Lucy”.
That if you do not wish to be booted out of your beloved Stralis, “Jeannie the Jinx”, soaking the aforementioned FM with the pressure washer will not further your cause. Neither will pointing out that if he makes you drive a Volvo you will call it “Verruca the Vile”, whilst a Merc would be christened “Matilda the Manky”. He will just cackle and wave paperwork at you mysteriously whilst telling you it’s time to start learning Swedish.
That if you are stupid enough to admit that you have time to reload on your way back up from Wales for a nice early finish, albeit “If we get desperate”, and even though you have a box on which is the least likely to be any good for anything much, you WILL have 3 different sets of instructions by the time you hit the M1, and WILL be last into the yard. Again.
That if anyone mentions that you might have to do a week out of Tilbury, your best course of action is a sudden and violent dose of food poisoning which will necessitate your return home forthwith. You’ll make more money on the sick.
if you’ve finished loading and close the curtains up. then go into the office to sign the paperwork and the daft bint says theres another order just come on and it needs to go on the truck.
if you dont turn round and say ffs and just go and open the curtains again. at the end you will be presented with 4 bottles of beer .
my traffic planner has got no clue and he thinks that it will take 3 1/2 hours to get from wiverliscombe (spelling) to bridgewater a journey that took less then that after i went and did wincanton and zeals in between.
not getting your wife a aniversary card is worse then letting micheal jackson babysit your kids
I learned that when the rota says you are on your 1 week in 8 UK only week - means basic money with little or no chance of overtime although 5 hour days for 9.5 hours pay are more than possible - not to believe the rota. Instead you get two Dublin’s and a day off which equates to 66.5 hours instead.
I learned that even 12 empty coffee cups rolling around the passenger foot well of my car still leaves the carpet visible in places so there is still work to be done there. I need to give my stalker more photo ops.
I learned that I must have been using the Raven cafe on the A41 too much because when I am in a queue behind eight lads from a builders van, who just beat me through the door, the woman doing the cooking spots me and asks if I am having my usual with mushrooms. When I confirm I am she starts cooking it, which means by the time I get to the till and pay it is ready ahead of all the builders orders. It also means they throw a few dirty looks my way for ‘queue jumping’. Whe one of them ask me how I get preferential treatment I tell him they always make people who wear a hi-viz in a cafe wait longer because it is just wrong.
I learned that the majority of car drivers on the Welsh bit of the A55 are of coffin dodging age and they are downright dangerous. Between braking hard from 50 to less than 30 mph just because they have entered a tunnel when there is nothing for at least a mile ahead of them, to actually coming to a complete stop in lane 1 to allow a vehicle to join from a slip road they certainly keep you alert, and your sphincter firmly gripping the seat.
i have learned that no matter how low the bar is set then agencies will still find a way of slipping under it. no pay slips for three weeks, then all sorted then work for them again, new payslip but then paid national min, not impressed, and that is DRIVERS ELITE in mansfield, absolute pants
One of our drivers asks me if I’ve a Class 1 and when I reply I have, he asks me why I’m wasting it shunting. He starts work that day at 5.30pm to do a run to Crick and back. At 00.30, we finally pull his trailer off the door only to find its been double stacked and the loaders have left all the internal straps in the headboard. Due to an incident the previous week, double stacked loads have to be strapped even though they’ll go nowhere. An hour later and he has clearance to take it. An 8 hour working day has now turned into a 15hr one with no guarantee he’ll make it back in 15.
This week I learnt that if you have had a poor 1st year as an o/driver, then worked your nuts off in year 2, you will get a big tax bill for year 2 (fair enough), and unfortuantely you have to pay half upfront for year 3 (which is crippling).
I’ve bought a book though to help me through it called ‘Lester Piggot’s guide to paying your Income Tax’. Seems a good read, although I found it in the ‘Fiction’ section of the local library strangely enough .
You did. I’d lost the will to live by then. Sadly no-one drove into me and put me out of my misery…Hence the lesson learnt re:Tilbury and Food Poisoning. It used to be quite good for us out of there…but not any more.
I learnt that taking my boss out in his first ever lorry, the artic, (and yes, he owns them but has no LGv licence) was a good idea. I drove him, with full commentary, on the same routes that we take the trainees - he had no idea what they go through to get their LGV licence I gave him some “good driving” tips as well for when he is driving his car - he loved it.
Hmmm… hope he dont think of getting his LGV cos I’ll get lumbered with him
I’ve leant that I am good enough to join Rog as one of the IAM’s Senior Observers.
I also learnt that dead flies are 99% fat and that there are millions of them on the Severn crossing. They are impermiable to screenwash. Spent most of this week driving in fly induced fog
I learnt that if you decide to put the kettle on while stuck in stationary traffic, and then said traffic stops being quite so stationary, your newspaper can fall onto the cooker and catch fire I only had one left to do on the crossword too
hammer:
I’ve bought a book though to help me through it called ‘Lester Piggot’s guide to paying your Income Tax’. Seems a good read, although I found it in the ‘Fiction’ section of the local library strangely enough .
When you’ve read that and started taking Lester’s advice, buy yourself an A to Z map of Parkhurst
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I need to give my stalker more photo ops. 
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I gave him some “good driving” tips as well for when he is driving his car - he loved it.
and that there are millions of them on the Severn crossing. They are impermiable to screenwash. Spent most of this week driving in fly induced fog