I know a lot are going to say supermarket RDCs here but for me it’s…
Building sites!
My reasons are:
No info regarding how to find the site or correct HGV entrance. Had to turn round in a country lane last week because I’d come round to the other side of the site which is where the post code was and was told I can’t enter that way only exit. Not so bad there but in London when that happens and your on red routes and low bridges everywhere.
Once your on site no room to manoeuvre, and get the whole “we didn’t think you’d be in one as big as that”.
Dirty ■■■■ holes bringing loads of mud into the truck.
Takes you an hour of asking around to find someone from the company working on site that your delivering to, finally get hold of them and they get someone to tip you, agency fork lift driver then tips you and you take your notes to him and he says sorry I can’t sign that I’m only agency, so then you’ve got to do another hour of asking about to find someone from the company again to get your notes signed.
Probably smaller independent type scrapyards, usually staffed by monkeys incapable of giving either verbal or visual instructions of any use.
They usually start with doing some sort of windmill impression, with their arms, from the cab of their machine. They then come over and get all arsey as apparently it’s abundantly clear they were indicating to reverse your truck into that corner there - where it won’t possibly fit.
You forgot to say that the forkie won’t wait for you to pull the curtain back far enough and spears it with a fork and/or goes in at an angle, knackering the pallets either side and ripping the curtain with the pallet.
Got to say that the very few days I did that sort of work that finding places was easy enough, either finding the site office was obvious or I parked up short and had a little walk, always looked for the site office and manager as first port of call.
As much as we dislike H&S stuff I found inside the M25 that once you arrived on site that whatever their procedure was swung into action immediately, getting you off the road, fork lift or crane moving within a few minutes, open up, unstrap, let them get on with it and on your way very quickly.
Vid:
You forgot to say that the forkie won’t wait for you to pull the curtain back far enough and spears it with a fork and/or goes in at an angle, knackering the pallets either side and ripping the curtain with the pallet.
Got to say that the very few days I did that sort of work that finding places was easy enough, either finding the site office was obvious or I parked up short and had a little walk, always looked for the site office and manager as first port of call.
As much as we dislike H&S stuff I found inside the M25 that once you arrived on site that whatever their procedure was swung into action immediately, getting you off the road, fork lift or crane moving within a few minutes, open up, unstrap, let them get on with it and on your way very quickly.
Also, I found that most building sites in London, being as strapped for space as they are, have little room for stock, so usuallly they needed what i was delivering pronto. And once you’re on site, you are in the way, and they want you gone.
Places that insist you sit in a dingy waiting room. The worst being Iceland Swindon where you sit in a room waiting to be called to go on a bay then back in sitting room while they tip you. I spent 9 hours 45 minutes in that dump yesterday sitting on crap chairs that are office rejects?
Some of the garden centres we deliver to, some of the worst are in Portugal. A lot of it is handball which i dont mind at all but getting in and out of some can be a real mare. Handballing off 12t of agg in 25kg bags in 30degree heat always opens the sweat pores…
switchlogic:
Places that insist you sit in a dingy waiting room. The worst being Iceland Swindon where you sit in a room waiting to be called to go on a bay then back in sitting room while they tip you. I spent 9 hours 45 minutes in that dump yesterday sitting on crap chairs that are office rejects?
FFS…9hr 45m?? A whole day gone virtually. What were they doing?
switchlogic:
Places that insist you sit in a dingy waiting room. The worst being Iceland Swindon where you sit in a room waiting to be called to go on a bay then back in sitting room while they tip you. I spent 9 hours 45 minutes in that dump yesterday sitting on crap chairs that are office rejects?
switchlogic:
Places that insist you sit in a dingy waiting room. The worst being Iceland Swindon where you sit in a room waiting to be called to go on a bay then back in sitting room while they tip you. I spent 9 hours 45 minutes in that dump yesterday sitting on crap chairs that are office rejects?
FFS…9hr 45m?? A whole day gone virtually. What were they doing?
At a guess…very little.
Luke - could you bill them for the excessive delay? Were you very early arriving?
SMITHFIELD MARKET !!!
Absolutely hate the place.
Built years ago, see below:-
Origins. Meat has been traded at Smithfield Market for more than 800 years, making it one of the oldest markets in London. A livestock market occupied the site as early as the 10th century. … Until the market’s abolition, the Gate House at Cloth Fair (“Fair Gate”) employed a chain (le cheyne) on market days. where meat was delivered for onward, sale by farmers using horse and carts
Built for deliveries and collections by “HORSE and CART” and probably wooden hand carts.
Never been changed or enlarged, access still the same from all those years ago, only now it’s artics from all over Europe that try to manoeuvre within the site. Total nightmare!!!
pierrot 14:
SMITHFIELD MARKET !!!
Absolutely hate the place.
Built years ago, see below:-
Origins. Meat has been traded at Smithfield Market for more than 800 years, making it one of the oldest markets in London. A livestock market occupied the site as early as the 10th century. … Until the market’s abolition, the Gate House at Cloth Fair (“Fair Gate”) employed a chain (le cheyne) on market days. where meat was delivered for onward, sale by farmers using horse and carts
Built for deliveries and collections by “HORSE and CART” and probably wooden hand carts.
Never been changed or enlarged, access still the same from all those years ago, only now it’s artics from all over Europe that try to manoeuvre within the site. Total nightmare!!!
Never done it and from what others say I can’t say I’d want to
switchlogic:
Places that insist you sit in a dingy waiting room. The worst being Iceland Swindon where you sit in a room waiting to be called to go on a bay then back in sitting room while they tip you. I spent 9 hours 45 minutes in that dump yesterday sitting on crap chairs that are office rejects?
Someone in there must know of a delay that long so they should allow you to go for a sleep on the bunk when it’s that long, let’s say if you could drop the trailer and pull a few inches forward then they can’t say there’s danger of your driving off whilst on red light. But that of course would require someone to come out to check that and authorise it and that would require a week long training course to spot all the dangers of what could go wrong and how to be sure there’s no way that trailer can move.
Iceland Warrington actually, the waiting room there is about 4 times smaller than the Swindon one but has no windows either. Such a demoralising place to have to wait for the 2 hours (minimum) it takes them to tip you.
For me the only thing that makes the supermarkets better than building sites is that your not having all the messing about with access, moving barriers and cones out of the way etc and trying to not get your drive wheels stuck in mud, blind side reversing around a pallet of bricks that’s someone has left in the middle and all that kind of thing
Any Tilt trailer, horrible things to work on, wooden boards on the side, little metal side doors.
A load that needed a FULL strip down, would mean converting the Tilt in to a flat bed trailer for an awkward load, such as a machine .
The plastic side and roof of the Tilt would weigh a ton.
In the winter, heavy ice on the roof or a deep puddle of rain water to shift.
In the summer, European heat of 45 degrees, rebuilding or stripping down a Tilt on your own.
Got a metal factory in Lisbon, unload it, there was a hook crane that slides up and down inside the unloading canopy area.
The man got his load off, then turned off the site lights off, to leave me in the dark alone, to pull the trailer sheet back ,which the crane could have done in seconds.
I swore under my breath at the Pork and cheeser Muppet.
switchlogic:
Places that insist you sit in a dingy waiting room. The worst being Iceland Swindon where you sit in a room waiting to be called to go on a bay then back in sitting room while they tip you. I spent 9 hours 45 minutes in that dump yesterday sitting on crap chairs that are office rejects?
Someone in there must know of a delay that long so they should allow you to go for a sleep on the bunk when it’s that long, let’s say if you could drop the trailer and pull a few inches forward then they can’t say there’s danger of your driving off whilst on red light. But that of course would require someone to come out to check that and authorise it and that would require a week long training course to spot all the dangers of what could go wrong and how to be sure there’s no way that trailer can move.
Iceland Warrington actually, the waiting room there is about 4 times smaller than the Swindon one but has no windows either. Such a demoralising place to have to wait for the 2 hours (minimum) it takes them to tip you.
.
When I go there, you sit in the canteen, have a breakfast £3.99. then sit in a big sofa, you haven’t been told that then.
