Month: March 2015

Skydiving is not for you. Trying again, with another agency. Since I got binned 5 weeks ago, I’ve had 2 days work (for the thrice damned Stobarts). One of the agencies, that was advertising “Warrington job, trunking to Scotland and Darn Sarf” (then tried to give me jobs 30 miles away) got back to me two weeks ago saying driving assessment for the job I applied for, the following week. On Friday I went for a ‘driving assessment’. It turned into a 4 hour hour induction, site walk, health and safety briefing, drugs and alcohol test, loads of paperwork and finally a drive, which I passed. It’s not in Warrington (only 10 or so miles away at Haydock) it wasn’t just a driving assessment, and it isn’t trunking, it’s store deliveries. So, nothing at all that they advertised. *sigh* I start tomorrow. There are hopeful signs. I googled it, someone had asked what they were like to work for and the reply was “my mate works for them, cards in, and he says he’s there for life.” As I’ve previously noted, all drivers do is whinge, so that’s hopeful. Also it’s delivering to Cash and Carry’s, so it’s not going to be poxy little high street shops. And it’s fully unionised, which is a nice novelty these days. I noticed on the daily sheet for full time drivers they have a box for double time and triple time, also the sixth day working is paid at time and three quarters! That is shockingly good. And the agency asked me when I wanted to work, said ideally Mon-Fri 05.00-06.00 hrs start, they asked if a 06.00-10.00 window was OK, not a problem. I start at 07.15 tomorrow. That’s promising. We’ll see tomorrow.  If I don’t love it, the other agency still haven’t got back to me about the Sainsburys induction, I could try that when it comes up. It is directly across the road from this job.   In other news the plaster has been round to mend the hole in the ceiling caused by the flood. Which meant we had to decorate. I’d forgotten what a time consuming pain in the arse that job is. It took two days to paint the kitchen, toilet and adjoining space. And all the doors, which showed up as yellowing when I started doing the skirting boards. Then the wooden blinds looked minging so the third day I had to get a new roller blind, which took 3 trips to the shop. Defective crap. Now we need to replace the lino. It’s not dear but it is going to be a total ballache to fit. That was not all the painting we did. Stupid bloody cat had to get in on the action. Now she lives in fear of serial rapist French skunk, Pepe LePew.   In other news, I was at my Karate class on Friday when the main sensei (instructor/ master) asked to see how I was getting on. Told me to […]

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As I’m unemployed I went racing after a bunch of jobs. Turns out it was the same old agency bollocks. One of the jobs, which would have been ideal (06.00 start, Mon-Fri!) sounded too good to be true. It was. I rang the mobile number they gave every day for a week, straight to voicemail. I emailed a CV, ignored. I’ve heard of the Jobcentre posting fake jobs so they can sanction people for not getting them, I guess that was one of them. Another agency was advertising long term contracts in Warrington and Widnes. I jumped through a million hoops to get on their books, they offered me the odd day 30+ miles away. Couldn’t be bothered. Another agency I signed with were offering day shift Full Time Equivalent (FTE) jobs doing supermarket deliveries. They have the contract for Sainsbury’s and  Tesco’s. They were waiting for an induction day at Sainsbury’s so they asked would I do ‘days’ at Tesco’s. Day’s being midnight to 04.00 start. Usually about 02.00. That’s nights in my book. And Stobarts have the contract for Tesco’s. I asked straight away what sort of shift length it was. They said about 10 hours. I’ve worked for Stobarts before and they wanted 12+, up to 15 and running out of hours so having to sleep in my cab. I gave it a go. 02.30 start first day, 11.30 hours shift. Second day, 02.15 start, finished my run after 8.30 hours, they said to wait while they sorted me out a second run, nearly 14 hours. Screw that. You’ve literally only got time to work and try to sleep, nothing else. 10 hours my arse! I told the agency not to send me back. So that’s been it. 2 day’s work in 3 weeks. The Sainsbury’s induction was supposed to be “in 2 weeks” which would have been this weekend. No sign. But that is a FTE job, and while I was at the agency I overheard a driver saying to them that he loved it there. That is something to behold. Drivers are known for whinging about everything and calling ever job shit. If I can get into a decent FTE job I’d be happy. Whilst I was chasing up contacts for my CV (the up to date one having been wiped when I killed the computer, *sigh*) I noticed that the agency that ran the Walkers Crisps contract were recruiting again, but days! A world of win! That was my best job to date. I rang up and asked about it, roughly how many shifts they thought I’d be able to get a week (I left because of scarcity of work and hating night shift) but they wouldn’t commit to any shifts and said it was mainly just weekends on days. I would do it, but I don’t want to go through the day long induction and assessment if I’m only going to get a few days and be leaving again as soon as I […]

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