Author: Buck

General ramblings

Hi, today has been a taxing one.

I crashed a pallet truck last week (they don’t have a brake, just a forward or reverse. If you want to brake you switch to reverse. I shot on to a wet trailer, put it into reverse, no grip so no brake, meaning the truck crashed to a stop and I  slammed into the corner of the steering column. Just on one rib it feels like.)

So that was less than fun. However after the initial staggering about like a shot hero’s death scene, it wasn’t too bad. If anything though, it seems to be getting worse. Silly things like lifting on my right hand side, bending over, sneezing or breathing deeply are to be avoided. This makes a physically demanding job all the more enjoyable.

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Well, I’ve mastered the reverse!

Am I an optimist? If so then I’m super happy that I’ve cracked the reverse manoeuvre. If not then I’m really outrageously pissed off that I then went and failed on the road!

This time he said I was passing too close to parked vehicles (if I’d have touched one then I would have agreed with him, as it was I was only close. If some fool can’t see a truck that is thirteen feet four inches high, the width of a lane, and the best part of sixty foot long they deserve to lose the door they are opening! Doors width gap my arse. We were going around Manchester, if I’d have stopped every time I had less than a doors width clearance I would still be on my test now.) That and my left turns. He rightly said that on a few occasions I should have hogged two lanes to get the position for a left turn, but again I think it should have been a minor fault (as opposed to a serious/fail one) as I still made each turn. I didn’t have to force anyone to give me more room, I did it all legit. I made it harder for myself, but I still did it. He reckoned I had mounted one pavement. I dispute that. As far as I’m aware I scuffed one. Not the same thing at all.

So, I finally got the hang of the reverse, (though I still had to take one shunt) then blew it on the road. I seriously do think I was marked harshly, but until I pass I’ve got to do it their way. To rub salt into the wounds, as we were turning into the street off which the training place’s yard is situated, an artic coming the other way saw how tight it was so just drove over the pavement! Six wheels, deliberate! Real world.

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The road to hell

Can you believe it? After last week’s debacle (when the shunters at work said they would give me some help with my reversing, then didn’t, then had the audacity to ask me where I’d gone, after they had said goodbye to me at the clock machine) I really thought the shunters would be too embarrassed to not help me this weekend.

They said they would, one of them took my ‘phone number (as it has been my weekend off) then when I texted him today to make sure he’d not forgotten me he rang me back asking who I was!

I told him, and he said "oh, I’m off today."

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Indomitable spirit

Hi and let me start by saying "OW!"

I have been making excuses for not going to Taekwondo for a few weeks, there was the illness, the headaches, my stupid shifts, etc. Last week I didn’t go on the Wednesday because I’d failed my HGV driving test and was incredibly gutted. Anywho, yesterday I decided there would be no more excuses, back to it.

Come the hour, come the man. Yesterday I trotted to the local school for the lesson only to find it all locked up because the kids are on another bleeding holiday. D’oh!

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Worried, me

Hi all, I’ve had a turn around and again with my driving. I was inconsolably gutted after the fail and the realisation that the money was running out. Then I went in to work and a couple of the shunters at work were saying they would try and sort me out with some driving and pointers if they could ( they would have to do it unofficially, but they said they would try and sort me out tomorrow if they can manage it. I’ll be sure to write about it if they do) and then one of managers asked me how I’d done, when I said I’d failed again he said he’d see our main manager to try to get me some time with the site driver trainer for officially sanctioned training! Even better!

Today we had a driver backing onto the dock where I work, and he hit the guide barrier four times before he backed it in. I was a bit made up, I was thinking ‘I could have got that in from there in one shunt! They’ve given him a job, I’m a shoe-in!’

Then it all turned around again. I was talking to the union rep for the drivers and he reckons due to the stipulations of the company insurance policy they can’t employ drivers with less than two years experience. Totally bummed out.

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