Author: Buck

I’ve had my sights set on a Harley Davidson Sportser, just the ‘baby’, the 883 CC one.

As you can see, very pretty.

It was to be a stepping stone then in a few years move up to the Harley I really want, the big Heritage Softail.

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*

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.

Things are weird at the minute. I’m on the new shift pattern, three core days, flex up (optional working if there’s any work going) on two other days, with two days off. Which is my shift pattern if they have taken me on to the books. But I’ve not had an interview (formality), signed a contract, or been given uniform. Also the agency texted me this week. The amount of involvement the agency have they probably don’t know either.

I’ve started doing store deliveries now. The first day they gave me the keys, new paperwork, and basically left me to it. And it was a rigid. Straight away you know it’s going to be tricky, if the store had half decent access they would send a proper artic. Then, as I’d never driven these rigids before, I had to work out how to use the tail lift. It’s the same as on the artics, but instead of a separate power lead they are obviously already wired up. The bastard things have an isolator switch in the cab that I couldn’t find. And you have to remove the keys before it will operate. And I was having issues with the scanner/ terminal thing.

So that was a great start. The store loading area was inside a multi storey car park which I drove straight past looking for the store. It was a a bit of a nightmare as they are timed deliveries, if you miss the window it sets of a chain reaction of arse kicking up and down the chain of command.

We were happily watching The Matrix on Sunday night, Neo was in mid tussle with Agent Smith in the subway, when Wendy went into the kitchen. She heard a running water sound. I looked outside, no rain, I went upstairs nothing running, nothing leaking. Went back down. Suddenly water started pissing down the kitchen windows, from the inside, then pouring out of the overhead light socket. Not good. I ran around in a flap, finding and turning off stopcocks. Two under the sink, four in the airing cupboard.

By this time Wendy was on the ‘phone to our landlords and screeching hysterically “IT’S COMING OUT OF THE LIGHT!”

We don’t have a mop and bucket so I set to with the improvise, adapt and overcome. I put a bunch of towels on the floor to stop the water from flooding into the front room. Wendy’s brother, Peter and his father in law, Terry laid that wooden floor, I’d be screwed trying to do it, so that was my first concern. Then it was a case of soaking a towel and wringing it out outside the back door.