Author: Buck

It’s been a milestone couple of weeks. As I said last time we were getting a tad worried about my lack of work and, in retrospect, I was freaking out over driving in general. The mighty Micra had kiffed it and really we had no money to replace it. I’d seen a Ford Ka for £790 with 12 months MOT, which I was quite excited about. The next day I went to view it and immediately became wary. The guy who was selling it to me was the boss of a hand car wash place. This was my first alarm, as I know of people who know people who set up a just such an operation to launder the profits of their drug dealing. Then the guy started giving me patter. That put my back up a bit, it’s like saying to someone “I’m going to talk shit at you now, but you’re so stupid you won’t understand anyway.” “We have loads of people just waiting to buy this…, I’m not here to sell this, I just valet them… tell you what why don’t I knock £50 off the price…” Yet still I liked the look of the car, it sounded a good engine. There was a disconcerting 2 inch circle missing out of the paint in the door frame. It had obviously rusted a few millimetres away, then been repainted. He reassured me that it was a touch up job, but by then he’d already convinced me he was a bullshitter. Still, it was the best one I’d seen. I was going to get it. 12 months MOT, at least I’d get a year out of it, and I needed a car for work. Then he said he couldn’t take my card as his machine was down. He tried to ring all of his mates to use theirs. The more desperate he got the more unsure I became. Finally he said I should draw it as cash, on a credit card, and he’s knock the 2% cash fee off the price! I rang the card people, they said it would be £22 handling fee, if the cash machine would dispense it, then something like 27% interest. I said I’d try him again when he got his card machine fixed. I got home and tried the interweb again, this time I widened my search to 60 miles. There was another Ford Ka, 12  months ticket, £550! It was way the other side of Manchester, past Leeds, I think. Anyway, I tried to get someone to give me a lift out to it and my dad came to my rescue. Dropped everything and ran me straight over. And lent me some cash as apparently I’m only allowed to draw £250 per day from hole-in-the-wall machines.  Cheers dad. I’m going to be screwed when they bugger off to Bulgaria. We tootled over there, it was a straight talking private seller, bloody spiffy little car, bish, bash, bosh, job’s a good ‘un.   […]

Things were just about becoming serious. I was getting a bit stir crazy being at home all the time. I was getting more and more nervous about the thought of driving. I needed work to get over it, but just applying for it was freaking me out with nerves.The money was running out, the car needed M.O.T.–ing, Wendy was starting to get worried. Things were, as I say, getting serious. I’d only had one day’s work in about five weeks. No other income. So not good. I had started looking at warehouse work, advertised at £6.08 per hour for shift work! Robbing bastards. I applied to about six or seven agencies for driving work without getting any work. Wendy got me to ring up about signing on the dole on Wednesday. I wasn’t keen for lots of reasons; the hassle, the contempt in which they hold you, the bullying to take a minimum wage job or lose benefits, etc. (*looks at Beth, accusingly*) (By the way, Beth is a relative who the dole made work for them.) I rang them Wednesday afternoon and arranged an interview for Friday morning, and booked the car in for an MOT Thursday morning. Obviously that sounded the irony klaxon, so early Thursday morning the agency rang with work for that day and Friday. Had to rush straight from the MOT to the job. I rang the dole and cancelled my Friday appointment while the car was being MOT’d. It was a straightforward job, pick up a truck and trailer in Irlam (outskirts of Manchester), drive to Bracknell (sort of level with London) get the trailer emptied and reloaded and drive back. Easy. Except not so. Virtually everywhere I’ve been there have been reams of prissy health and safety rules and procedures. All of which I have despised and ignored. Stuff about one way systems in the yard, always parking the trailers in one area, pointing one way, units (trucks) in another, rights of way, all sorts of bollocks. At this place there is none of that. It is organized chaos. Without the organization. Yesterday I had to pick up a unit and trailer. The unit was locked, no-one could find the keys. The trailer hadn’t been backed into the parking slot, so the bit I was supposed to drive the unit under was inaccessible. And they’d left a different unit under it. In other words someone had finished with the truck and trailer, thought ‘screw that’ and just driven into a slot and left it there. Not even reversed it in. Bastards. This meant before I could start my job I had to find the keys to my unit, do the pre-op checks, then go back and get the keys for the other unit, then reverse out, blind, into a yard full of dickheads going in all directions, spin it around, do a blind side reverse back into the slot, uncouple the trailer from the unit, move the unit somewhere else, couple my unit […]

Bleeding typical. The job I didn’t want I passed the assessment, the job I desperately wanted they said I was ‘borderline’ and needed to get another month’s experience and try again. He said it was not a ‘don’t call us, we’ll call you’ sort of deal, and that he wanted me to come back and drive for them, just with a little more experience. *sigh* Stuff like me not knowing where anywhere was, being rusty with a manual gearbox (I think that was my second go of a truck that wasn’t automatic since I passed my test, 2½ years ago! I’d have soon got fluid at it again.) and being ‘nervous’ (on an assessment for a job I was desperate to get, FFS!) particularly on the reverse. Bloody right I was. They said the assessment was all about safety. I thought it would be better to be slow and sure. That is too nervous. Screw that! I’m not risking crashing.  The only faults on the road were that he reckoned I turned the wrong way at an offset, blind junction. As I couldn’t see the road to my left I turned the cab to the right, so I could see out of the left hand wide-angle mirror. It’s a small mirror, but sufficient. He reckons I should have turned the cab to the left, which would have blocked the traffic from the right, so I could physically see the road.  I’ll do that next time. The only other thing was approaching junctions carrying too much speed, he reckoned. I don’t agree, but he’s the assessor. If I’d have had a good knowledge of the roads and not been nervous, I think I could have swung that. As it was he just saw me as a quivering wreck who had no idea. Balls! I was gutted.   I pulled myself together and emailed an application off to another agency the same morning. The next day I got all the class 1 trunking jobs off the jobcentre and applied for them all. All agencies. All desperate for drivers. Until you apply. I got one outright ‘no’, one ‘maybe’ and two ‘we’ll get back to you as soon as we get work in’. Real jobs my arse!  Agencies! *spits*   That’s two weeks with no work now. Things are starting to get worrying. We’ve got enough in the bank to last another month or so before we have to really fret, but it’s surprising how quickly you start to lose your self confidence. And self worth, for that matter. Work is a strange master. I think it’s some perverse form of Stockholm syndrome.   On the bright side I’ve had plenty of time for other things, such as getting back into training and my instruments. I’ve been for a few swims whilst I rest my knackered leg up. I’m struggling with that bilateral breathing, not my fave. Still,. all that chlorinated water I’m drinking must be doing my teeth the world of good. […]

I am hesitant to even mention this, it’s so perfect for me. Even though I’m not superstitious I still don’t want to jinx it. First off let me relate how I got here. As you know I’ve not been applying  for  full time jobs because of nerves about the driving assessment. The agency work has been really scarce and then when they did get me a day’s driving it was for DHL/ Iceland, the company and depot I had to leave because they wouldn’t let me drive for them! That was irritating. Then, before they’d let me out on the road they made me do hours of paperwork, a drug and alcohol test and then a driving assessment! After all that they sent me on an easy run, luckily. I know how hard some of the stores are to get in though. Having to back across carparks that have moving cars and customers. Scary stuff. To be honest I really don’t want to do it now I’ve tried other driving. However, if it’s a choice between a shift for them and a week without pay I’ll do it.   That was my situation and stress level. I’d passed an assessment I didn’t know I was going to do, which left me eligible to do a job I really don’t want. I thought ‘Screw it! I may as well apply for other jobs, an assessment is not as stressful as an Iceland store delivery.’   So I did. I applied for something called Igloo logistics and for a couple of different agency jobs. The agencys haven’t got back to me. After I’d rang about the full time Igloo job, (and written the email, updated, tweaked and attached  the CV, etc) I went on their website to check I’d got the right email address. The Jobcentre advert had said some experience, their website said minimum of two years. I emailed it anyway then gave up on it. The chap rang me back, asked if I’d had my license for two and a half years (I said I had in the email, but only six months driving experience) I confirmed, he told me to come in for the induction /interview thingy. I went for it today and it is perfect for me. It’s just trunking (where you pick up a trailer from a massive depot and take it to a massive depot, maybe shuffle a few trailers around the yard, then straight back to base, go home.) You can pick which start time suits you 0500-0730, 1100-1400, or 1700-2130 (something like that), it’s £9.14 basic, time and a third for all over eight hours each day, Sundays always time and a third. He said it’s the easiest driving job going and it’s well paid. Also, they have outgrown the Appleton depot so they are having another one built ‘”near Ikea”, ie on my doorstep! I put all my paperwork through today, I’ve got a driving assessment on Thursday. If I pass that I […]

OMG! This is wonderful. If you know the Pink Floyd track it is infinitely better, but I expect it stands alone. On the backing track you hear the snippets of the geezer trailing the black stuff (death?). The other friend is making it work as a conversation. Anyway, that’s just a condiment of extra appreciation. The banquet of taste and style doesn’t need it.   “I was walking along a path with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.” Edvard Munch, 1893   Here it is:  (sound on, full blast, obviously) The Scream from Sebastian Cosor on Vimeo. For better appreciation of the experience you can click on the four arrows pointing diagonally outwards (the full screen button). Am I being patronising? That means to talk down to people. Buck.