Category: Life

OK, I’m more or less a truck driver now. I still struggle with the more difficult reverses, but have the standard one cracked. A few things have come to my attention though. To whit; car drivers.

Not all, obviously. The two main categories are coffin-dodgers and women. Again, not all, but when I’m screaming at some moron I’m about to plough forty tonnes of truck through, it always seems to be one or the other. All the competent women and oldsters want to form vigilante gangs and eradicate those who besmirch your record. For instance, my mother is a woman and an excellent driver, my dad is due for retirement later this year (which, by an arbitrary judgement could have him nudging the ‘oldster’ bracket)  but is a professional driver. So it’s not a sexist or ageist remark. As we know, sweeping generalisations are always wrong, but it just so happens that the conspicuous dickheads are almost without exception from those two categories. With half the country being female, and a growing percentage being elderly it is perhaps not to be remarked upon. But I have. Then, in justification have laboured the point to death. Ho hum.

Oh dear. What a day.

I’ve been working for Stobarts off and on for the last few weeks. I had one bad night with them. I dropped my digital tachograph card (digi-card, the chipped card that records all your driving data) somewhere between the truck and the office. A distance of a hundred yards or less. I spent ages looking for it, back and forth. It was dark and I couldn’t see it. I gave up, saying to the the guy who had been helping me “It must have fallen under one of the trucks. No worries, the lads will hand it in when it gets light.” I had to tell them in the office that  I couldn’t work that night, as you can’t drive without a digi-card.One driver had already gone home that night after losing his. As I was walking out, the chap who’d been helping me said “let’s just have a look in this bin”.

Not loving the occasional work of Driver Hire I had started looking on the Jobcentre plus website again. Oddly, all of a sudden, there seemed to be jobs to which I could apply. I did so. The difference it makes to your confidence, having actually done the job is amazing. I applied, saying I’d been driving. Two agencies arranged for me to register. Judging by the agency I was with, I thought I’d get on both of their books, that way between them all, I might be able to get enough work.

I went to the first agency to register. The appointment was for one o’clock. I spent an hour filling in forms. As I was finishing them off (two o’clock) they asked if I could work that night. I said I could. They told me to be at Stobarts for four o’clock!

Good start.

This has been a dynamic couple of weeks. I handed in my notice at work then had the statutory two days rest I should have been having every week whilst driving. The agency rang me three times on my last week, so I was worried I was going to have to fight for my days off. Then nothing. They rang me with a job driving a Transit van to Essex for two days. Not what I wanted, but I said OK, then they said it was minimum wage. I was less than chuffed, but they said ‘could you do it as a favour to us?’ I’m not here to do favours, I’m here to earn a living. Grrrr. Anyway, I was going to do it as they’d caught me off guard, then be prepared to refuse if they tried to get me to do it again. They rang back and cancelled the gig. Which was fine by me. I’d earned brownie points by taking the crap job, then not had to do it. Super.

Then nothing. No calls, no work. They tried to get me a week’s work driving a low-loader with tipper trucks on it.They asked if I’d ever driven a tipper truck. I haven’t. I said I’d be willing to give it a go, though. They were happy enough with that, but apparently the client wanted someone who could actually do the job. Fussy buggers.

I finally got a job on the bin wagons for Friday. I didn’t like my first go on them a few weeks ago. Very tight situations and you have to reverse in to them. Very difficult. And it’s class 2 work, so not what I’m after and less pay.

After the wag-n-drag fiasco I was quite relieved to get a nice easy job for my second outing. Trunking an artic down to Chelmsford, trailer swap and drive back. How hard can that be?

They wanted me at the Wigan depot for 7.30am. Then they rang back and said make it 9, as they wouldn’t have the trailer loaded. I got there at 9, then sat there for an hour and a half while they loaded the trailer. Slowly.

In which time I tried to familiarise myself with the truck, a MAN, which I’ve never been in before. I did what checks I could then sat around for a bit. I got bored and sat around for a bit longer. I set to trying to adjust things; the seat height, firmness, and fit. Then I thought about moving the steering wheel to a better position. There were no obvious levers or buttons so I started prodding stuff. I saw a lever so I gave that a pull. The steering wheel didn’t move but the lever was dangling down, obviously not right. I had a look to see what it was. It had a pictogram of the front of the truck with a movement arrow arcing downwards.