Hi there, I’ve had an interesting few days. At work everyone on my shift in my department was off on Tuesday and Wednesday, except yours truly. This meant I was left, de facto, in charge, and given a couple of work-shy muppets to try and get the job done. For one thing, I’m not a bossy sort. I prefer to do my own job, and let everyone get on and do theirs. Then there’s the calibre of muppet they send over. It seems to be the rule that if they are any good at their job, or don’t mind working, they won’t send them to our department. Tuesday was bad; two lads who although they had worked in our department before and therefore knew the job, were determined to do as little as possible. One bright spot in that shift though was a conversation one of them was having with another lad about one of the managers. Said manager has started growing one of those fashionable moustache/ beard jobbies, commonly and erroneously referred to as a goatee. Anywho, one of the lads said "What’s up with him? When I saw him before, he looked like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders." The other lad replied "His missus has left him." "His new missus?" "Yeah." There was a thoughtful pause, "Still, no excuse for not shaving." Lad humour. Cruel, but fun. Then on Wednesday I had an even more work-shy crew, and I ended up losing my rag and giving one of them a mouthful. I was ready to lay him out, I was that angry. After that he pulled his weight and everything went swimmingly. The moral to that story being; if your man-management skills aren’t great, just make it known slackers will be severely beaten. As one of those demotivational posters proclaims: "Slavery. Gets shit done." The very same day I managed to pick up a wannabe copper on my way home. I was tootling well within the speed limit, (as set by Einstein) took a corner somewhat enthusiastically, then noticed a cop car in my mirror. Obviously I obeyed all the highway code strictures (as always!) and surreptitiously put my seatbelt on. I got on to a national speed limit road, still being followed, accelerated to 70-ish, came to an island, slowed to 60-ish, shot across, then got flashed down by the cop-car. It had no blue lights, so used headlights to get me to pull over. (Does that mean it was one of those volunteer, wannabe coppers?) So I pulled over. On a clearway. Bit miffed. Stupid arse had me get out of the mighty Micra and into the back of his play cop-car. Giving me grief about, not slowing down and driving like I was in a go-kart. He was saying there was a car at the island and if he’d have pulled out I couldn’t have stopped. I know. It was my right of way. Darwin had something to say about […]
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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. However, after me slagging off the shunters at work they finally came good. On Sunday one of them took me for a bit of a spin in one of the works trucks, showing me how to use and position it. As a bit of a bonus he took me around some of the assessment course the works examiners use. Then we went back to the yard and he showed me a few reverses and talked me through a bunch of goes. The main thing I took from it was a realisation of how to make the trailer do what I wanted in reverse. Not that I can make it work yet, but that horrible moment when the trailer is pointing one way, the cab the other, and I know where I want the trailer to go but get totally confused as to how to make it happen, should be behind me. The instructors have a trick; if one side of your trailer comes out and you want to be straight just steer towards the side you can see. Alas, when I am half way through a move and don’t want to go straight, I can waste lots of valuable room going the wrong way then having to correct the error. Not forgetting that as soon as you run out of room and have to pull forward, that is a minor fault on your test, and one of the two you are allowed. Three, as I know all too well, is a fail. It really is simple; get halfway through my move, think ‘fine, now I want the trailer to start turning right’ put left hand down. The other thing I learned, before my last test, was how to steer the trailer. You’ve got trailer turning towards your target area, but if you leave it it will carry on steering and go too far, so you have to get the cab straight behind the trailer to make it reverse in a straight line. This I was doing, but by the time I’d got behind it the trailer had steered too far. Simple again; BIG steers. I was shuffling the wheel round and taking too long to straighten up. […]
Continue readingWell, 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. My run out today proved that it was just through being rusty. I flew through my first road test, the second I made two silly mistakes, this time I just wasn’t thinking truck. I was driving it confidently, but without the proper preparation for each arising situation. Just down to being rusty, and tired. I got about three hours sleep last night. Coming off a 2-10, trying to wind down, then trying and failing badly to get to sleep. I had terrible sleep when I did get off, and was awake before the alarm at about four thirty five. This meant a tired and rusty Bucky. I got home in a state of high dudgeon. I only had enough credit to take one more test, no more lessons, and that not for three weeks. I could only get rustier. I had to reset my credit card internet account (as when it had asked me what the third letter of my password was I went A, B, C. The third letter is C. Three times! Yes it’s the third letter of the alphabet […]
Continue readingThe 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." He was off bleeding work, and presumably knowing this had taken my number. Oh yes, bit cheesed off. Then he suggested I ring work to try and get the other shunter. I rang my department to get one of the lads to see him for me, and got some gob-shite who gave me lip. I will be finding out who that was and putting them straight. Anyway, when I got through to one of the lads he went to try and get the shunter for me. He came back with a message saying the shunter was too busy to talk to me. Thanks a bunch chaps. I didn’t ask for them to help me, they offered. One of them is the union rep and was saying how he’d square it all with the management, the other was saying he was a fully qualified instructor. Their help would have been immensely beneficial to me. But if they didn’t think they could do it why offer? They may have had good intentions, but I wouldn’t be pissed off if they hadn’t made offers of help they couldn’t be arsed following up on. I didn’t go to my Advanced Driving jobby today in case they called whilst I was out. I think the Sunday lesson of Taekwondo was off (being Easter) but I didn’t bother to check because it would have been for an hour and a half in the afternoon, the likeliest time for them to be able to fit me in. Anywho, other than that I’ve had a splendid weekend off. Any time off work is splendid time, but this weekend was splendid-er. It was supposed to be wet and miserable according to the forecasts I heard. Friday wasn’t so clever, but Saturday and Sunday have been glorious. I’ve been out in my garden for hours and hours. I took my seed trays out for a bask on both days, bringing them in for the night. I kept trying to sit and have a relaxing brew, but as Jo so rightly noted it’s just not possible. The amount of cold brews I’ve remembered too late. But considering I’ve not spent a penny all weekend it has been great. I seem to have found endless jobs that needed doing, (often at the cost of hot brews) but it is so deeply satisfying […]
Continue readingIndomitable 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! Not to be beaten, I came home and got down to a serious work-out, with loads of kicking exercises, starting at breaking knee height, up to knockout head kicks. I finished off with a load of stretching exercises. This is the first time in a good while I’ve actually got around to doing that. It was, and should be, several times a week or more. So, though I missed the class I was still feeling good about myself. Tonight was another class, at St Helens, (about nine miles away) so I made the effort and went to that one. They have a fight coming up soon, so we spent the whole hour sparring and fighting. I was drenched in sweat, as was most everyone else, and exhausted. Fighting in those chest protectors is like going for a run in a sauna, wearing a basque (don’t ask me how I know!) Loads of people were picking up minor injuries; clashing shins, toes bent back, one lad copped a kick to groin and several people had painful knee collisions. I was no exception, I had a few incidents where I kicked at the same time as my opponent and our shins collided, also kicking at someone’s body protector and caught their elbow instead. What amazed me though was people were getting upset about it! Admittedly one or two of them were only kids so were excused, but the adults were whining as well! What part of the concept of ‘martial art’ or ‘fight’ don’t you understand? You fight and keep going until it’s over. There is no middle ground. At times it will hurt, but if you don’t keep fighting you can guarantee it will quickly hurt a lot more! So I’m stiff and bruised and have drunk two and a half pints of pop since I got in to try and rehydrate. That’s all the ‘go me’ side of it. The down side is, apart from a more realistic expectation of what martial arts entails, I was crap. My kicks weren’t too bad, but I couldn’t get my foot down quick enough after each one to put me back in a fighting position for a counter attack, and I just couldn’t seem to get outside of peoples range. It was a good lesson for that. It showed me how bad I am, how much I need to improve, and in what basic areas. Well, all […]
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