Category: Uncategorized

Well, I’ve started my new job. The first day was really stressful, I’d been off for 6 weeks so I was getting comfortable at home, and a bit nervous about going back to work. So it’s a good thing I got this job, no matter what. Also, I was building a resistance to going back to work as I was losing my lorry driving mojo. A lot of driving an artic is in having confidence that you can. As soon as you question that, after a bump or a long lay-off, the job gets a lot harder. And it was all new. New is a bit frightening.

Anyway, I had a full week booked, and once I’d learned how to use the agency app (things have changed massively with agencies in the 4 years since I was last with one) I realised it was the same run for 5 days.

The first day was a bit of a nightmare, before I got on the 5 shifts. I got messed about, then sent to a tiny yard in Manchester to pick up a trailer. The yard was so tight a manager came out and stood in the rain to watch to see if I smacked anything trying to spin the trailer. You’ll note that word was “watch”, not “help”.

I think it’s time to be upbeat again. It’s been a bit of weird time, but it looks like I’m moving on, at last.

I’ve done all the agency messing about. Registering one day, driving assessment another, site induction (for 2½ hours!) another, them checking my driver card, references, and criminal record. All done.

I start work on Monday.

Well, I hung on until the end in the hope that I was wrong, but no, I’m sacked. As that was what I was expecting I got on with the jobs I’d already considered. I won’t be able to afford to continue paying in to the share/save schemes so I cancelled the one that matures next year, and the one after that.

I’d read in the terms and conditions that you can carry on paying into the scheme if you no longer work for the company, and I have one that only has 3 more monthly payments until it matures. That one was looking at making a £1,700 profit, so I was keen to keep it going. I rang up to see how I could pay the final payments myself. I finally got an answer (cut off from the ‘phone after 20 minutes, twice from online chat after 30 minutes).

No.

I’m still in limbo at work. I’ve faced the music, and danced, three or four times now. It’s getting irksome.

Tomorrow, I should get my official sacking. Again. I just wish they would hurry up about it. If I was to keep my job that would obviously be the best outcome, but that is a vanishingly remote chance. Unless they’ve decided to change the company policy, and I’m the first driver to whom it has been applied, I’m sacked. Sad, but let’s get on with it.

My training has been up and down. As I’ve been off work I’ve managed to stick to my Sufferfest training programme. Yoga, strength training, mental toughness, and the bike.

Things have taken a turn for the pear shaped.

I’ve managed to keep up all my Sufferfest training. Mental toughness, yoga and the actual bike training. But my weight loss stalled. The plague weakness is making it impossible for me to stop shoving food in my gob.

I’m trying to take a revised view of my plans. Try not to eat too much on weak days, (tons of fruit and veg to try to bulk out) then make gains (or rather, losses) on the better days.