Oh my. Went for my hour’s assessment in an artic today. They are spiffy. It’s like the flight deck of the Enterprise in the cab. Big computer to run everything, an air sprung seat that weighs you then sets itself to your weight, half gears (where if you change up and it’s a bit much for the engine, or hit a hill and start to lose momentum you just flick a switch, dip the clutch and you’re away again). Even cruise control, you just flick it on and the engine carry’s on without driver input. This leaves you free to rest your foot and play on your laptop (or something). The downside is it’s weird as hell to drive. It’s massive for a start. It’s like taking Wales for a joyride. Then the aforementioned air sprung seat, which is doubtless the last word in comfort, bounces you up and down like a yo-yo making your foot bob up and down on the accelerator. Weird, and not a little nerve wracking. Then there’s the location of the training place; Manchester for a start, (I had a minor panic attack trying to find the damn place, the flashback to my abortive attempt to become a despatch rider round there was only too vivid.) and in a yard with a normal sized gate at right angles to a titchy little back street, to boot. Just being in the cab with the guy driving it out of there put years on me. I had a go at a driving, (in more or less a straight line) pulling over and setting off again, a U turn (you start driving more or less at your own trailer. So weird) and a quick reverse in the yard. The reverse seems easy enough. Long and short of which is; I’ve signed up for 20 hours driving and a test. Starting the 9th of March, test on Friday the 13th. The panic thing in the title, is I then had to pay for it. £809. That leaves me with about £1,000 available credit. Or to put it another way: about another three tests, if I fail the first time. Then I’m out of credit. God knows what happens then. Selling my bottom around town when the fleet is in, I suppose. So, no pressure there then. As those new aerodynamic, allegedly tree hugging, planet saving Marks and Sparks trailers proclaim, "because there is no plan B". This has to work. I have to pass within available credit. I have to get a job and earn vast amounts of money. And it all has to happen within the next few months. If this was just me I wouldn’t worry. Run up the credit then let them try and take from me what I don’t have. However, the card I have been running up is in Wendy’s name. She would take it amiss if she were brought to book for it. She’s like that. When (not if) I do get a […]
Continue readingHappy Bucky
Hi again. I say I’m happy in the title, and indeedy I am. Tired (as ever on 6-2) but I’m off tomorrow, so big lie-in for the Buckster. So that is spiffy. Taekwondo tomorrow night, (more goodness) in work on Friday then off on Saturday to take my TKD grading. Yay! Also, on the good news from work front, I had put in a holiday form so I could take the last of my holidays in March. I wanted a week off to take the artic course and test. I wanted to wait till March so if I fail it would not be too long a wait before the new holiday year starts in April. As I said I put the form in only to have it returned with "denied. 16 hours holiday remaining.", on it. This in itself was something of a mystery. Our holidays are expressed in hours, but are in reality an allotted number of days. Our working day is seven and a half hours, so that meant I had two days and one hour of holiday left to book. I’m still in the process of trying to get a resolution to that pay dispute from the 20th of December through my useless manager so my expectation of getting a happy result from this situation was not great., When I pointed out the impossible nature of the hours remaining to me to my manager (as per chain of command) he just told me to submit another holiday form and see what they said. Instead I went to the manager responsible for holidays and he sorted it out in a couple of minutes. I actually had three and a half days holiday left. So he took my holiday form off me again, then returned it the next day, approved. Big yay! Tomorrow I can ring up Enterprise, a truck training place in Manchester strongly recommended to me by one of our drivers, and hopefully arrange for a course starting Monday the 9th of March. The not so good news (for the superstitious) is that will put my test date on Friday the 13th! I am not superstitious, touch wood. More good news is we finally have something good to watch on telly. ‘Being Human’. It’s about a bunch of housemates and the darkly humorous nature of their affairs. The twist that makes it interesting is that one of the housemates is a vampire, another a werewolf, and the third a ghost. It’s witty, subversive, intelligent, and everyone should watch it to make sure they make another series. The black cloud that surrounds the silver lining at work is that one of the main managers was walking a gaggle of agency bosses around our department today, so it looks like it’s only a matter of time before one of them puts in a cheap enough bid. Then they get to run De-Kit, and we get thrown out. I wouldn’t mind if I could avoid going back into the freezer, […]
Continue readingThe old ball and chain
Well I’m back at work these past two days. That was rough, going back and trying to graft, not sure if I would be able to make it through the shift or not. Still, I did. They all thought I’d got a driving job and was ‘phoning in sick, presumably to give the job a go. No such luck. Besides, as I have told them on many occasions, I am waiting until I pass my artic, and then trying to get a job at our place before looking for jobs further afield. I’ve not managed to go to Taekwondo for about a month now. I missed the lessons on the week before my grading, and consequently the grading, and every time I thought I had a chance to go I’ve started feeling ill. I’ve certainly not been up to it since last Wednesday when my latest evil cold struck. I had thought to go tomorrow as I’m off and all, but Wendy was a bit put out. Apparently not only do I have to go to the hassle of going up town to the registry office tomorrow, but on wedding days it would appear one traditionally does not go to ones TKD club in the evening. Bloody weddings. Last time for me I tell you. Way too much hassle, and you can’t get to your club. You should be able to do it on the internet. You can get a Thai bride mailed to you no problem, but you have to go to town to get married. On the bright side, it is just the once, and it will be nice to see Jo (whom I’ve not seen in years) and generally get it over with. It’s a shame Wendy couldn’t have hung in there another year, as it turns out she did want a big fuss after all. In a year we should both be bringing in relatively big bucks and therefore we could have made an event out of this. If that’s what she wanted though it would have helped if (1), she’d have mentioned it, and (2), like I say, waited a bit longer until we had the cash to do something about it. Still ‘we are where we are’, as an infamous war-criminal once said (yes, you, bLIAR). I’m not bothered, me. But if it would have made Wendy a happy bunny, that is the way I would have liked to have gone. And if I can’t go to my club tomorrow at least we have two episodes of ‘Heroes’ to catch up on. I’m tired, I was having disturbing werewolf dreams last night, based around the character in ‘Being Human’ (the rather excellent series that ended on Sunday). Right, quick shower and bed. Hard days getting wed tomorrow. Later, Buck.
Continue readingAnd there’s more…
Goddamn! That Autoglass thing turned into a farce. I was thinking originally of paying for it myself to keep the insurance out of it. To save money I arranged to drop it off at the nearest centre rather than have them come out and do it. After the horror of the £405 quote I promptly changed my mind and put it through the insurance. Then I was told it would be an hour to fit, another hour for the glue to set before it could be driven away. Having no option, I accepted. Then later on I thought about it, if the insurance were paying for it, why not get it done at home? So I rang their call centre back to ask if would be possible. The guy actually laughed at me! Went on to tell me how the weather was too cold for the glue to set on a call out, that the light would be failing at my appointment time of 4.30, and in essence, not his problem but it wasn’t happening. Again, lacking any option I had to acquiesce. Thinking about it on Sunday morning I decided against going to my IAM meeting. Thought they would probably have strong views about driving a vehicle that was one jolt away from having the windscreen fall out. So, biting the bullet, I threw my pushbike into the Micra and drove down to the centre. In the snow. When I got there they had no idea who I was, or that I was booked in at all. 15 minutes on the ‘phone later, the guy confirms that I am booked in, and asks me to come back in hour to pick it up. I replied that I thought it needed an hour to set after fitting. He told me it did, but their chap had another appointment (a call out. In the same cold and dark that had made it impossible for me to change my arrangements to a call out!) so wouldn’t be on site. If I could just come back in an hour he’d give me the keys to the Micra, bugger off on call and leave me sat in the car park for an hour waiting for the glue to set! Imagine my delight! In the event when I returned to start my vigil the fitter was still at work, and allowed me to stay on the premises while the glue set (for half an hour. He gave me some blag about it not needing the full hour because I only had one airbag.) and then tried to explain how they had cocked up and apologised repeatedly. This soothed my rage, but it was still extremely shoddy service. The other news is after talking about my finances the other day I did some sums. The two martial arts I am currently doing, if you add the insurance from both clubs, lessons and gradings, come to £990 a year! That’s without the £100 worth of kit I […]
Continue readingCars suck bottom
Hi ya’ll, I’ve got to go for an appraisal drive and arrange to do the training with the Institute of Advanced Motorists tomorrow, so I’ve spent the last few days ‘pimping’ my Micra. I’ve serviced it; oil, oil filter, air filter and spark plugs (which I’ve already done once in the three years I’ve had it. Talk about overkill!) I’ve put air in the tyres, washed the damned thing, (which I did in 2007) and put the rear-view mirror back up. I had taken it off to get used to using my wing mirrors for my truck training. It says in the literature for IAM that you must have at least two mirrors fitted, one of which must be inside the car. I was thinking of trying to get away with taking it literally ( I had two wing mirrors fitted, and one internal mirror, just it was in the glove compartment) but thought it was probably not wise to start off on that note. Now then, when I first started my truck training I just turned the rear-view mirror around, but one time it just popped off in my hand. Thought no more of it, just stuck it in the glove compartment. So today I had a bit of a flap when after freezing my hands off washing the mighty Micra off with a hosepipe (and proving the adage ‘you can’t polish a turd’) I couldn’t find the mirror. It wasn’t in the glove compartment. It wasn’t there, Richard! (Virgin complaint letter reference there. How funny was that letter?) Anywho, after taking the tapes out three times, checking under the seats, in the boot and asking Wendy if she’d had it off it still wasn’t there. In desperation I took to fumbling around above the compartment, and there it was! Job’s a good ‘un. Just pop it back on like…, hmm, really stiff. Shove a little harder…, ‘CRACK’! The windscreen had cracked. Boundless joy. So I rang Autoglass for a quote, as their advert says they can repair or replace. Repair, cheaply please. Nope, that’s for chips. Cracks are a new windscreen which leaves you paying the £75 excess on your insurance. I said "hold on a minute, how much is the windscreen? I don’t want to lose my no claims bonus." "£405." "Screw that. The insurance can sort it." So I was less than happy. Wendy, who has come down with a virulent form of Woman-flu, was a tad grumpy. "What you should have done was just black the mirror out" "Hindsight is 20/20. You learn from your mistakes." "You should be brilliant then." Very droll. She’d better watch she doesn’t ‘fall’ down the stairs again! (Joke!) So the pimped Buck-mobile is going to roll up to the IAM place tomorrow with a cracked windscreen. Bleeding marvellous. What else of note has transpired? Well, the word at work is that the new manager of our depot wants to turf De-Kit out and replace us with agency workers. We […]
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