THE GOOD BUCK

So far, so bloody good. The job itself is pretty cushy, delivering to big Bookers/ Makros or whatever. These tend to be on industrial estates with lots of easy access. Then all you do is pull your curtains to let them get the pallets off the side of your trailer or jump on the back with a pump truck and move the pallets to the end for the fork lift to take off. The easiest option is when they have a proper dock so you just back up to it and they unload you, but they are not that common. Then it’s usually go to a relatively local factory or warehouse and pick up a load to take back to Haydock. They treat the drivers really well as well. On the curtain sided trailers they have a security cord that fits through all the fastens along the curtain, so you can’t open it. I went to one place, they said to open my curtains, so I pulled the cord through, looped it up on the catwalk between the cab and the trailer and pulled my curtains. Then they said to reverse into the bay area. Which I did. Then realised the catwalk is part of the cab, the cord is attached to the trailer, there was a lot of movement, the cord got snagged and snapped. Bollocks. At my last place that would have been ‘one strike’. I was expecting drugs and alcohol test and disciplinary procedure. I got back to the office and told them, they said “Go and put a new one on. Be more careful in future.” Wow. The downside to the job is the shift length. Either a bare 8 hours, or like last week, 15 hours, 13, 12 etc. I have been struggling trying to get to karate or do runs. I have talked to two drivers who are full time, probably they have been dragging the job out and grabbing (which I can’t get my head around. If you can go after 9 hours, I’m gone) but one of them said he made 45K last year, the other said 50K. This was in front of other drivers, so I don’t think they were bullshitting. For the full timers it’s something like £12 per hour days, plus 20% after 18.00, 25% after midnight, I think one of them said it was time and a third for overtime, time and three quarters for working your sixth shift. If you were doing a 60+ hour week that would soon add up. The agency have been doing what I want as well. I asked for mornings, the latest I’ve started was 10.30 I think, earliest was 05.30. Pretty much dead what I asked for. Today I asked if I could do regular Sun-Thurs, they said OK. Sent me a text saying work has been pretty slack at Bookers this week (I’ve been in all week, so didn’t know) but they’ve been giving me priority as Bookers ‘like my […]

I’ve had my sights set on a Harley Davidson Sportser, just the ‘baby’, the 883 CC one. As you can see, very pretty. It was to be a stepping stone then in a few years move up to the Harley I really want, the big Heritage Softail. Obviously the last word in practicality and knee-down performance with that ground clearance. Surprisingly cheap, starting at around £6- 7K. Well, it surprised me, I thought they were over £10K even old. But I digress. I have had my head turned, again, by that Kawasaki W650. A retro bike in the style of it’s 60’s predecessor, the styling of which was in turn ‘influenced’ (stolen wholesale) from the Brit twins of the time. Look at this: Just zoom in and marvel at it’s beauty. The peashooter exhausts, the kick-start (kick-start! Ha!) The faux pushrod covers (silver tubes up the side of the engine) the fork gaiters, the finned, air cooled engine, the tank knee pads, the drum rear brake, the absence of plastic. It is a work of art. The negative part of reviews can only say that it isn’t a screaming race bike. The engine is ‘soft tuned’. Bah and meh! Missing the point. If you want a plastic fantastic 200mph street screamer go and buy a Hayabusa, they are made for the job: They are not without their own charm, just not what I’m after. They may look as ugly as sin, but ridden right no-one will ever know. However,the W650 is what I want. ‘Only’ good for 110 mph, looks drop-dead gorgeous, and performs day in day out with the fabled Japanese reliability.  It’s like time travelling back and getting a new Bonneville, but one that works. Great electrics, lights you can see by and by which you can be seen, no oil leaks, engine doesn’t go ‘pop’ every few weeks… as the man said, ‘As near as you can get to the real thing without pushing it home at night.’ Told you I was obsessing. Then, as if that wasn’t good enough, it lends itself perfectly to being ‘cafe racer-ed’. Cafe racers were a 50’s/ 60’s thing. At the time, I’ve read, the working man couldn’t afford a car so had to get a cheap bike for running around. These mostly had the sit-up-and-beg riding position of the one above. When people wanted to make them into boy-racer machines on the cheap (to race their mates when they met in the biker cafes) they simply put ‘clip-on’ (dropped, racing style) handlebars on so they could lay over the tank to reduce drag, they moved the foot controls to the back (rearsets) put a 2-into-1 exhaust on (to lose weight) ditched the fat knacker off the back and put a single seat on. Job done. Your pedestrian Volvo estate turned into a smoking hot-hatch Golf. Look at this then: (Sorry about the quality, I’m trying to source a better picture of this exact bike.) *That*, my friend, is a cafe […]

Skydiving is not for you. Trying again, with another agency. Since I got binned 5 weeks ago, I’ve had 2 days work (for the thrice damned Stobarts). One of the agencies, that was advertising “Warrington job, trunking to Scotland and Darn Sarf” (then tried to give me jobs 30 miles away) got back to me two weeks ago saying driving assessment for the job I applied for, the following week. On Friday I went for a ‘driving assessment’. It turned into a 4 hour hour induction, site walk, health and safety briefing, drugs and alcohol test, loads of paperwork and finally a drive, which I passed. It’s not in Warrington (only 10 or so miles away at Haydock) it wasn’t just a driving assessment, and it isn’t trunking, it’s store deliveries. So, nothing at all that they advertised. *sigh* I start tomorrow. There are hopeful signs. I googled it, someone had asked what they were like to work for and the reply was “my mate works for them, cards in, and he says he’s there for life.” As I’ve previously noted, all drivers do is whinge, so that’s hopeful. Also it’s delivering to Cash and Carry’s, so it’s not going to be poxy little high street shops. And it’s fully unionised, which is a nice novelty these days. I noticed on the daily sheet for full time drivers they have a box for double time and triple time, also the sixth day working is paid at time and three quarters! That is shockingly good. And the agency asked me when I wanted to work, said ideally Mon-Fri 05.00-06.00 hrs start, they asked if a 06.00-10.00 window was OK, not a problem. I start at 07.15 tomorrow. That’s promising. We’ll see tomorrow.  If I don’t love it, the other agency still haven’t got back to me about the Sainsburys induction, I could try that when it comes up. It is directly across the road from this job.   In other news the plaster has been round to mend the hole in the ceiling caused by the flood. Which meant we had to decorate. I’d forgotten what a time consuming pain in the arse that job is. It took two days to paint the kitchen, toilet and adjoining space. And all the doors, which showed up as yellowing when I started doing the skirting boards. Then the wooden blinds looked minging so the third day I had to get a new roller blind, which took 3 trips to the shop. Defective crap. Now we need to replace the lino. It’s not dear but it is going to be a total ballache to fit. That was not all the painting we did. Stupid bloody cat had to get in on the action. Now she lives in fear of serial rapist French skunk, Pepe LePew.   In other news, I was at my Karate class on Friday when the main sensei (instructor/ master) asked to see how I was getting on. Told me to […]

As I’m unemployed I went racing after a bunch of jobs. Turns out it was the same old agency bollocks. One of the jobs, which would have been ideal (06.00 start, Mon-Fri!) sounded too good to be true. It was. I rang the mobile number they gave every day for a week, straight to voicemail. I emailed a CV, ignored. I’ve heard of the Jobcentre posting fake jobs so they can sanction people for not getting them, I guess that was one of them. Another agency was advertising long term contracts in Warrington and Widnes. I jumped through a million hoops to get on their books, they offered me the odd day 30+ miles away. Couldn’t be bothered. Another agency I signed with were offering day shift Full Time Equivalent (FTE) jobs doing supermarket deliveries. They have the contract for Sainsbury’s and  Tesco’s. They were waiting for an induction day at Sainsbury’s so they asked would I do ‘days’ at Tesco’s. Day’s being midnight to 04.00 start. Usually about 02.00. That’s nights in my book. And Stobarts have the contract for Tesco’s. I asked straight away what sort of shift length it was. They said about 10 hours. I’ve worked for Stobarts before and they wanted 12+, up to 15 and running out of hours so having to sleep in my cab. I gave it a go. 02.30 start first day, 11.30 hours shift. Second day, 02.15 start, finished my run after 8.30 hours, they said to wait while they sorted me out a second run, nearly 14 hours. Screw that. You’ve literally only got time to work and try to sleep, nothing else. 10 hours my arse! I told the agency not to send me back. So that’s been it. 2 day’s work in 3 weeks. The Sainsbury’s induction was supposed to be “in 2 weeks” which would have been this weekend. No sign. But that is a FTE job, and while I was at the agency I overheard a driver saying to them that he loved it there. That is something to behold. Drivers are known for whinging about everything and calling ever job shit. If I can get into a decent FTE job I’d be happy. Whilst I was chasing up contacts for my CV (the up to date one having been wiped when I killed the computer, *sigh*) I noticed that the agency that ran the Walkers Crisps contract were recruiting again, but days! A world of win! That was my best job to date. I rang up and asked about it, roughly how many shifts they thought I’d be able to get a week (I left because of scarcity of work and hating night shift) but they wouldn’t commit to any shifts and said it was mainly just weekends on days. I would do it, but I don’t want to go through the day long induction and assessment if I’m only going to get a few days and be leaving again as soon as I […]

Things are weird at the minute. I’m on the new shift pattern, three core days, flex up (optional working if there’s any work going) on two other days, with two days off. Which is my shift pattern if they have taken me on to the books. But I’ve not had an interview (formality), signed a contract, or been given uniform. Also the agency texted me this week. The amount of involvement the agency have they probably don’t know either. I’ve started doing store deliveries now. The first day they gave me the keys, new paperwork, and basically left me to it. And it was a rigid. Straight away you know it’s going to be tricky, if the store had half decent access they would send a proper artic. Then, as I’d never driven these rigids before, I had to work out how to use the tail lift. It’s the same as on the artics, but instead of a separate power lead they are obviously already wired up. The bastard things have an isolator switch in the cab that I couldn’t find. And you have to remove the keys before it will operate. And I was having issues with the scanner/ terminal thing. So that was a great start. The store loading area was inside a multi storey car park which I drove straight past looking for the store. It was a a bit of a nightmare as they are timed deliveries, if you miss the window it sets of a chain reaction of arse kicking up and down the chain of command. I scraped into my two time slots. Today was my second go at stores, in an artic. Loads less stress. Last week, my first on my new hours, I only got my three core days. This week, now they know what my hours are, they’ve already asked me to work today (flex up) and tomorrow (day off) on top of my 3 core days. It seems the work is there for the taking.   My stretching, after my initial, wildly optimistic pulled–from-the-hat guess of a month to attain side splits, is now progressing slowly, with massive pain, but surely.  After my first go I didn’t really get any further for a week or so. I’ve now come up with an improved system. I’ve rigged up a restraining stirrup for my less stretchy leg then just force the other one down to a level. I’ve been trying to get Wendy to help but due the amount of pain it puts me through she’s not much use. I’ve made pretty good gains the last two days. And held the stretch for full minute holds (as opposed to the recommended 30 seconds.) I’m not sure if the pain is getting any more bearable or if I’m getting better at accepting it. Either way I’ve been able to reach maximum stretch then increase it the last two days. I’m thinking of improvising a pulley system to drag my feet down. That way […]