THE GOOD BUCK

First week at the new job done and dusted.

There have been some minor moments, mostly with me getting lost and them not providing addresses, but all in all it’s been a good week. I got paid for my induction on Monday, I was off Tuesday while the not-very-good guy at the agency faffed about, Wednesday someone else took over and I’ve worked Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. There is no work tonight (Sunday), which they texted me to tell me.

So plenty of good here. They text you to tell you if you are in or if you are not (loads better than most, who’ll ring you and say “Get in in 10 minutes” or “Why aren’t you in work? Didn’t you get our telepathic message?”

I applied for that Walkers Crisps job. They had me fill in a load of paperwork then come back for a driving assessment on Monday. Walkers are really strict. The guy said they were health and safety mad. Other places accept that shit happens, there they go out of their way to make sure it never does. Fair enough.

But this meant a really stringent assessment. I hate them at the best of times. I drive for a living, but having someone sat there watching and judging me freaks me right out. I was a bag of nerves on Sunday night. Though surprisingly I slept alright. When I got up I was a bit nervous but mainly just keen to get it over.

The assessment was first thing, at 0600. I passed. Yay! Then I had to sit through hours of Powerpoint. There was supposed to have been two of us there but the other guy didn’t show, so the assessor had to drag it out to fill the allotted time. I had to suffer death by powerpoint, after an ungodly o’clock start, and the relief of getting the assessment out of the way, and an onsite cooked breakfast. It was hard.

Last post I was breathing a sigh of relief that the 9 days of no work were over and I was back to full time work. I had to have the weekend off by law, then nothing all week. It’s now Sunday, 9 days with no work again.

Monday and Tuesday I didn’t mind, to be honest. I had taken the car in for it’s MOT and it’s been raining every day so I didn’t fancy riding in. (8.6 miles, just looked it up on Google maps. Nearer than I thought.) After that though, all bills and no work so no money I was getting worried.

The MOT was a bit grim. My poor little Polo has been run into the ground. It’s an ‘05 plate VW diesel, so in theory should be good forever. As I say, the previous owner just ran it into the ground though.Nothing has been repaired, loads just botched. When I tried to change the oil filter I saw that the cover underneath the engine had screws missing and was secured by cable ties. It’s that level of bodging that I’m having to overcome.

After my last post, worrying about not getting any work, it’s been all hands to the pumps.

I went in New Year’s day then they texted me the next day asking could I make it in ASAP, I did and that was that, non-bloody-stop since. I had one day off last week after 5 days, then worked 6 days this week. Not very many hours per shift unfortunately, but at least by being available at the drop of a hat I’m getting the shifts. I was talking to one driver and he said he’d only got 2 shifts in the week, they’d cancelled him on all the others. It might be a coincidence but after I couldn’t make it in that Sunday (‘cos they hadn’t asked me and I was in the middle of a 22 mile run) I didn’t get any work for 9 days. I did them a favour and I’m in every day the law allows. Which reminds me, there’s a manager at work who is a complete tool. One of those who has to be at the centre of everything. I asked the drivers if I have on day off in week (reduced weekly rest) can I then work 6 shifts before taking the requisite compensatory rest. They were debating it when he butts in “5 shifts, two 11 hour rests. End of!”

This is utter bollocks. The law says weekly rest is 45 consecutive hours, or reduced rest of at least 24 hours, once in a fortnight, to be made up in full the next week. 11 hours is the full rest on a standard day (can be reduced to 9 hours, 3 times a week.) Then when I was filling in my duty sheet he pulled me over my breaks. Told me just to put that I’d had 45 minutes, not the 1 hour 20 I’d been waiting. Work stop you half an hour a day for breaks, the rest is for your Working Time Directive. By the WTD law you can only work 60 hours maximum in a week, 48 hours average. The way driving firms get around it is by using Period Of Availability and breaks, neither of which count as ‘work’. So I can only drive for 9 hours a day (10 on two days) but if I’m sat around waiting to be loaded I can be at work for 15 hours a day. But only ‘work’ for, on average, for say 10.30. This is all driver crap that is of no interest to anyone else, none to the driver either, truth be told. I only mention it to explain when he told me to alter my break (“we prefer you to use ‘break’ because POA cuts into your WTD hours.” Wrong.) he was limiting the amount of hours I could work. Work must be using the WTD bit on the sheet to keep a track of how many hours you do that count as ‘work’. By altering it I’m going to be able to do less hours, therefore earn less pay.

It seemed adding long runs was the answer to everything. I did one 22 mile run, rested, ran for a whole hour at race pace. I did another, rested, ran for an hour and a half at race pace!

Incredible!

I was so pleased. My training had gone from 4 miles race pace then stopping for rests to 13 miles non-stop in the space of a week. You’ll note the past tense. I tried for another 22 mile run the day after and my knees and shins were killing me. I gave up and turned around at 4½ miles. It was painful and slow and I was worried that I was going to sustain a serious injury.