Thundering forward Unstoppable momentum, Another driving test. My first ever attempt at Haiku (does it show?) I was trying to be all ambiguous there, the first two lines to suggest the truck, the third to suggest it is my training to which I refer. Please yourselves. You got in here for free you know! Perhaps I won’t give up my day job just yet. So, pretentions of poetic competence aside, it is my test tomorrow. Again. I’m clocking up the frequent flyer miles. The examiners ask after my family and want me to be a best man for them. Seriously though, my instructor has bought "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins on the strength of my recommendation. He’s only twenty or so pages into it, so hopefully I’ll have passed before he’s finished. I’ve been in the cab that long that we’ve even got around to discussing religion (not, I would suggest, a topic one raises with a stranger, unless it’s a very small stranger and you are carrying a very stout stick.) The cut and thrust of theistic debate invariably ends in a gunshot. As a Buddhist I am, of course, philosophically opposed to the concept of violence and will thrash soundly anyone who disagrees. I digress from my digression. I was merely saying that I’ve been under instruction for some considerable time. And if today is anything to go by, will be for some time to come. I booked four hours training for today, to get me back in truck mode. Bloody good job too. I was terrible. I mounted about three or four pavements, went into two islands too hot, and nearly took out one of those orange plastic light things they have on the little lane-dividing islands. Hopefully that will have shocked me back into alertness for tomorrow. I can’t stress enough how not good I was today. And I’m still too close to parked vehicles. It’s the curse of the biker. I’m not picking up on it because, unlike the pavements, my brain doesn’t automatically register it as a mistake. I know I can get through a gap, so am looking for the next problem, get through the gap and don’t panic that there was only a fag-papers distance twixt truck and passed object. It takes an ashen faced instructor to point out my …, over competence, shall we say. It will be down to luck again tomorrow, I have passed both parts of the test, now I have to do them both together. *Sighs deeply* Ho hum, Tomorrow will tell. Later, Buck. PS Unbearable tension Unrelenting, infinite hour Repeat ad nauseum. That’s right, I failed again. Still, I have the reverse sussed now! I mounted another pavement, and made a few silly mistakes due to flapping. I get to do it all again on the 28th. Joy.
Continue readingChange is the only constant (have you always thought that?)
Interesting times in the world of the Buckster. The long standing rumour about us being chucked out of our department and agency drones taking our jobs appears to be about to bear fruit. We worked one of our rest days from mid November to early January, which, with the way our shift pattern is, meant lots of nine day stints. We did double-backs (2-10 on a Saturday, back in for 6-2 on a Sunday) during those nine day stints. We worked tirelessly and determinedly, setting new productivity records in the process. Then, as soon as the xmas rush was over, we heard the rumour. Since then it has gone back and forth; first it was flatly denied, then we had an agency boss sizing our job up for a whole day, nothing came of the bid he put in, still denied there was anything to the rumour, then a whole gaggle bosses from different agencies came around, and finally whilst off last weekend our boss’s lad came in and told us it was definite. Big bummer. We’ve still not heard anything officially, but when asked directly at the union meeting the head of our site wouldn’t deny it, just saying "de-kit will be told before anything happens." We’ve had a day of go-slow, and now have managers checking up on us every twenty minutes or so, and the boss has been told into which department he is going, as for the rest of us it is still unofficial and we have no idea! This is DHL, one of the biggest multi-nationals around, and they are treating us like this. It’s not like we can do anything else about it, we just have to take it, so why not at least let us know what is happening and when? Most pressingly of all, we need to know where we are going, if we are no longer in de-kit. I’ve downloaded an application form for Wisemans Dairies (the ones who have the black and white cow patterns on their trucks) and will have it in the post tomorrow. I will take a class II driving job at Manchester rather than go back into the freezer. As regulars here will know, the game plan was to pass my artic and get a job where I am, but Wiseman’s have artics and tankers, so I can move up when I do pass. If they will take me on as a rigid driver (which DHL/ Iceland, won’t). The other huge change is I’m finally taking the plunge and venturing into the great unknown of a different ISP! Very nervous, but they surely can’t be as bad as AOL! I’m going with Plusnet, who, according to Uswitch’s independent customer satisfaction survey, are second only to O2 (but they demand you have a mobile with them for the service I want). When I rang AOL for my MAC (I suppose everyone who’s not me already knows that’s the code you need to transfer to another internet provider). […]
Continue readingCarry on regardless
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 […]
Continue readingGeneral 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 […]
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