Week 3 of our drivers diary takes place on Week 42 of the year. I know, it’s a bit weird how we started this so far through the year, but that’s how things go sometimes. And that ended up being the story of week 42 – “That’s how it goes sometimes“.
Because not a lot of things went as smoothly as they should have.
(sidenote – almost everything that went wrong was out of our control)
Monday 17th October 2022
The week started well. An hour into the day and there’s the first booking. Off we go. Arrived at collection and to say the security guard worked at his own pace was an understatement. It took longer to get signed in than it did to actually get loaded.
Arrive at delivery address to find out there’s now a return. Excellent! Except wait a minute, I’m stuck in a queue behind 4 artic lorries and it’s one of those places that doesn’t let vans sneak in. So go and park up and relax.
Missed out on a 3rd run because waiting to get unloaded at part 1 took so long.
Tuesday 18th October 2022
Right. Maybe Tuesday will go smoother?
Nope. Collection complete, arrive at delivery address 1 of 2. Guy points out that he has goods to go back to the collection address, can we take them? I call it in – but no answer. Call 2nd number, no answer. Use the messaging service – you guessed it… no answer.
Excecutive decision had to be made – leave the return goods and head to delivery 2 so that it didn’t run late.
Wednesday 19th October 2022
Now we’re talking! Collection booked for 7am, arrived 20 minutes early and got loaded and away, arrived at delivery in Southport 1 hour ahead of schedule. Drop complete and it’s off to that special place that makes everything better – Greggs.
Get a call for another job over near Blackburn. And that’s where the day started to fall apart. Slightly
Spent almost 30 minutes walking around a random factory trying to find the person/goods. Nobody knew anything about anything. How some companies even manage to function is beyond me at times.
Thursday 20th October 2022
Ok this has to be the day that everything goes smoothly, right? Let’s see.
First collection over in SK5 back to delivery to Trafford Park. Easy, short run except for the sat nav deciding to route me to the wrong address (actually I guess it was me tapping and missing the site I wanted).
I wait for a few minutes then think I might as well head home as it’s only up the road. Get a call just before my exit and swing right back over to Heywood.
Customer asks for an ETA, even though I have not been able to stop and find out where I’m going to. Once I do reach the destination it suddenly becomes clear that the customer didn’t even provide a company name for where I’m supposed to collect from. That might be helpful.
Final drop done and off home.
Friday 21st October 2022
Day off the road today to attend other matters.
Look out for a video version of the diary in conjunction with Couriers TV – coming soon.
