Thursday 8 July 2010

Mirror, Signal - Forget It




This is definitely not the best week I’ve ever had at work.  Having fallen through the pavement in Nottingham on Tuesday, I was hoping for a less stressful day on Wednesday.  It was not to be.  The morning drop was to Leicester, without doubt the most unpleasant rundown cesspit I have the misfortune to visit on a regular basis.  It’s like Kandahar without any atmosphere but slightly less chance of being shot.  Not only was I going to Kandahar, sorry, Leicester, I was also delivering to our most unpleasant customer – so that put me in a great frame of mind.

The trip passed without incident or too many arguments at the delivery end, and I returned for my second outing to Denby in Derbyshire.  This was a new customer, and the address was a farm on the Derby Road.  How hard can that be, then?

Well, bloody impossible was the answer to that.  I found the road without any problems, and went up and down four times looking for a likely looking farm.  Nothing.  My map and satnav confirmed I was in the right area, and allowing a mile each side narrowed down the search area.  Oh well, if in doubt – phone up.  Yes, you’re way ahead of me.  Landline on voicemail and mobile switched off.  Rang base to try and find it on Google Earth, but no joy.  Park up and have a coffee until somebody wakes up.  After 15 minutes base rang to say that the customer had called asking where his cars where.  You can guess how I responded.  The result, after my tirade of abuse, was that the customer would stand at the end of the track whilst I drove up through Denby and guide me in.

So I spun the truck around again and headed north.  Sure enough, I found my customer at the end of a track, although it was so overgrown I thought it was an allotment.  The customer gazed at the transporter in astonishment.  “Oh, you’ll never get that up the track,” he said.  “Tell you what – there’s an industrial estate down the road, if you unload there I can drive them up.”

How I didn’t run him over there and then I don’t know.  If he’d simply said that in the first place I could have been on my way back home.  And what did he expect five cars to be delivered on: a skateboard?  However, I was so glad to finally get rid of the cars that I went to the estate and tipped them, and even sorted out the non-running Porsche with a towrope and dragged it down the track for him.  Did I get a nice drink for all my trouble and courtesy?  Did I bollocks.

I enquired about the address being a farm.  “Oh, it used to be a farm, years ago,” he replied.  That is the sort of answer you only expect to hear in Spalding.

Thursday had to better after all that.  Yeah, right.  

I was taking an artic up to Scarborough to collect four cars, returning via Goole to add another five.  Despite the caravans, tractors, mobility scooters and accidents I made reasonable time to my first port of call, where the salesman asked if I could take six cars instead of four.  “Too right,” I replied – in my eyes six made a load and meant that I didn’t have to go to Goole to top up.  I mean, pointless going all that way off my route to pick up three and still have to leave two behind.  Yes, you’re right – any excuse.  But it’s not like I’m on bonus or anything, so those that are can go and get them as far as I’m concerned.

Leaving Scarborough I noticed that the driver’s side indicator lamp on the dash wasn’t working.  On Merc trucks, this is usually a warning to say that one of the exterior bulbs is out, so I pulled over to find out which one.  Easy answer – all of them.  I had all my left hand flashers but no right hand whatsoever, or hazards come to that.  Fortunately I could get from Scarborough to base with only a couple of right turns provided I didn’t overtake or break down.

A quick look round the obvious electrical items didn’t reveal anything out of the ordinary, and a call to a regular Actros driver confirmed that this was something that had happened before and wasn’t a roadside fix.  I asked if there was anything temporary that could be set up to get home.  “Yes, dead easy,” came the reply.  “Rip off the Merc badge and stick an Audi badge in its place.  That way no bugger will ever expect you to signal anyway!”

And you know what – it worked.  Wonder what disasters will befall me on Friday, then.  Can’t wait …

To avoid making any right turns I took a short cut ...

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