I was in London today, or to be more precise Chiswick.

We deliver to a national chain of electrical retailers and to put it polite they are a fussy bunch.

Every branch has it's own particular delivery quirks.
Some shops you have to take the pallets to the door , some you have to take to a loading area, some go off the side of the truck on the street and one on London bridge goes under the shop , on the dock , up the lift in the ally and pushed up to the wall with a 6" gap between them.

This one in Chiswick was the first one to really piss me off . Most of the shop staff I have dealt with are really friendly and do their fair share of lifting and carrying.

The staff today in Chiswick were really annoying because they didn't take me on at all, they all arrived at the store at exactly 8 am , the contracted time and completely ignored the delivery truck parked directly out side the store.

I had to go in while all five of them stood around waiting for me to bring the pallets over the curb and outside the store. They are all electrical goods advisers and seem to have a very high opinion of themselves and acted as if they were above a lowly lorry driver.

Basically the geeks were having me up, and I was hating it.

I read somewhere the other day that if you have to wear a yellow vest to work , your in a crap job.
Seems about right .

Part of the contract conditions are that our office rings us and asks how delivery is gooing, are we on time ? are they on time ? any returns ? stuff like that.

My boss rang me and during the call he explained that because of the high curb in that particular loading bay, the shop staff were supposed to take the pallets off from the tailift.

Well I stood on the lift for a few minutes and they stood in the shop like a sort of face off. I went in and explained I was new and didn't know the procedure and what did they want me to do about the high curb.

They were all giggling like dicks and the leader of the nerds said that all pallets come to the come shop front.

That meant me trundling up the bus lane and over the pedestrian crossing ramp , through the bollards and up to the frontage on my own and with an Audience of Super Nerds looking like a cross between a trainspotting convention and the kids all picked last at football.

I wouldn't mind if they opened some lines of communication, but they didn't. They said nothing, no banter, no pleasentry's, nothing.

I have to take the empty pallets with me after they have done a count and these were sitting outside the shop. I was going to put them on when I noticed the geeks were mobilising again.

They were preparing the pallets for some returns, This meant I would have my other delivery's stranded on the headboard unless I pulled them all off and rearranged them.

If they had told me I had some returns I could of moved everything around while they were counting and got them to build the pallets on the truck and save us all some time.

I was already pretty pissed off by now and I had been outside this shop since 7 am, it was coming up to 10 am.

Then the geeks pulled a master "fuck you" stroke.

They rolled the shutter down on the front door while I was still shifting the pallets to make room for their returned Shit!. They hadn't signed my notes and they knew it.

I played it cool and just carried on locking up the truck and tucking the lift away, I waited a few minutes and leader Nerd came out to have a smoke and brought with him my signed notes.

I have a feeling that these delivery's are going to get me in trouble some day soon, there is only so much tongue biting you can do until you are full.

A more pleasant delivery was waiting for me up river right next to a masterpiece of design.

Not a lot more to say about today apart from these two fools dueling on the M1 on the way home , holding us all up. The Royal Mail lorry was riding commando ! ( no number plate) .


And I saw this really nice looking camper but only caught it from the back , the front revealed it to be a split screen.