I'm Cooking - 23/08/2025

Saturday 23rd August 2025 and I'm cooking!

Week 18 has just ended with the company I've been temping at.

My assignment with them has come to a close.

They offered me a permanent role a couple of times but I refused.

I didn't mind helping them out while they were in a bind, but making that job a permanent fixture is not what I am after.

There are only a couple of reasons why.

One is the wage.

They were offering in the region of £29,000 the first time I worked there back in 2023.

That's no good to me.

Really, it's not that much worse than CCF who paid me a basic rate of £31,581.

I picked up overtime with CCF, and they paid driver bonuses as well as a bonus for bringing empty pallets back to the depot.

It was quite easy to attain £35,000 with consistent bonus grabbing.

This company offered no such incentives.

When I first worked there there were three drivers and the workload was a bit more fairly distributed.

Many days I finished my run early and was able to spend time washing my allocated truck.

That was the time the salary may have been worth it, because the workload was less.

As they have reduced the driver team by one, the work was divided across two drivers.

I felt like I was doing the lions share most of the time because the other drivers were consistently back to branch before I was.

That said, I liked to have a chat with the customers, ask how the project is going, if it was on schedule or over budget, just shoot the shit really.

It built rapport.

I didn't get much of a chance to do this while at CCF, but when the chance arose I also had a chat with the customers.

It's good to be remembered.

So the wage and incentives are one issue.

The new warehouse lads were a pain in my ass to be honest.

Loading a vehicle like this is concerning.

There is absolutely no reason to have a pack of plasterboards that weigh almost two tonnes straddling a gap like that and in that position away from the headboard.

Especially not when the other side of the vehicle is loaded like this.

Since I worked at CCF I gradually became anal about strapping a load because this is what they instil in their drivers.

This load would never have left the yard at CCF.

I had to get to work early the next day to change this since the forklift driver "preferred it that way."

It's not hard to pyramid three full packs of standard 2.4m boards at the front, and three packs of 2.7m boards behind them.

Ideally I'd have spring lashed the pyramid at the back, but I didn't have any straps.

Since management think they know everything, each wagon is not really equipped with everything it needs.

I asked about short straps and the answer I was hoping for was "no we don't have them but I will order some." Instead I think I got a "No" or "Ask the other driver."

The warehouse guys are terrible at loading.

Why would they think stacking metal on metal without friction mats, or at the very least banding all of the stack together, would be safe?

I did those straps up mega tight, but because they continually failed to butt stacks of metal up against each other (back to back) there was always room for them to slide then collapse into the gap down the back between stacks.

I got tired of telling them.

I wasn't driving this, and I class this as poor loading.

I had to help the guy secure his metal otherwise it would have speared in one direction or another

Here's another one of my loads.

Absolutely silly.

The four stacks at the back, despite having three straps over, moved in transit because they were not banded to the bearers and were not butted up against the stack behind.

No matter how tight I did the straps, as soon as the stack slip closer together the straps will become loose while I am driving then the straps are essentially doing nothing

The stack in the picture has moved many inches, bashed into the stack behind it and pushed that metal partially off it's bearers.

This is the stack on the other side.

It could easily be avoided.

This is another shitty load

The tall stacks of insulation should have been at the headboard.

There was plenty of room to position the four stacks back to back (two per side) then have the heavier stuff at the back.

This is what a proper load looks like.

Under strapped and spring lashed

This is how metal should be picked and prepared for transport; it's banded to a pallet with packers.

The teller stack of metal is strapped independently to the shorter stack next to it by placing the hooked straps under the shorter pallet.

Not only that, the boards towards the back are also under strapped and spring lashed.

That truck can to a back flip and the load isn't moving.

The way the other guys have been loading, the truck cannot get around a corner without the load shifting.

This is reason number two I cannot work at that company with those guys.

They believe they are doing a spectacular job.

I'll leave them to it.

The best bit for me was having an assigned truck and being able to keep it clean, mostly inside.

I was washing the cab exterior every morning but the warehouse guys kept emptying my bucket of water that I left out of an afternoon, or making a right mess of the water fed brush.

They thought it were funny.

In the end, I stopped washing it and only cleaned the outside windows with diluted isopropyl and a disposable cloth.

They can carry on with their childishness if they please.

The amount of times they picked the wrong order or missed items that should've been loaded was ridiculous.

I eventually stopped covering for them and pointing out that stuff was missing,

Instead I opted to deliver what I had then encourage the customer to complain.

I found it hard to fathom why the warehouse supe on probation would find time to wash his car during the day but not have time to double check the picks to ensure the right products are ready to go out the gate.

I could moan about aspects of my job and people involved in it for a while longer.

It boils down to the team not being right for what I thought the business was trying to achieve.

I know that when the other two experienced warehouse lads resigned their positions, the company was backed into a corner.

They ended up picking the best of a bad bunch.

Reflecting has really brought home what I left behind at CCF.

CCF was really good in contrast to NDI even though CCF had a few issues of its own.

If I could play this hand again, I'd stick with CCF for sure.

But all in all I am glad I no longer work at either company.

It's time to advance away from being a Class 2 moffett driver.

This is my golden opportunity to train and advance to ADR.

CCF has taught me quite a lot about load safety, and fusing this with ADR could help me fulfil a new role transporting dangerous goods safely.

Once I pass ADR, it is highly unlikely I will work for the company I have just left a third time.

The truck I kept clean inside will become filthy again. 

I will probably have to accept that a pair of clowns will be loading my vehicle.

I won't be earning the £21/hr that I am now looking to be earning to help me meet my 5 year plan goals.

I could drive nights not doing ADR work but I am not interested in night work.

If a trunking day role came about that paid around £19.50/hr I'd consider it.

But I think I can score a £21/hr role driving the same size vehicle I currently drive without needing to branch off into using my Class 1 entitlement.

Final word.

I miss this electric truck.

Some might call me a pioneer while I was thrashing the shit out of this 100% electric truck around town for the best part of 16 months.

When empty it was faster off the mark than most cars on the road - or should I say it was faster than most drivers expected it to be.

When people would pull up next to me at the lights thinking they can pull off then cut in front of me, 95% of the time I left them in my dust struggling to cut back in in my wing mirror.

Instant power was an understatement and it left most people gobsmacked that a vehicle so big could move so fast.

Only real racing drivers (lol) could get ahead.

Loved it!! Miss it. I hope whoever jumped into it next has not crashed it and has kept it as clean as I did - I love a clean truck!