So I’m working at a distribution depot for a courier who generally deal in large boxes. The system is very simple. Vans come into the warehouse laden with boxes. We remove the boxes from the vans and throw place them onto a conveyor belt. This leads to a large truck into which they are thrown stacked to be taken to another presumably much larger warehouse where they are distributed around the country. This takes five or six hours depending on the number of boxes. Overnight and into the morning the same procedure happens in reverse, though I have nothing to do with that.
As such there’s not much to report other than it’s something of an eye-opener seeing how parcels are treated. Or to be more accurate, the minimal levels of packaging people use for fragile items is somewhat shocking. Suffice to say you should always wrap your item with the assumption that it will be thrown a good 10 metres, potentially dropped from a reasonable height and probably stacked under a number of very heavy boxes. And to paraphrase The Incredibles, when everything is marked “Fragile”, nothing is considered fragile. And for the record, every parcel-related courier works along these lines. It’s how they get them across the country in 24-48 hours.
So anyway, I started this job on Friday and it was okay. The foreman guy asked if I wanted to come back this week and I said yes. He intimated that he wasn’t too happy with one of the other temps and it appeared that I’d stolen his job. Go me. On Monday that foreman wasn’t there but the guy who I was supposed to be replacing was. Thinking nothing of it I started work. An hour or so in the boss, who wasn’t there on Friday, looked at me for a long second and said “I don’t know you”. Turns out this whole I’m-replacing-someone thing hadn’t been communicated to him but he graciously let me finish the shift despite it taking them over their staffing budget. As you might imagine I was rather annoyed from a cash point of view but towards the end he casually told me to come in on Tuesday. As I left I jokingly asked him if he was sure and he said to come in for the rest of the week. Which I’ve been doing, along with the guy I’m not replacing anymore. I guess the budget has been increased.
Other than that piece of incompetent vagueness which is par for the course in the temping world it’s been brought home to me how unfit I’ve become over the winter. I haven’t had a real labouring job for a few months and haven’t been cycling a whole lot and, while I’m probably still fitter than most of my peers, I’m well out of practice. As the job is in Perry Barr, exactly the opposite side of the city from Bournville, I’d been getting the number 11 bus which is as tedious as ever so since it wasn’t raining I cycled in on Tuesday. 16 miles on the bike and six hours in the depot later I was a physical wreck and felt like shit this afternoon, but I think I’m getting used to it. It always surprises me how quickly the body gets out of shape – like treading water except you don’t notice you’re drowning…
you are fitter than us Pete. You look normal but in fact you are fit.
At the risk of seeming like a rail fanatic, an alternative to the no 11 might be to go into the centre and get the train to Perry barr. I don’t know how long the 11 takes but i’m always surprised at how much faster the train is than things on roads.
When I worked as a temp in Ecclesfield I was in charge of sending out baby food often to special care baby units of hospitals. Fragile would get written all over it, the courier would come and I would point out it contained glass jars with baby food in for critically ill babies. And I would then catch him throwing it in the back of his van!
Matt – thought about it but the walk to and from the stations would add a good half hour, plus they’re not that frequent of an evening (but then neither are the 11’s).
With my current system I’m door to door in about an hour, 55 minutes if I cycle.
Mikal – doesn’t matter what happens in the collection van – there’s another 3 unloading/sorting/loading points to get through and that’s where the damage happens.