handballing

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

Many years ago the firm I worked for did farm deliveries chemical, animal feed & fertilizer. You would get to the farm just as the dust cloud from the tractors disappeared up the fields when they saw you coming. Anyway you would get a note on a trailer put so & so on here & so & so over there which I did but I cant stack things very well :wink: so when they came back a bit of sorting had to be done. Now days I dont do any but I like now & again to push some pallets on just to keep my hand in also to stop me getting fat. :smiley:

22

Rob K:

alan:
The biggest zb take how ever was Frigoscandia at Kings Lynn when I was off hiring a trailer, having about 40 blue pallets in the back I asked if they wanted to keep them, they said a very big thank you & directed me over the yard, forkie arrives with a pump truck & said OK, yes fine mate I said if you think I am unloading them for free you’ve got a problem, he phoned his manager who said I had to unload it, I said fine they are worth £3 per pallet it will cost you £1 per pallet to unload them, now get your zbing self over here with the cash or lose them. Forkie was not a happy chap that day.

Think you’ll find the Chep’s are worth 5 times that amount actually :exclamation: :slight_smile:

Any “lost” cheps are billed at £15-00 per throw to the customer. Strange how my ex gaffer burnt eighty of them because they’d been sat in his yard for over two years with no contact from chep. Guess who 'phoned the following day? Yep. Chep :laughing: :smiley: .

23

I am perfectly happy to assist in helping customers off load their goods providing there is a cup of coffee available( or cold drink in hot weather!) and the goods are not too heavy but i never leave my wagon un attended unless its locked up.i stand on the back of the wagon and hand over the goods to the receivers. Anything weighing more than half a bag of spuds and i dont touch it. In one of my other jobs i was expected to hand ball as necessary and i could be at a location for an hour or more so i didn`t last long there!!

24

I have had a lot of handballing jobs over the years, and to be fair I dont mind normally. It all depends on the attitude of the goods in bloke and his manager.

If he tells me, I am expected to tip it, I dont, if he asks me I will help!

However, I slipped up badly once, I loaded dried prunes from Yugoslavia for Montrose. I got up to Scotland on Friday Morning and went into the factory. They weren’t expecting me till Monday or Tuesday, so I could either help the manager and one fork truck driver or wait till Monday morning.!

I offered to help and the boss said he would sort me out! for helping :stuck_out_tongue: ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁ

Anybody want to buy 3 sacks of dried prunes? :stuck_out_tongue:

25

sounds like he gave you the RUN around

26

I always thought you were a regular sort of bloke Wheel Nut, :laughing: :laughing:

27

I had a back breaker of a job in the van today. Pick up a 3 kg box of dry ice containing a specimen from Birmingham Airport and deliver it to Leicester University :smiley: Mind you it took 45 minutes to get it out of the airport cargo shed due to their super efficient new computer system which will only allow the forkies to process freight in the order of arrival - guess who got there and found 3 artics, 2 rigids, 2 sprinters and 3 indians in their cars all waiting…

Things only improved when they stopped using the system and went back to using the old methods!

Aah computers - there to make life easier :frowning: :frowning:

Calv

28

I offered to help and the boss said he would sort me out! for helping ÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁÂŁ

Anybody want to buy 3 sacks of dried prunes?

FPMSL. :laughing: :laughing:

Ken.

29

DHL who run the Dixons contract in Newark make their drivers handball to the back of the trucks sometimes there is NO pallet truck and NO trolley so they have to carry T.V.,s ,fridge,s ,freezer,s and other heavy electrical items all the way to the back of the truck (ever wonder why you buy stuff with big bootholes in it) , also when you deliver to their L…D.C.,s you have to get the stuff lined up for the clamp truck sometimes double or treble stacked and they wont come on the back of the truck to help you claiming its an insurance issue.

30

Rikki-UK:
I too am banned for life from LIDL’s and Netto’s :wink: :blush: :blush:

a number of years ago I was on for a large" Quality Distribution Nationwide" company

I was informed that I had to unload at LIDL’s,On arriving I found the pallets were well over a tonne, and it was self tip and I there was no way I was pulling them of with a pallet truck.

I initially refused to use their electric trucks as I had recieved NO training… Howvever after the usual phone calls I was told by the boss in no uncertain terms to use the electric truck, just “Be Carefull and dont damage anything”

To ensure that I followed the “be Carefull” comment I dutifully loosened the straps on the tautliner(Too avoid catching the curtainsand ripping them).

Just before entering the trailer I dutifully looked down the side of the trailer to ensure that if any loose boxes fell they wouldn’t drop on anyone, then by total accident my finger slipped and the expensive electric pallet truck shot off the side of the trailer, not hindered by the loose curtains and plummetted to the floor. :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth: Much form filling later :unamused: :unamused: :unamused: LIDL’s found someone who knew how to operate the Electric truck to unload, on leaving I was given a letter informing me that I was banned from ALL LIDL RDC’s for life.

The strange thing is that a few weeks later I had an Identical accident at a NETTO RDC :unamused: :unamused: … and for some strange reason they also felt the need not to ask me back ever again :cry:

So they join the list of places I am not welcome :frowning: :frowning: :frowning: can you tell I am heartbroken at the thought of never being allowed back on their premises :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :open_mouth:

i see we do have one thing in common then rikki ? i too have been banned from lidl and netto for the said same thing refusel to tip the trailer,when employed as a driver that is what i do best not as wharehouse staff ! i for one will not rob another person of a job,his needs are greater than mine !!

31

I turn up at a drop today. Artics are queing out the gate and down the road (at least 2 hrs to get on a bay). I roar down the frozen foods lane.

To office staff:

“Hi Jules, 11 pallets for you, I’ll pull 'em off.”

“Bay eight luvvie.”

“Thanks duck.”

1/2 hour later paper work done and kipping in laybye for an hour. (Well I’ll use the saved time appropriatley. :wink: "

32

Liberace:
I turn up at a drop today. Artics are queing out the gate and down the road (at least 2 hrs to get on a bay). I roar down the frozen foods lane.

To office staff:

“Hi Jules, 11 pallets for you, I’ll pull 'em off.”

“Bay eight luvvie.”

“Thanks duck.”

1/2 hour later paper work done and kipping in laybye for an hour. (Well I’ll use the saved time appropriatley. :wink: "

What was Jules having to duck for :question:

33

What was Jules having to duck for

FPMSL again. :laughing: :laughing:

Ken.

34

Ahhhhh, container drivers rule O.K. :sunglasses:
Its your load, you unload it, Oh, and by the way, you’ve got three hours to do it. :smiley:

35

We do a lot of produce … potatoes, bananas etc etc. Especially the new spuds from Jersey. One of our “mightier than thou” drivers who thinks he is the best ever took 22 one tonne bags to HL at Wisbech. Now they ain’t bad boys there but the bags have to be pumped to the back of the trailer ( they are on pallets)… he phoned the Boss and the conversation went something like…
DVR: I will have to bring this load back
BOSS: Whys that, Wally?? Whats the problem??
DVR: They want me to use a pump truck!
BOSS: Yea, everyone does there. They don’t have a ramp
DVR: Well, I don’t know how to use one!!!
BOSS: WOT■■?
DVR: Well, I seen one used but I haven’t ever been trained in how to use one!
BOSS:Wally, get those %&$^%)^%& potatoes off now and stop sodding about
DVR: I am serious, I have never used one!!
BOSS: Wally, if you come back with those potatoes, you’re sacked!!

PMSL needless to say, he learnt how to use a pump truck pretty quick

36

Rob K:

Liberace:
I turn up at a drop today. Artics are queing out the gate and down the road (at least 2 hrs to get on a bay). I roar down the frozen foods lane.

To office staff:

“Hi Jules, 11 pallets for you, I’ll pull 'em off.”

“Bay eight luvvie.”

“Thanks duck.”

1/2 hour later paper work done and kipping in laybye for an hour. (Well I’ll use the saved time appropriatley. :wink: "

Use your imagination :wink: .
What was Jules having to duck for :question:

37

Q jumpers all the same ! then [zb] in a layby

Bit TOO ambiguous, that…L. :wink:

38

they employing waterfowl in goods inwards now.

makea a change from monkeys :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

39

oddsodz:
Q jumpers all the same ! then [zb] in a layby

Yep, and :open_mouth: ?

40

Back in 1989, I had the worst handball load ever. It was about 45,000lb of coffee, in cans, on slip-sheets, no pallets. It was august, and it delivered to a food warehouse in Houston, TX.

Now, if you’ve never been to Houston, let me tell you, it gets hot. It was 96F that day with about 90% humidity. You couldn’t even see 1 mile due to the thick, soupy air.

There wasn’t a single “lumper” (our term for casual unloders) at this dock on that day. I spent 5 hours on my knees loading those {expletive} pallets that day.