Multi-drop headache

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

I loved that picture of the UPS van and it brought back many good memories of United Carriers. The Hull 1, York 1 and Doncaster 1 Vans went out with anything up to 120 drops. (And got them all off) :stuck_out_tongue:

Kev Challenger who has posted some pictures on these forums will testify his Dad regularly did that every day and I think he is still as fit as a fiddle 30 years later. (unlike me) :blush:

My original runs of Lincoln 2, Bridlington and Skipton were much easier but eventually I was given Hull 1.

Organisation was the secret, 20 minutes drinking free tea in the canteen after clocking off, checking with other drivers or better still the old drivers mates. I speak to a lad on Facebook now and he still remembers York and Hull addresses from that long ago and he couldn’t even drive a car. The best job I ever had probably.

22

mulitdrop is 1 of those jobs you either get on with easily or dont…and you need big balls as well…When i was doing agency multidrop over christmas when you see the drop its on with hazrads and out as quick as that and you just have to think to yourself stuff anyone behind me…and you soon learn to fold in drivers mirror every time you get out and never drop the parcel/item anywhere further than the front door step any arguments and it goes back on the van/truck…Btw was doing 50 to 70 drops a day in a 7.5 tonne round colchestor town centre and surrounding villages…I consider it to be very easy but as someone has said you need to know a area and make it very clear to the transport manager on the 1st day…
And yes I have left a truck in central cambridge after having a bust up about how drops i hadnt done and why i didnt deliver such and such parcel as they wanted it in there room all unpacked and working.

23

i think it pays you to do multi drops now and then as you keep up to speed with the new drops, its not so bad when you get 2 new drops and 8 you know, lot worse when you havent done them and someone doesnt turn up and you get the run with 10 you dont know.
i think you have to be carefull doing the drops in the order that suits you and makes sense,if it goes o.k they love you, but if it goes ■■■■ up[you get stuck in que somewhere], they soon start to look for scapegoats ,and at our place if you havent worked to run sheet your in big trouble,no matter if it makes more sense not too

24

I started on multidrop for a laundry in London, ok so it wasn’t parcels, but it was still all sorts of pubs/cafe’s/restaurants/hotels. Up 3 flights of stairs, down in basements, different lifts to take, a maze of corridors, it all had to go in a specific place. And dirty collections to drag out of the same place, the bags were often stinking or soaked through with grease and scum. Started in LWB sprinters, then onto 7.5t, nothing bigger than that would get where you needed to get it, especially in the West End and ‘City of London’ square mile proper.

Up to 30 drops a day on some runs probably. The guys who kept the same runs, knew it backwards down to the minute, and some were parked up at midday after a 7am start. As a relief driver, if I was on their run for the first time, it would take me till probably gone 5pm. It is only easy if you know where you are going. Especially in a city.

As with any multidrop company, we had a fair bit of sickness, so agency drivers coming in were common. Fair play to most of them, they came and gave it a good crack, some even got the whole lot knocked out and came back the following day for more punishment.

It wasn’t unusual, though, for them to bring half of it back undelivered, if not more. I remember one guy who came to us, we got him all loaded up on the loading bay, going through the drops with him as we did it. He pulled out, parked up across the road, frantic A-Z shuffling. Pulled out again, went round the block and came back. Threw the keys and said “I can’t cope with this”. I had to feel for the guy, as I knew exactly where he was coming from.

It is massively stressful if you let it become so, and not everyone is cut out for it. I had days where I just wanted to jack it in, 30 degrees outside, London traffic, really late, and you have just missed that turning into Soho for the second time and face a long loop round again to get back to it.

It was probably some of the most valuable experience in terms of getting into somewhere tight, map reading, knowing what a certain address will look like. I.e. looking for the loading area if applicable, rather than the shop front. I’ve legged it through shopping malls before now, with bags of laundry and gone in through the customers entrances, as I haven’t had a clue that the whole complex had an underground loading area. :laughing:

Having done other things since, it wouldn’t be my first choice of work, just for blood pressure alone, but i’m glad to have an idea of what it involves.

25

ady1:
,and at our place if you havent worked to run sheet your in big trouble,no matter if it makes more sense not too

When I was at Switch I did whatever run they chose to give me in the order that it appeared on the run sheet!!!
However I did that on my last day and my first drop was in Frimley, second in Aldershot, the third in Farnham, all within 15/20 minutes of each other but it went rapidly downhill after that as the fourth drop was in Midhurst an hours drive from Farnham, then after Midhurst it was another hours drive to the fifth drop at the salad depot in Alresford, then another hour to the sixth drop in Romsey then another hour to the seventh drop but needless to say, the truck was still half loaded when I got back to the yard… :wink:

26

WildGoose:
I started on multidrop for a laundry in London

My first Scottish job was also sprinter laundry multidrop. The folks in the company were really great, they knew that as a fresh guy in Scotland I really fancy sightseeing, unlike their own drivers who were willing to come back ASAP. So I was given the longest run. They made things straight:
You have 12 hours to do the job, you have full tank of fuel, we don’t care about anything as long as job is done and you are back in time. They also gave me van to take it home overnight if I was working for them two days in a row (I usually worked 4 days per week for them).

My first run (before they said it’s 12 hours) took me 15 hours, but they still were impressed, as some Scottish guy who did it before me came back after 21 hours :open_mouth:

Later they made 12 hours deal, and as I was going to know the places I was able to do it in about 8 hours, so then I was sighseeing, lying on the beach near Seahouses or whatever. That was really great job (I was doing a run through Scottish Borders to Nothumberland (as far as to Morpeth) and then up the coast, a big into the hills again and my last drop was usually in Dunbar…), mostly small B&B’s but some hotel drops were madness… Up the fire stairs to the attic… And some of these hampers can be heavy…

27

I went to help a mate out who was a subbie for TNT, he had 15 runs using sprinters and 7.5 tonners. I had to learn all the runs to cover holidays and blobbers. At the time we did all of York, Thirsk, Knaresborough, Weatherby, Pontefract doing around 50 to 60 drops and 20 collections. I got to where i could confidently do any run then they decided to swop areas with another depot. I then had to learn Hull and its surrounding areas, Beverley, Market Weigton etc which was 1 hour away from the depot before you could get your 1st drop off. I found the rural runs much easier than the town centre runs. I used to take new drivers out to show them there run and we would be parked up finished at dinnertime, i used to say its a nightmare at first but after a week it starts to fall into place. Some just couldnt hack it , others took to the job straightaway. I probably do 10 plus drops a day with an artic now, most of the drops are repetetive so its hell of a lot easier. You just need to take a little time to plan your day , learn which ones you can tip at anytime and the ones who will leave you sat an hour because you are early even though you only have 1 pallet for them and there isnt another truck in sight

28

152 drops for 3 different carriers in a sprinter van on the last working day before xmas and it wasnt my normal run! An easy day on that firm was 15 drops in an artic. It all depends on how close the drops are and how well you know the area. Bear also in mind that its a lot harder to find a place to turn an artic round than a rigid try it in Central London sometime :open_mouth: :confused: :wink:

29

I’d agree with other posters, you can either do multi-drop or you can’t.

Never did Brakes but spent a couple of years with UPS Logistics (formerly Haulfast) on their Health Stores Wholesale contract out of Nottingham. Similar sort of thing only lentils instead of burgers. Agency drivers always struggled with it because half the job is knowing what goes where at every customer’s premises and that takes more than one trip to learn.

I did a lot of parcels work in my agency days, Courier Express (which became Parceline) in Nottingham was a regular job. Also did some years driving for Nightfreight out of their Southwell depot; formerly Rainbows carriers, it was an old-fashioned parcels firm where they still had a few experienced drivers’ mates, a rare luxury these days. Learned a lot there. My worst baptism of fire was the first time I did Derby for Palmer & Harvey, just after I left the army. As Wheelnut and others will testify it’s a pig of a place to find your way round, even with an A to Z, and predictably I brought a few drops back. Feared the worst, but the gaffer was a decent bloke and admitted he hadn’t expected me to finish the round.

My advice to anyone given a job doing an unfamiliar round; be honest with the company, if you don’t know the town, city or area say so before you leave the depot. Having run a parcels depot I can testify that there’s nothing more calculated to ■■■■ a TM off than a driver who goes out, says nowt and brings half the load back without a satisfactory explanation never mind an apology. There’s no shame in asking, by and large you’ll be better thought of for it.

And to Class 1 “drivers” who think such work is beneath them; all those van drivers are keeping your idle arse sat in that trunker every night, so give a bit of respect where it’s due! As the old saying goes, if you can’t stand the heat… :wink:

30

Think you’ve hit the nail on the head there guys, I’m one of the people who doesn’t get on with it at all. 12 hrs to do 6 drops today and the temp probe I was given said 39c in the cab. Saturday was even hotter but 2 drops in 15hrs! Admitidly that was a farce, Grantham to tamworth to load then one drop in hull and one in Redcar! Then rush back and hope I made it before I ran out of hours. What a rubbish day!

I know not all class 1 work is trunking and similar but I can’t help but hope.

31

Grayham:
Time and experience is what you need mate, had a stint at Palmer and Harveys a few years back, went out with a guy who had been doing London for 7 years and knew all the shortcuts, nooks and crannys.

I was always told if you wanted to find the fastest way out of London, follow a National Express coach! :laughing:

32

i used to like multidrop, then i got a bit sick of it.

worked for most parcel companies

Home delivery network was probably the hardest one i did though, run up to xmas i was roughly doing 200 drops a day…but i was paid by the parcel so the more we did the better our wage., was commonplace to make 6/700 a week, anything 100 or below was classed as an easy day, 200 drops leave the depot at 10am, be back in the depot for 4pm. my record for the most deliveried in one hour was 95 drops…but thats the type of job where you dont know what a seatbelt is, and also brakes…

nowadays i find 40 drops hardgoing, never really done multi drop in an artic, i mean 4/5 drops with 3 collections on the way back is easy enough for me

33

gogzy:
i used to like multidrop, then i got a bit sick of it.

worked for most parcel companies

Home delivery network was probably the hardest one i did though, run up to xmas i was roughly doing 200 drops a day.

:open_mouth: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

Don’t tell me I bet that job ended up on the job centre’s list of multi drop jobs waiting for the next mug who’d also get ‘a bit sick of it’ within a couple of days.

34

Walked out on a job today, got there, 6 drops around Yorkshire, around 20 pages of product for handball at these drops…

Delivery instructions consisted of, use the lift, up stairs through fire escape etc…

Keys in, tacho out, gone.

35

I love multidropping. Cut my teeth with Business Post, Fastrack Parcels then ANC, working up to a daily average of about 120 drops, 20 collections, in 7.5t.

I probably average about 15 drops a day now, and around 200-250 miles daily. Easy life. :grimacing:

36

waynedl:
Walked out on a job today, got there, 6 drops around Yorkshire, around 20 pages of product for handball at these drops…

Delivery instructions consisted of, use the lift, up stairs through fire escape etc…

Keys in, tacho out, gone.

I had a pallet today, delivered to home.

It was a big letter saying “Dear driver, please call the customer when you will be one hour away. On the arrival please take the pallet up the drive, but only on small bricks, do not drive pallet truck on the tiles, as you might damage them, then please unpack it and handball it into the customer house, and then please take pallets and rubbish away. THIS HAS TO BE DONE THAT WAY and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES RUBBISH SHOULD BE LEFT AT CUSTOMER PREMISES”.

Came to place, lady off course expected me to follow all the rules and to handball full palet of bloody heavy boxes into her living room. I told her “Pallet on your driveway, job done, I am sorry”. She said “But there is a letter saying what you should do”. “I am sorry, lady, but I know what I should do, and what I should do is what the company is paid for”. “But this letter says something different”. I took my pen and added on the letter “On arrival, customer should dance the full Swan Lake ballet for the driver” and then asked again “Would you sign, or you want me to take it back?” She started to laugh, then asked: “So it’s impossible to have it delivered my way?” asked she. “Off course is possible” - I answered - “but as everything else, such service has to be paid for”. “Well, I see” said she, smiling and signing the paper “Ok, then, I know it’s not your fault of bad will, thank you anyway”.

That’s what fun, but also nice one. I like it :slight_smile:

37

are these drops regular or do they change all the time i would try to save as many places on the old sat nav to help but i guess this wouldnt be pratical if the routes and shops are always changed, i also do multidrop but with a drivers mate and a well planed (so they say) run list its not to bad when you get a routine but i guess brakes deliver to alot more shops and places than my company :stuck_out_tongue:

38

SI_A:
are these drops regular or do they change all the time i would try to save as many places on the old sat nav to help but i guess this wouldnt be pratical if the routes and shops are always changed, i also do multidrop but with a drivers mate and a well planed (so they say) run list its not to bad when you get a routine but i guess brakes deliver to alot more shops and places than my company :stuck_out_tongue:

I would advise always saving actual loading bays into your sat nav… Use POI’s, not favourites… Create a POI catagory for any firm you work for (brakes, 3663, stobarts etc) then when you find the loading bay of abc of widnes, save it under POI catagory Brakes, POI name abc … or whatever (the widnes part you’ll find is unness as you’ll do a “find poi near city widnes - abc”…)

Problem comes when you’ve gotta number your own loads, if you don’t know the best order, can’t be using the sat nav then really. Map time

39

orys:

waynedl:
Walked out on a job today, got there, 6 drops around Yorkshire, around 20 pages of product for handball at these drops…

Delivery instructions consisted of, use the lift, up stairs through fire escape etc…

Keys in, tacho out, gone.

I had a pallet today, delivered to home.

It was a big letter saying “Dear driver, please call the customer when you will be one hour away. On the arrival please take the pallet up the drive, but only on small bricks, do not drive pallet truck on the tiles, as you might damage them, then please unpack it and handball it into the customer house, and then please take pallets and rubbish away. THIS HAS TO BE DONE THAT WAY and UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES RUBBISH SHOULD BE LEFT AT CUSTOMER PREMISES”.

Came to place, lady off course expected me to follow all the rules and to handball full palet of bloody heavy boxes into her living room. I told her “Pallet on your driveway, job done, I am sorry”. She said “But there is a letter saying what you should do”. “I am sorry, lady, but I know what I should do, and what I should do is what the company is paid for”. “But this letter says something different”. I took my pen and added on the letter “On arrival, customer should dance the full Swan Lake ballet for the driver” and then asked again “Would you sign, or you want me to take it back?” She started to laugh, then asked: “So it’s impossible to have it delivered my way?” asked she. “Off course is possible” - I answered - “but as everything else, such service has to be paid for”. “Well, I see” said she, smiling and signing the paper “Ok, then, I know it’s not your fault of bad will, thank you anyway”.

That’s what fun, but also nice one. I like it :slight_smile:

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: orys it looks like what’s left of the British ‘road transport industry’ has given you that Brit sense of humour because as we say if you did’nt laugh you’d cry.If I was you I’d get my class 1 and get back home where there’s more chance of doing the job as it should be done.

40

Olly650:
I love multidropping.

That’s the proof that doing multi drop can actually cause zb brain damage and most multi drop drivers are permanently affected by doing it for long periods of time. :open_mouth: :open_mouth: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: :laughing: