Smudger Snippets
Created | Updated Jun 8, 2005
I suppose it's because I have so much time on my hands these days, that all these memories come flooding back to me.
Ability - Or Lack Of
As some of you already know from my home page on here in h2g2, one of my pet hates is incompetence. It has always annoyed for me some reason. During my working life I have come across it on a few occasions, but none so striking as the incident I am about to share with you all.
During that spell when I was self employed running my second hand furniture business, I had a van that I used to do small removals and deliveries and the like, just to earn enough to keep the van viable. I had previously done a couple of jobs for this national removal company that I used to work for who had a depot in my home town. In fact, I must admit I got on a lot better with the management of this firm as a sub contractor than I did when I was an employee. We had a really good working relationship, as they did put a fair amount of work my way just when I needed it. Times were pretty hard back then, as I had a lot of financial commitments with keeping two houses going while I was waiting for the lawyers to finalise my parents estates after they both had died only months apart. So the fact that they were passing a lot of work my way was convenient to say the least.
There were a few office staff who worked within that removal company who I never really did get along with while I was an employee there. It was not because they were office staff as much; it was that they were not really competent at the job they were being paid to do. This was well known by all the road crews who had to try and work to the impossible schedules that they gave them; it was obvious that they had never been out on a real removal to understand just how long specific parts of the job can take.
For example, on one occasion I saw our work sheet and noticed that the person making it out had allowed thirty minutes for us to get to a small village from the motorway, drop a load off and return. I went up to the office to check this out and was greeted with the usual contempt from them as I was the only one who ever dared to contradict their schedules. The person concerned took me over to a large map of Britain on the wall and pointed out that it was only two inches on the map from the motorway to the village. I, in turn, pointed out that at that scale the distance was in fact seventy miles and that it was a class B road, not the ideal road to be driving a sixteen ton lorry on. Plus the fact that it would be a hundred and forty mile round trip, not counting the time to remove the load from the lorry. So I asked him how he came to the opinion that half an hour would be enough time. He just repeated the fact that it was only two inches on the map.
So you can imagine my surprise, a few months later after I had left the firm, when I got the call to help them out once again - especially when they told me that it was the very same person that had estimated the load for this job they were giving me. Apparently he had visited the house and worked out the cubic capacity and the man hours for the job and made up the job sheet. When the crew arrived at the house, some eighty miles away up north from our town, they discovered that, even after careful packing, the lorry could not possibly take the whole load in one trip, and had phoned the office for advice.
That's where I came in. They asked me to take my van, which could carry twelve hundred cubic feet, up north to this house and pick up what was left - but it had to be done right away! So I left the office leaving their incompetent estimator feeling rather embarrassed after I had asked the manager how they managed to make such a large mistake, knowing deep down that my old friend was, indeed, involved.
When I arrived at the house the couple who were moving out that day was most upset; in fact they were in tears. I joyfully tried to cheer them up as I started to load the remaining furniture that had been left behind by the crew. When I asked them why they were so upset they took me to the garage and lifted the door. To my amazement this two-car garage was packed full with even more furniture; a lot more than my van could take anyway.
I contacted the office and informed them of this and they were totally shocked. It appeared that their boy wonder of an estimator had not even bothered to check the garage at the time of his estimating! The upshot was that they had no vehicles of any kind that could come to collect this extra load. So they asked me if I would do two trips which meant me working right through the night. My answer was not long in coming, especially when I saw the look of desperation on that poor womans' face when she heard their request. She was so looking forward to moving into their new house that day that I had no choice but to say yes. I told the office that I would carry on until the whole house was cleared, but that it would be costing them a lot more than we had previously agreed.
I wonder sometimes whatever became of that member of staff. Knowing the way that company worked he is probably a regional manager by now, having worked his way up the ladder. Well at least he kept me busy for the remaining months he was there at that depot working as an estimator.
