Hi there,
It’s been a
while.
Today is the
fourth of April 2020 and I continue to work at the same company but am now a
permanent employee. I was taken on last June after several years working for
them via a driver’s agency so in total I have been here for three years and
three months.
So, here’s a
brief recap of who I am.
I used to blog as the London Cabby up until 2015 and posts should still be available for you to read at http://www.londoncabby.blogspot.com
I met
someone and got married and moved out to Suffolk. I tried to drive into London
to work every day but found it tough so decided to try and find a job locally.
I signed up with various driving agencies and secured work driving 7.5-ton
trucks as far as Scotland delivering anything and everything. After several
mishaps (some of which I’ve documented in previous posts here), I decided that
van driving suited me better and after receiving an assignment for my present
company I managed to make a good impression and here I’ve remained eventually
being offered a permanent job.
We deliver Cleaning, Hygiene, Medical and
assorted other products pretty much all over the country but our small team of
drivers tend to stick to Suffolk, Norfolk, Essex with the odd journey to the
East side of London. The long-distance stuff gets sent out via carriers such as
DPD and Royal Mail.
They used to
rotate us whereby one day we’d be in Norfolk and Suffolk then the next we’d be
off to Essex and London but for the last year and a bit it seems to be me doing
Essex and London every day but I’ve now got used to it and am pretty familiar
with all the customers which include Schools and Universities, hospitals, care
homes, dentists, vets, large factories and smaller independent companies,
pretty much anyone who needs our products, even private homes.
Since this
Coronavirus Pandemic has been affecting the world, we have seen demand for our
products soar. Gloves, masks and all other types of PPE (personal protection
equipment) have been flying off the shelves. So much so that the re-supply
cannot keep up with demand which in turn means our stocks are running dangerously
low. The NHS obviously has priority for all PPE but places like care homes aren’t
being afforded similar status so they are suffering shortages of all the same
items required by the NHS to go about their daily jobs as safely as it is their
right to do.
I was at a care home in Braintree last week where they normally order
6x40 packs of toilet rolls, 10 x boxes of gloves and lots of different cleaning
products on a weekly basis and I was only able to deliver a third of their
requirement as we either didn’t have the stock or we were rationing stuff after
being told that the NHS had priority. I don’t think that’s fair.
It seems everyone’s
been caught out and now were all scrambling about trying to keep ourselves
stocked up.
This also applies to home life where just simply popping into Tesco isn’t an option at the moment. People
are having to queue up for some time, keep a safe distance from other customers
and then walk around shopping for everyday items which are no longer there such
as toilet paper, pasta, eggs and even bread. To be fair that was the case a few
weeks ago but I think all the major supermarkets have got their act together
and some sort of order has now been restored.
As a
priority worker I have managed to keep working whilst other people have been
laid off or furloughed (my son included) with 80% pay, which I wouldn’t mind
myself to be honest. Being diabetic I don’t think my body would take well to
contracting Covid 19 and however many precautions we take it can still find its
way into our bodies, so a few weeks of isolation would probably be beneficial
to me. There have been some terrible news reports of recent deaths to the
virus. People with no underlying health conditions have become victims to it,
the youngest a 13-year-old boy, absolutely shocking.
All we can do is follow
government advice and stay indoors and hopefully we’ll turn a corner and get
back to our normal lives sooner rather than later.
So, on that note
I’ll end this post and try and do another one soon.
Stay Safe.
TM
