Multi Drop

About ten years ago I was working in a distribution warehouse and discussing the rise of the internet. I made the sweeping statement that town centres were doomed because of the rise of out of town shopping centres and the internet. I went as far as to say that one day we would either be warehousemen or white van men. Either picking and packing, or delivering goods ordered over the net.
Nothing I've seen has changed my view. You can go shopping at Iceland and they will deliver your shopping for you. You don't even have to go to Tesco or Sainsbury's, just click on the website.
After I left the retail sector following redundancy about fifteen years ago I've done all manner of jobs including warehouse/distribution and multi-drop deliveries. Yes I've been a white van man. And a white 7 1/2 ton lorry man.
I drove a C15 fridge van around East Anglia for a meat products firm. My round extended from Peterborough in the north to Clacton in the south, from Ipswich in the east to Hitchin in the west. In the eighteen months or so that I worked there I averaged 2000 miles a week and went around the clock at least once. I wore out several sets of tyres and broke down and had to be towed home a few times as well.
I must have driven along every road between the A14 and the A12 looking for a way past traffic jams and making up time. Every customer wanted his goods first thing and you can't be in Peterborough, Cambridge and Colchester at the same time.

Another time I drove a 7 1/2 ton lorry delivering goods to schools in Northamptonshire and Oxfordshire. There were always too many deliveries and I'd always run out of time and have to bring some back. I was working for an agency so I'd only get an odd day here or there and I never ever went to the same school twice. I recall driving through rural Oxfordshire full pelt, trying to make up time, with my map on my knee and trying to get to the other side of the valley. I turned down a country lane that appeared to connect the two roads only to find it narrowing at the bottom and with no way to turn around. I decided to continue and forced my way through the trees overhanging the road. The sides of the lorry were quite scratched and there was branches and foliage all over the road.
Another time I managed to spill a tin of emulsion paint all over the floor of the van. What a mess. I talked my way out of that when I got back to the depot.
I wasn't so lucky a few weeks later when, as I drove past some roadworks, a digger suddenly turned and caught my wing mirror with its shovel, shattering the glass.
I took the van back and explained that it was a genuine accident.
I don't think they believed me because I wasn't asked back.

Another time I worked in a distribution centre unloading the night time trunkers. You've seen the vans driving around the place delivering catalogue goods. Back then they were festooned with three flying ducks along the side.
We worked from about 9.00 until 6 or 7 in the morning. A trunker would pull up and back up to the loading bay. The tractor would detatch the trailer, hook up to an empty trailer and go back to the hub. He'd return later with another full trailer, unhook and take the by now empty trailer away. And return a couple of hours later with a third.
The back of the lorry would be opened and the goods would cascade out all over the floor. The constant motion of the journey put paid to any stacking of the goods. It looked as though the trailer had been loaded by a hopper chute through the roof.
Our job was to take each item, look at the delivery label and place the item by the back doors of the delivery vans, anything up to 40 of them. There were all kinds of items from clothing to hoovers and garden tools, in fact anything you could order from a catalogue. Our small team worked away and eventually emptied the trailer. Then we had a short break and started on the next one which had just arrived. It was all go and we earned our money.
It was still preferable to driving the delivery vans. Each driver was expected to deliver 60 or more items to household addresses often miles from the depot. If there was no-one home he had to go back later and try and deliver it and get a signature.
I worked as a driver's mate delivering large bulky items that couldn't be handled by one person. That wasn't too bad as the drops were well spaced out and there weren't as many, but I always declined any offers to work on the delivery vans.
That was a hiding to nothing.