Fork Lift trucks

I first used a fork lift truck back in the 70s when I worked on the night shift at Tesco. I had no training or elfin safety in the use of the reach truck. my options were simple. I needed a pallet from the top of the racking and there was no-one else to get it down but me. I'd watched a few people use the machine so I worked out what each lever and pedal did, and then jumped on. It was a hair-raising experience, and I guess it stayed the same even when, many years later I'd taken my test and was passed fit to be allowed loose on one.
There are a number of different types of forklift but the two main types are reach and counterbalance. For the scientifically minded a folk lift truck is a lever, (just as a shovel is)and if you try and lift too heavy a weight, or put the weight too far in front of you, the truck will lose stability. It also helps to have good eyesight and co-ordination, as I found out quite quickly.
A reach truck has a long wheel base with the front legs positioned in front of the forks and to either side. My truck had a single steering/driving wheel beneath the driver's seat, which makes it quite manoevrable, as it can turn almost in its own wheelbase length. It's very stable but not as fast as a counterbalance truck, which relies on a solid ballast weight at the rear of the truck to counter the weight of the object carried. You can always tell if the truck is overloaded as the driving wheels come off the ground and it becomes a seesaw.
One evening I was taking a pallet of coffee from the top deck of the racking and failed to notice a supporting cable between the rack and the roof. I drew the pallet out, reversed the truck and very neatly skimmed the top layer of coffee jars off the pallet and crashing down around my ears. This creates a dilemma. Do I sit tight and be covered in coffee powder and broken glass or do I get off the truck and risk being hit by full cases?
As I grew in confidence (albeit not much confidence) I used to be called to move pallets for other people, and even to unload lorries (once I'd transferred to days), and the regular forklift driver was on lunch. Eventually I moved on to other jobs and careers and left it all behind.
Until the turn of this century when I found myself at a distribution warehouse dealing in tenpin bowling equipment. This time the truck was an ancient battery driven counterbalance truck that wasn't quite up to the job.
I lost count of the times my heart was in my mouth as I unloaded a full pallet of bowling balls that overloaded the truck by at least 50%. Or the times I held my breath as I tried to retrieve a very heavy pallet from the top of the racking at the limit of its capacity. I worked there for three years and never had an accident, but it was a close run thing on more than one occasion.
There's something utterly buttock clenching about inching across the warehouse floor with a very heavy pallet of very expensive machinery on the forks, and the rear wheels having only the most tenuous contact with the floor.
And then knowing that this is only the first pallet and there's a whole 40ft container still to unload.
When that job ended and I was back in the market place I had another qualification, namely a current fork lift licence. And yet it was the last job I wanted.
I recall going for an interview at a distribution company as a progress chaser, but not getting through the interview but finding myself undergoing an impromptu fork lift driving test in the warehouse. I was awful. I took ages to do the simplest task. My nerve had gone. I didn't get that job either, and I'm glad about that.

While on the subject of forklift truck driving, my son left school at age 16 with ten GCSEs and an utter contempt for the education system in this country. I got him registered with my main employment agency and he was soon earning a man's wages. He saw that he could earn more than the basic minimum wage by training to get his forklift licence, so he paid over £200 to take it. At that time the basic agency hourly rate was £4.50 per hour, while a forklift driver could expect £6.50 because they were in short supply. My son actually held a forklift licence before he passed his test to drive on the roads.
With the rising number of unemployed looking for work, the Jobcentre started sending them on forklift training courses. (Sending people on courses is the main way the Jobcentre keeps the unemployment rates down. If you're on a course, you're not seeking work.)
The consequence was that within a year or two there was a glut of forklift truck drivers and they no longer commanded a higher wage. The last I heard, the basic hourly rate at the local agencies was approaching £6 per hour, but forklift rates were still at £6.50. You have to speak Polish as well.

It's good to know that the law of Supply and Demand still holds good.

Call Centres- inbound

I've already written about my time in outbound call centres but I also spent some time working in inbound centres as well. I've already written about my time at the Ricoh service centre in Wellingborough and how my career prospects (ha ha) were determined by the application of some arcane nonsense called psychometric profiling, surely the worst HR nonsense to be dreamt up.

When temping it was my custom to do the rounds of the employment agencies at least once a week. This was firstly to keep my name and face uppermost in the minds of the bookers, and secondly to sniff out any possible jobs before the others.

One day I was contacted by one of the agencies to ask if I fancied working in Market Harborough in an inbound call centre. I suspect that I only got the job because I had a car and would be taking three others with me, but hey, it's a job.

The job involved sitting at a computer terminal wearing a telephone headset. The computer was working the AS400 software, so no surprises at all. It was a busy office with about 50 workstations in quite a small space.The company handled magazine subscriptions for many publishers and their profitability depended on answering as many calls as quickly as possible.
The problem was to do with a weekly part-work magazine that had a choice of free gift on the cover. Except that it wasn't. The buyer had to ring up to say which gift he wanted, and the extra calls were slowing the operation.

The training was quite good. Yes we had a day of training!
Initially we had to write out each call rather than directly input the details, and give the completed form to the supervisor who then arranged for the evening shift to enter the call onto the system.
Over the course of a few days the amount of onscreen work increased, until we'd reached an acceptable speed and standard to be left on our own.

Although the room was crowded it was a lonely existence as chatting to your neighbour was discouraged. I worked there for two separate spells and never knew half the names. The breaks were also very short and there was only just enough time to get from the call centre to the canteen, grab something to eat and drink before heading back.

My co-temps were much younger than me, and would chat away happily among themselves while I drove them to and from work. I felt excluded (but that was mostly through choice- I wasn't following the latest twists and turns of soap operas and celebrity culture.)

One thing I did find better than subsequent postings was the acceptance of male workers by the female staff and management. In one call centre I was made to feel an intruder in an all female clique.

Sex discrimination cuts both ways.