In the past few months since my last writing much has happened.
Five weeks ago I embarked on a new career. I now work for Yellow Couriers aka Aussiefast Transport Solutions as a jockey/driver on the Salvos trucks. It is fun, rewarding and pay's not too shabby at the best of times.
You get to meet interesting people both in the public sector (donors) who offer up all kinds of donations for the shops throughout the metropolitan area and usually get to have a bit of a chin wag and then there are the folk who run and work at the shops.
They too, a friendly bunch and, at times a funny mob who make you feel welcome each and every time you call in (usually twice a week). I've made some friends in this job both at the shops and at the depot where we are based in Pooraka.
It's a constant learning curve for me and as a jockey I have to use the phone (answering incoming calls, ringing select customers to advise of ETA and the shops as well for the same reason) and ipad to verify that we have or have not collected designated donations.
After the run is over we usually go back to the warehouse to load up for the next day or we go straight back to the depot depending on what time we finish the run.
Much has changed from my first time with the Salvos back in the '90s when the UBD was our directory for getting from destination to destination. NOW, we have Navman...Thank God! it makes life so much easier and less time consuming. Instead of a woman(wife/girlfriend telling us where to go we have a talking street directory). Either way we don't get lost BUT the best upside is we, the drivers don't get the 'I told you so'. Sorry girls but, I had to put that last bit in. Not really, I just chose to, to add some of my dry humour to the post.
My latest trick is learning to work out the run for the next day which I seem to be doing okay with. My driver and I do this at lunch time as I sit down with a note pad look at the map overview and decide what is the best way to organise the run and write them down in the sequence I would do the run. Ian, my usual driver then checks it over and explains why, if necessary he'd change it. So far I'm doing okay. After we finalise it we then do it on the ipad and our Supervisor back at the warehouse either leaves it as submitted or makes the occassional changes and prints it out. If changes are made, I then reorganise it on the pad.
Yeah, overall it's a good job and I'm in no hurry to move on as I feel I have found my niche here. Like the TV ad implies; 'Love your job and your home life changes for the better because you're doing what you enjoy and NOT what you must do to pay the bills and put food in the house. It also opens channels of communication within the family unit. This, I can testify to.
In between the new job hours I'm still pursuing my passion of making stuff down in the work shop. I'm one happy camper.
I hope you enjoyed reading my little ramble as much as I did writing it.
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