I almost walked out at work a few times....
We had an account-job, a regular one, that needed someone to pick up a pescription at local hospital, go to the only late night phamacy (ASDA), and then drop the meds off at the old folks home. They said it's pain meds for someone with something horrible, on his death-bed, and we only had an hour to do the job. The controller, dispite me nagging him every 5 mins to give the job out, left it 'till the last 15 minutes to even send it out, and it didn't get done in time. I felt so guilty over that.

Another time, a driver wouldn't take an old lady who lost her husband in the A&E from the hospital 1 mile down the road, because she had no money. The controller agreed with him. He actually said "Fuck her, this is a buisness, not a charity", so I said "You know what? I'll pay for it.", for a 10 minute job (the guy was already parked up outside), I had to pay an hour's work. He came into the office and demanded (not asked, demanded) his money, so I gave it to him, and for the rest of the night, I kept on pre-allocating him bucket-jobs and knocking him back.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 14 Jan 2010, 10:37, 1 reply, 16 years ago)

An hour to do the job, because they closed soon.

( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 14 Jan 2010, 10:43, Reply)

what complete cunts
people don't seem to understand that doing stuff like that occasionally is good for business
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 14 Jan 2010, 10:46, Reply)

Because all the drivers are self-employeed, they have the attitude of "Why should _I_ lose money over it?".
There are a few that'll do charity-jobs like that.

I understand that it's a buisness, but if someone does a freebie or someone does a runner, we put them back to the top of the queue, so it doesn't effect them except a few pence in petrol.

I was controlling once, and this guy reffused a charity job, but I found someone to do it. That chairty job, because it took him half way into the west-end, into the west-end, and then back out of the west end up to our area... he ended up making about £70 because he did that. In the mean time, the guy who skipped the freebie, in the same amount of time, made about £9.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 14 Jan 2010, 10:56, Reply)

ah I see
the good for business thing doesn't really apply when they are self-employed
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Thu 14 Jan 2010, 10:58, Reply)

I did nightshift driving for four months
and did a fair amount of freebies in that time. One woman I dropped at a pub who'd been bawling her eyes out cos she'd had a fight with her fella, I told her to spend the fiver on a couple of drinks. If you've never seen a crying woman covered in mascara and snot suddenly burst out with smiles and thanks, you haven't lived.
( Noeli overtheshoulderboulderholderthingstraplatchboobs, Thu 14 Jan 2010, 11:08, Reply)

Yeah', doing that sort of thing can be very rewarding.
I remember there was an old lady who wouldn't give us her real name or where she was going. I ended up going downstairs and talking to her, she was a bit excentric, but harmless. I said to her "I'll tell you what, what's your favorite charactor from a book?" she said "[something, can't remember]" and I said "We'll call you that then, nice to meet you [name]. Tell me what area you're going to, and you can work out the exact details with the driver", and she said Finchley, I said "Can you narrow it down a bit? Finchley is a big area, don't tell me the road, but is it north/south/east/central...etc ?" and she told me. She ended up going to one of the mansions just around the corner from Bishop's Ave*. I don't know anything about tips and stuff, but she phoned up the next day and said she was so pleased with 'the nice young jewish boy'.

Everyone took the piss, called her my girlfriend, but the feeling I got from helping her really put me on a high.

* It's one of the most expensive roads in the world, I think the starting-price there for a flat alone is about £5m, for those who don't know it.
( G/PP 💩💩💩💩💩&#128, Thu 14 Jan 2010, 11:25, Reply)