I continued to find new ways to get the wrong stuff delivered to the wrong people at the wrong time. I started at 2:15 each morning, and couldn't start any earlier because I would then be amongst the flurry of milk floats and the Bath delivery van all competing to load from the one doorway into the cold-room. I loaded on as much as I could to avoid running out (and one of the other drivers thoughtfully provided me with a list of suggested minimum quantities), getting away from the dairy just after 3:30. But I still ended up in early-morning rush-hour traffic in the large town at the end of the route, and never arrived back at the dairy before 9:00. I then had to unload, and worse, try to compile a list of the cock-ups so that someone else could rush out to try and correct them.
Most of the cock-ups started with my leaving the wrong milk. This could be due to several factors. I was struggling to read the faint grey print from the dot-matrix printer in the dim light, and had to use reading glasses and a torch to check that what I thought I had read was what was actually written on the paper. The rainy nights had started, so I was often struggling to see through steamy glasses what was rapidly fading on the soggy paper. And the delivery sheets were still in the order that the route had originally been intended to be followed, so I was often flipping over several sheets too many and missing out customers.
I was advised by another director (the one who had interviewed me), to stick to the original route that I had been shown on the first two days.
After finishing late at the dairy each day, I was then taking an extra fifteen minutes to get home because I was driving in rush-hour traffic through Westbury and around Warminster. In this part of the world that traffic includes tractors towing trailers. I would arrive home soakied to the skin, and find that the phone would start ringing even before I'd turned the tap to run a hot bath.
It was very galling to find myself still getting it wrong at the start of the third week I was driving back to the dairy, fuming over the mistake I had just realised I'd made, when I remembered something from the safety induction course at a Nuclear power station, and decided to become a star.
I went and had a quiet word with the man who I had recognised to be the dairy foreman, or at least acted like he was.
"Look, I'm driving a route that's 90 miles at the maximum. At an average speed of 30mph that's 3 hours driving. It takes an hour and some to load. That's over 4 hours already. And there are 31 drops at the maximum. At an average of 5 minutes per drop that's another two hours at least, so with the unloading time it takes seven hours to do the round. WHen the manager drove me around we never finished before nine, and he knew what he was doing. I'm being paid for 5 hours to try and do a job that can't be done in under seven, and it's preying on my mind. I don't have time to double-check anything, or deal with any problems. I've shown you that I can turn up each day on time, all weathers, and go out and try to do my best, but I can't think what else I can do to improve things."
The manager had already acknowledged that the route might be too long, and had promised to take off the Westbury portion of it from the start, but I knew that would leave it as a six hour round. I proposed to work five days of the week, which would give me the money for 30 hours, and keep their wage bill low. All they had to do was find someone to do the Saturday run.
The foreman thought this through, made a quick phone call, and said that they had agreed to pay me for a 36 hour week.
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