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Rate for the job
Page 9
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I wrote this in the Royal Navy recruitment office in Wrexham, waiting for my youngest son Patrick who was being interviewed as a potential Navy officer. I overheard a couple of recruitment officers talking and they used the word 'chancer'.
It's a word I hadn't heard in years but I think there are a lot of them in road haulage industry, and more often than not they are found in manufacturing or the major supermarket companies. The transport departments of the aforementioned outfits are either used as a step up the ladder, or, as is also the case with governments, holding a transport post usually implies some sort of punishment.
Prior to letting them loose I reckon they do a conversion course. The major point of the course is how to appear tough on the phone, how to screw down the rates and how to bankrupt hauliers. They are then presented with a margin-free certificate that they believe makes them God's representative on earth for haulage rate knowledge.
"How much would you charge me for a load from southern Tibet to Dudley?" they ask. Because we hauliers are polite, and mainly desperate, we engage with them in helping to understand the need for traffic volume, loading and tipping times and so on. Armed with this information we tell them that we'll go away and consider the job. And just as you're about to put the phone down out comes the mantra they've learnt on their course: 'Actually, it will be a backioad rate." There's usually a pause as you attempt to digest this nugget before muttering "Pardon?" back down the phone. Veil, you're tipping at Maidstone and need to get back north so it's clearly a back load for you." Ah, clear now isn't V I've looked in my hauliers' encyclopaedia but can't seem to find an entry for "backioad rate". So transport planners, please refrain from using the phrase backload rate', it'll just confirm what we suspected at the start of the enquiry. Bloody chancers.
'I've looked in my hauliers' encyclopaedia but can't seem to find an entry for 'backload rate'"