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Fork-lift stress

21st July 1994, Page 26
21st July 1994
Page 26
Page 26, 21st July 1994 — Fork-lift stress
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Which of the following most accurately describes the problem?

T am writing with regard to lthe article Stress Busters (CM 7-13 July), which clearly pointed out the amount of stress a driver can go through in one day.

In relation to this report I would like to sound off a little about the attitude of fork-lift truck drivers. Every day a truck driver will have a shindig with a fork-lift truck driver. They should appreciate that if a load has a timed delivery, a driver has got out of his bed at the appropriate time to get to the destination on time, and often has to be at other destinations at scheduled times.

More often than not a driver's day is totally messed up by fork-lift truck drivers, who are obviously paid on an hourly rate. Most truck drivers are paid a percentage of what their lorry earns, so therefore the fork-lift drivers' attitude costs them money each time they decide to hold drivers up.

I have heard of a driver being kept waiting for five hours. The fork-lift truck driver went to lunch, then had a meeting to attend and when the meeting had finished it was time for an afternoon teabreak. The driver was waiting all this time for four pallets of cardboard to be taken off, In his anger he wrote a note to the boss of the

company on the back of his delivery notes saying what he thought of their company and should he have to deliver to them again he would only wait one hour maximum then he would take the delivery back.

Because of the delay, he was late for all his other deliveries and because he ran out of time he could not finish his day and was on a night out The next day's deliveries were given to another driver and he lost a day's pay. He was given a verbal warning when he returned to his base, for taking the matter into his own hands. The boss from the company cancelled all future deliveries because he felt that the driver had acted wrongly.

Surely this type of delay can only add to the stress already present for the driver. The responsibility of meeting deadlines should not be enforced so strongly on drivers of HGVs that they do not take these inevitabilities into account.

Name and addressed supplied.

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