"I notice that snake, Colin Gordon's name crops up in the "copied in" to emails. I hope you never had the misfortune to deal with him? Well no , you can't have or he would definitely be on your blog under his own section. He arrived at Irlam and his first words at the driver meeting were, "I'm Colin Gordon and I'm probably smaller than you imagined!" (silence........) "I'm well known for high staff turnover and I GUARANTEE you that by the time I leave here, half of you will not be here." He was right too! Bullying and sacking on a whim and all with a smile on his face! A couple of examples of Mr. Gordon's compassion:
A driver was taken captive in Cheetham Hill, Manchester. Seriously! He was held against his will for over two hours because a local businessman claimed he had clipped his wing mirror on a previous delivery. (it was the driver's first time in the area by the way.) During his ordeal, he was tied up and threatened by the businessman and several of his "friends." Eventually they let him go. On ringing the center to report this in a very shaken up state, the driver was told by Gordon, "but you'll be OK to finish your deliveries?"
Another driver was in Liverpool one day and as he was entering some details in his DIAD, he was hit by a car, thrown up in the air and over the bonnet and roof of the car. This was witnessed by several passers by. One of them rang the number on the van and reported this to the center. Several people thought the driver had been killed such was the impact. Gordon's first reaction? Trying to find a spare driver, or a driver in the area who could take over the deliveries. He spent a good ten minutes ringing around and asking office staff to get numbers of drivers in the area. Thankfully, one of the girls SCREAMED at him to stop it and asked, "don't you think you should contact his family first?!!!"
All the time he was at Irlam, prior to Fowler taking over, Gordon lived in a caravan on a farm just outside the center. His family (who frankly must have been made up!) were left in the Midlands somewhere and he only returned at weekends. He had been promised the Tamworth gig you see and was sent to Irlam to "do a job." He nearly sacked me over the O'Donnell thing but I gave him down the banks and while he backed O'Donnell. he did tell me he admired the way I presented my case and that's why he didn't sack me!
Happy days eh?"
Hello Mrs Drivers wife, your husband has been in a serious accident, but don't worry, we didn't have any timed failures or any non delivery attempts so everything is OK.
What? Your husband? I think he's in intensive care, I don't know, and frankly I don't care, my arse is safe, we had no failures.
Which reminds me of my serious accident. I was on the A58 in Leeds and a car pulled straight out in front of me from behind a bus. I T-boned the car almost before I'd touched the brakes. The car was turned over and the road closed for 2 hours, air ambulance came to ferry the occupants of the car to hospital, my van was written off......UPS's answer, bring a different van with more work on it. The Coppers were gob-smacked.
The following day with a seriously stiff neck, I was sent out on road. Paul Bowskill (Safety) couldn't believe it when he rang me.
& a P.S. to the original e-mail
"Cheers Mike and no problems with posting my email. To add to it, re. the driver who was held against his will, two people were jailed for their part in it. The knocked down driver spent a while in hospital and returned to work with a "fuck it" attitude, kept saying he'd used a life up so UPS could come second from then on and even though Colin Gordon never sacked me, he did tell me I was "on his list!" Nice man."
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