Breaks

During the week I have had 3 duties with 36 min meal breaks. Now we have to have a 30 min break by law. On each day I have been 6 mins late, which means I have had exactly the legal limit meal break. Not good for the indigestion. So on Saturday I was heading for Newton at about 3.00 pm. Roads were quite and on my way back from Newton I had a 56 min break. That is nice, time to eat, have two cups of coffee and a nice long sit down and do nothing.

Then the radio goes. It's a driver some where ahead of me,"Anyone know about this carnival in Newton?" The police usually inform the company that there will be roads closed for what ever reason but no one had told us. They probably sent a memo to head office in Exeter who though, " We don't got to Newton." and filed said memo in the bin. Any way by the time I had watched the carnival go by and got back to the depot I was 26 mins late. Bang went my nice long break. I made up for it on Sunday. On Sunday I had 32 min break and the traffic was bad coming into Torquay and I was 15 mins late and this time some one else had to do part of my duty which ment I had a 95 min break. Which was nice as I spent most of it sitting in the sun shine down on the harbour.

Talking of brake downs. Heard a funny story yesterday. One of the drivers was concerned that he could hear a high pitched whine on the bus. There was no warning light showing so he switched everything off and the noise was still there. Now every driver has it drilled into them that the safety and comfort of their passengers comes first and foremost so he got on the radio and asked for advice. He was told to wait and a replacement bus would be sent. Luckily he was near the garage and the bus arrived fairly quickly. The fitter who brought the new bus had a listen and confessed that he did not know what was causing the noise and so, to be on the safe side the passengers were asked to change buses. When all the passengers had got on the other bus the fitter noticed that the whine had stopped. Just at that moment the driver came to him and reported the the high pitched whine was now present on the replacement bus, a little old lady's hearing aid had gone wrong and a slight addustment cured the problem.

The moral of this story is if you hear a high pitched whine, before getting on to control all passengers should be checked to see if their hearing aids need turning down a little.