Company Wob In Your Various Jobs.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

Back to my saga, after a year or so , I was delivering a package to Texaco HQ in Knightsbridge when I was arrested and thrown into the back of a maroon CID Hillman Hunter. Turns out our MD had been involved in quite a big scam with his contact over 25 years and involving £100,000s . I was questioned about how often I dropped things and if I’d ever been to this guy’s house etc. Even then I knew enough to say as little as possible, once I’d realised their stupid threats to me had no teeth. When they released me I went straight to the MDs house and told his wife, the Police hadn’t been there yet. We loaded the 504 up with boxes of papers bank statements even a small safe and filing cabinet, I then fucked off to my Dads house in Mid -Wales. Unloaded it all into his barn and drove straight back to Wimbledon, I got there at 4 am was having a cup of coffee with his wife when the same Coppers that arrested me the day before were banging on the door ! This time I got to go in a Sherpa with wooden benches down the side, again say nothing worked and I walked out of Bow St nick 4 hours later at the same time as Dennis ( my MD) who grabbed me and started shouting that he knew I was trying to shag his wife and waited until he was locked up and that the Police told him I was in his bed when they went to his house and furthermore was giving them dates and times of everything I knew!
We straightened everything out, his man at Texaco disappeared to Cyprus , Dennis decided to expunge all evidence of Texaco from the company including cases and cases of product, he hired me a Carlton estate for a weekend and I took everything to my Dad’s. He was still using some of the Texaco ATF up until a couple of years ago. The Carlton estate was great fun around the little Welsh lanes full of mates and racing my mate Huw in his Sunbeam Ti.
I saw 120 on the clock of the Carlton on the M4 on the way back on Sunday night, the fastest I’d ever driven at that stage. I’ve had a few Carltons since including a CDi 2.2, but never a MK1 pre-facelift , I almost got one of the half a dozen still on the road off eBay last year but was too tight to go over £1500 and lost it in the last seconds.

[Warren t claim]

Back to my saga, after a year or so , I was delivering a package to Texaco HQ in Knightsbridge when I was arrested and thrown into the back of a maroon CID Hillman Hunter. Turns out our MD had been involved in quite a big scam with his contact over 25 years and involving £100,000s . I was questioned about how often I dropped things and if I’d ever been to this guy’s house etc. Even then I knew enough to say as little as possible, once I’d realised their stupid threats to me had no teeth. When they released me I went straight to the MDs house and told his wife, the Police hadn’t been there yet. We loaded the 504 up with boxes of papers bank statements even a small safe and filing cabinet, I then fucked off to my Dads house in Mid -Wales. Unloaded it all into his barn and drove straight back to Wimbledon, I got there at 4 am was having a cup of coffee with his wife when the same Coppers that arrested me the day before were banging on the door ! This time I got to go in a Sherpa with wooden benches down the side, again say nothing worked and I walked out of Bow St nick 4 hours later at the same time as Dennis ( my MD) who grabbed me and started shouting that he knew I was trying to shag his wife and waited until he was locked up and that the Police told him I was in his bed when they went to his house and furthermore was giving them dates and times of everything I knew!
We straightened everything out, his man at Texaco disappeared to Cyprus , Dennis decided to expunge all evidence of Texaco from the company including cases and cases of product, he hired me a Carlton estate for a weekend and I took everything to my Dad’s. He was still using some of the Texaco ATF up until a couple of years ago. The Carlton estate was great fun around the little Welsh lanes full of mates and racing my mate Huw in his Sunbeam Ti.
I saw 120 on the clock of the Carlton on the M4 on the way back on Sunday night, the fastest I’d ever driven at that stage. I’ve had a few Carltons since including a CDi 2.2, but never a MK1 pre-facelift , I almost got one of the half a dozen still on the road off eBay last year but was too tight to go over £1500 and lost it in the last seconds.

I'm thinking that this deserves a thread in itself.

[NorfolkNWeigh]

That Carlton hire car brings me onto hire cars,vans and bikes. I used to find any excuse to get work to rent me a car. I found a couple of companies that would let me have one as long as we supplied our own insurance. Whenever new office furniture was needed some large artwork had to go some where even getting rid of rubbish was a reason for me to hire a car. I got a Fiesta for a weekend when I was still 17, can’t remember why but I abused it in ways only a 17 year old in a hire could- it survived. I remember sliding into a dual carriageway on a greasey junction and everyone missing me. Another time I had. 1.6 GL Escort in yellow and managed to rip,the frame off the drivers door window on a skip, by reversing at stupid speed with the door half open into a loading bay. I called the rental company and they delivered a Cortina Crusader to me within an hour.
Another time I got an Ambassador 1.7 HL auto from Kennings in Edgware Rd , it must have been one of the first around, because other drivers asked me about it in traffic jams.It was also dangerously slow, especially when loaded up with holiday brochure packs that I had to deliver to Travel Agents in Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham, first time I’d ever stayed in a hotel, in my life.
For my 18th birthday , the company rented me a Sierra for along weekend, I went to Wales in it to see my old school friends and caned it silly , again it was the first one most people,had seen and I thrived on the attention it brought, I slept in it outside a pub and the local Traffic Police woke me up, I thought they were going to breathalyse me for being in the car with the keys etc. But , no they were just curious about the car, I offered them a go to compare with their 2.3 Cortina , but they declined.
Had a few vans too, usually 1600Transits but I did get an old petrol LT from a place in Wandsworth once, it was snowing and I had to take adrawing board to a woman’s house in the middle of nowhere in Kent, I managed to get there but couldnt get the van out of her drive, so I had to stay the night…. Nothing happened even though I would have jumped at the chance, her husband got home at about 3 am after leaving his XR3 Turbo , yes a carburettor XR3 with a Turbo Techics conversion and lairy graphics , about 2 miles away. He was shocked to find me on his sofa, next morning we dug the LT out and I took him to get his XR3 out of a snowdrift.
Bikes, I used to rent bikes from a company called Scootabout that had a pretty diverse fleet, a GS250 Custom, 250 Superdream, SuzukiTS185 on road tyres, which was great fun around London. Once got a Honda 400/4 , a couple of CX500s and a Suzuki GS750. They were all pretty worn, but well maintained.
The best hire car I had was actually a loan car from a lease company that a new director got when she joined but wasn’t confident driving because it was too big and auto. It was a Mercedes 230e and the new director would have quite an influence on me, more on her later. I used the 230e for a couple of weeks , commuting and running artwork around, how I got away with the fuel when I should have been on my CX, I’ll never know.

[Warren t claim]

First job I had with a company car was the job before the job I’m in now, and was a brand new, at the time, Vauxhall insignia

It was an ok lump of car which got from A to B and back to A again, but other than that not a lot to say about it. It was adequate at being a car, and I had a fuel card which was the thing I loved most about it

80DCB6FA-54AA-4FDD-8815-7962141908C3.jpeg

My problem with that era of Insignia estate is the clamshell tailgate design that means GM had to fit extra rear lights for when the hatch is up.

I had an Insignia hatch for a few months back in 2016 which was one of our taxi firms' company cars. It was (I think) an Activ spec, this meant it had those trims that look like alloys, non sports seats with the handy secret pockets to hide cash/drugs/cut throat razor and keep fit rear windows. It lacked DAB radio and Bluetooth which was shit. The engine rattled away but it never broke down on me, it even took me to Gatwick and back one Easter Sunday without any drama. The six-speed box had a nice change and as it was an early car it was fitted with a proper handbrake.

Being an Insignia, it had a few issues that cause problems in taxi usage. The interior space is smaller than an equivalent Mk4 Mondeo. The interior plastics age badly compared to the Ford and the sloping rear doors meant that access to the rear caused many banged heads. Mind you, my Ioniq is just as bad.

The reason I threw it back and replaced it with a Mk3 Avensis (now that was a fucking piece of shit!) was mainly down to the Insignia having full company livery as opposed to the usual removable magnetic door signs, when I'm off duty I like to drive around looking like a civilian. I will admit that having a full body wrap ad was handy when picking up a punter out of our usual area as they could spot my car from 100 yards away.

[Warren t claim]

I've slightly changed the title of this thread as I'm sure the more observant Wobbers have noticed.

Anyway, back to the story.

Due to the rapid expansion recruitment of enforcement officers caused by non payment of the dreaded Poll Tax the company I worked for was taking on bailiffs faster than it was buying cars for us to use. I wasn't privy to where the firm sourced the rental cars we were given but due to the age of them, 1988 Escort 1.4L was a typical car we'd be given, it was clear that the firm wasn't renting from Godfrey Davis Eurocar. Cars were in such short supply that we'd often double man a car meaning that the first thing I'd do when being given a hire car was to get another key made so two bailiffs could "leap frog" between calls.

Although you'd think that the innocuous Mk4 'scrote would be perfect for the job it had one big drawback, namely the position of the large horn button on the centre of the steering wheel. As you can imagine, plenty of times people refused to answer the door when we knocked meaning that we'd scamper back to the car to grab the clipboard and fill out the paperwork to post through the chargepayers door. Invariably, the pressure of the clipboard pushing against the steering wheel, writing out ALL CHARGEPAYERS HOUSEHOLD, PERSONAL, ELECTRICAL GOODS AND CHATTELS (why is that burned into my fucking brain?) would trigger a few beeps of the horn causing unwanted attention from the neighbours.

[paulplom]

1995, I remember getting a brand new M reg transit hire van for a new job I started in Sunderland for a housing association. Apparently I was lucky as the other tradesman were still pushing hand carts around the estates!
I remember it being really cold and snowing with the roads being frozen and I was joining the A19 from a slip road far too fast and span the van 360 across both lanes. How the fuck I didn't hit the central reservation or any other cars. I was still moving and pointing in the right direction so just carried on as normal as if nothing had happened although I may have shit myself.
It went back to the hire company and was replaced with another after I pulled into the yard and it wouldn't switch off even though I had the ignition keys in my hand.

[SubPar]

I'm relatively short on life experience compared to you lot (I'm younger).

In my early 20s, just after finishing my degree (what a waste of time) I had a few temporary driving jobs. As in, a few weeks here and there through a temp agency, for about a year.

I also have two classes of forklift licence, acquired on the cheap from the agricultural college I was studying at.

I remember once driving an R reg Manitou telehandler (this is in the mid-2000s) that was utterly shagged. It was for a company demolishing part of a local branch of Tesco as part of its refurbishment. What a strange machine. I was used to column-shift autos in these machines. This fucker had a conventional 4-speed gear lever, but still hooked up to a torque convertor so no clutch pedal.
We were loading MDF sheets from the walls into a skip. I was told they were charged per skip, so after dumping the MDF in, I'd turn the bucket to point straight down, rev the engine, and push the boom control lever full forwards. The sound it made was glorious, and the front wheels would lift about 6" off the ground before I stopped each time.
I drove it round a corner and the completely bald right rear tyre just slid off the rim once. The tyre fitter they called out turned up fairly quickly though.

I had a week contract at a company that manufactured pressurised cylinders for some sort of testing offshore. They were about the size of Calor gas bottles but far heavier. I once drove their VW T5 Transporter flatbed across Aberdeen with a couple of pallets on the back. It was lovely to drive, even if the interior was covered in about an inch of grime and dirt (I was in overalls so didn't care). Strangely, when people see a flatbed with two pallets' worth of metal cylinders on it, they assume it's gas bottles and the traffic moved aside like Moses parting the waves. It was brilliant.

Later, I spent a summer working at a local car/van hire company based out of a small garage. They had a fleet of the Transits made just after the smiley face. The first of the 'new' Transits as I see them. They also had one of the old smiley-faced ones for the "blacklist" customers.
The smiley-face was the most fun. SWB and RWD. I could get it sideways around wet roundabouts.
They also had a handful of random cars probably bought off gumtree. The metallic salmon pink Corsa C was dire, but a hilarious colour, meanwhile the K11 Micra was great fun. I think it was a 1.3 16v, it definitely felt lively for such a small car.

An unladen Transit driven along the beach boulevard in Aberdeen will rock around like a ship at sea due to the undulating road surface though.

More recently, I worked for a certain large telecomms company, on the infrastructure side.
They provided me with a brand new Iveco Daily. What a pile of wank. It was the base 120hp engine but it was fully laden with gear, and I sometimes towed a trailer with a drum of fibre optic cable on it too. It would do 40mph flat-out up the hill near Cults on the Aberdeen bypass. It's a 70mph dual carriageway. I'd have fully-laden tankers overtaking me.
It would also randomly decide it had a power steering fault, and randomly misfire too. The driver's seat was on suspension like an HGV, and it needed it. Solid axle on the front, and a live rear axle with leaf springs. It was very agricultural to drive.

[mercrocker]

After leaving school I eventually (after a lazy summer of '76) took a job as a forecourt attendant at the local Shell garage. At the time it also had an Opel franchise and naturally the owning family all had company Opels...

MD -Bronze Commodore B coupe
Sales Manager - Red Rekord Diesel estate
Forecourt Manager -Red Ascona B 1.6

In 1978, just before my 19th birthday I took a new job on - working as a Freight Forwarder. I would be based in the Southampton office with one other person (the gaffer) although we were owned by a company in Stirling. I was told the job came with a van but didn't stop to read/listen to the rest of the spec.

I shall recount the collection tale of that van somewhere else another time but suffice to say it was a sign-written Renault 4. I wasn't very popular when I rolled it three times the following March midway between its first and second services.

It got replaced in due course, followed by a Simca 1100 hi-top badged Talbot on the bonnet and Dodge on the rear door and again later by a Mk3 Escky.

Having the van was pretty damned useful, especially those hi-tops and I wasn't above earning a few quid in illicit urgent deliveries or parcel jobs on my days off. It also came in useful for the gaffer who used to swap me his 2 litre Cav Mk1 or later on a Supermirafiori so he could do similar naughties.

There's a story about some of those instances too, I'll save them for later.

After a take-over I ended up working in a huge conglomerate that was ultimately owned by Unilever - a big culture shock from a one-man band type of operation. We had company motors although I wasn't entitled to one for personal use. At one stage there was a pretty open-book policy for those who could have them so the firm's carpark was quite interesting.....

MD - Volvo 240GLT.
Finance bod - Opel Manta GTE
Sales manager - Rover 2000 SD1
Salesmen - Astra GTE, Escort 1.6L, Talbot Horizon (yep, somebody picked that)
Engineering manager - Cortina V6 estate

Another takeover and another set of corporate values saw all that swept aside for a Montego/low-spec Astra fleet. The engineering manager actually told them to poke the Marina 1.3 estate and took another job.

There followed a series of mundane jobs in the transport sector with equally mundane means of transport until I ended up at another small company where one of the Director's brothers had a high-level job in a local Ford distributor's. No prizes for guessing the make of car our gaffers had....

MD - Ford Capri 2.0 Ghia in triple red - red with red vinyl top and red velour interior. A special order, apparently...
Transport Manager - Capri 2.8 injection
Accountant and Sales Managers both had 1.6 Mk3 Escorts.

A year or so later I ended up working for a local scrap metal company (although it was owned by George Cohen) and they had a fleet of Granadas, mostly Mk3 Ghias but there was a solitary 2.8GL which became the pool car. During the time I was there Cohen's were selling off the company and I spent much of my time shuffling documents between Head Office (in Slough) and various solicitors around the South East.

The guy I reported to felt sorry for me as I had just become a Dad and he knew the company was going for guts. One day he told me NOT to read the documents I was picking up - just deliver them straight to the solicitor's office. I took that to mean DO read them and I could see the details of my own redundancy and the planned closure of our office. I tried my very best to blow the 2.8 Granada up on the way back but of course it got me home without a murmur.

The only vehicle I ever consciously destroyed (apart from the R4 van which was genuinely an Accident) was the Simca 1100. We got it in a deal with another transport company and it was already fucked. It dumped its coolant on the M27 so I hammered it home without any......
By that time we had been taken over ourselves and I felt no allegiance to the faceless bureaucrats who now employed us.

In the job I last had, where I worked for 22 years, we used to be able to borrow the company pickups for home jobs if we worked the weekend and these were VW Caddy and the equivalent Skodas. There was also an ancient pool Mk2 Astra diesel which died pretty hard - I think it was well over 20 years old when they scrapped it.

It was very much a make-do and mend company at the time and in 2008 we still had a Bedford TK cherry-picker and a Leyland Lynx bowser with the later Ergomatic cab. These both went into preservation with fellas that worked there.

[paulplom]

My second employer in 1989 had an '86 D reg renault trafic 1.4 pez iirc. I remember us driving down tve A189 in torrential rain. It went down to three cylinders for a bit then down to two and a crawl as the rain blasted down. I can't remember it breaking down so I reckon it must have recovered and we made the journey.
The other apprentice was a year older than me and just passed his test the day before when he was given the keys to the van. We had to meet the gaffer in his brand new burgundy G reg sierra estate. The gaffer got out the car just as we were approaching and the other apprentice didn't stop folding the sierra door against the wing and nearly flattening the little fat fuck gaffer. My poor workmate was in tears but the gaffer wisely made him get straight back in the van and drive it home.

[NergleFuttocks]

I remember my first post University job car park well. The MD had a green Senator 3.0 CDX to waft around in. He was a fat fucker and filled it pretty comprehensively. He had a bit of an ego too and wanted an upgrade. The owners gave him a Merc E200 Classic - a financial upgrade. But it hardly moved with him in it and it had no air con so he arrived in Telford from his Glapthorne home drenched in sweat and regret. Sales director had a Laguna 3.0RXE, ops manager had Volvo 850 2.0, engineering manager a Carlton 2.0 CDX. I had my own Nissan Pulsar GS, cunt-line -manager had a 1.9d ZX Reflex, shift chap had a Tempra 1.6, and seconded fitter had a T reg 928, his assistant had a Lada Riva. One of the senior engineers smoked around in a truly fucked Chevette.