13th March 25. Why me (1)

The title of today's post will become obvious later.

Only one job again today and that's for my independent retailer customer in Aylesbury. Who asked me to collect a Nissan X-TRAIL from Volvo Gloucester.

Volvo dealers. I've said before are the strangest places. Car sales people are not what Volvo think. But Volvo set a standard of dress code. That makes them look out of their obvious comfort zone of cheap suits and even cheaper shoes. By giving them slim fit trousers and shirts and trendy white soled trainer shoes. Usually brown in colour. The slim fit clothes obviously only suits 5% of salesmen. I'm saying men as I haven't visited a Volvo dealer yet that has one woman in sales.

But these men all look like a string of fat sausages walking around. So funny to see.

Volvo receptionists are obviously told to get all the details about me, my business and the car I'm collecting before calling someone, a manager, who doesn't want me anywhere near him and thinks I'm wasting sales execs time, that they could be using talking to the non existent customers in the empty showroom .

Eventually. Someone drew the short straw and has to deal with me and go find the trade car I'm collecting.

The manager will be happy adding the profit made, if any. To his all important spreadsheets.

I say profit. This potential money would have been slashed from the initial forecast due to the new car being late. The customer demanding the same price for the part exchange after a few months book drops and the complete mess made of any appraisal and damage missed or added by the customer. Of course this customer has to give his 10 out of 10 on the review or nobody gets paid. So everyone smiles at handover of the new car and gives this blood sucking leech of a customer. Everything they want. Now you see why I do this instead .

Sorry I can't stop myself from pointing out the failings of this industry.

So today saw me getting the train to Gloucester to get to this job. This means starting at Aylesbury, then onto Princess Risborough, Haddenham and Thame Parkway. Oxford, then Didcot Parkway and onwards to Gloucester.

Now I can explain todays title. "Why me"

This happens too many times in my life. I get surrounded by people. It can happen in a supermarket at 5am when I'm looking for something in the cleaning section. Shouldn't be a busy area at 5am, right. When I go and search for a particular product. I get people around me like flies and this actually happened. Someone stood in front of me while I looked. The rest of the supermarket was like a ghost town. Just me and a person who came to stand in front of me.

So it was no surprise that I chose this job, not knowing, why would I? It's Cheltenham Festival week!!

I hate horse racing

So the station at Didcot Parkway was full of racegoers. When I say racegoers I mean public transport type racegoers. All dressed like toffs or country folk. The flat cap, once a preserve of the working class. Seems to be a thing for these people. Now, I come from a council estate. But these people are real pieces of work. All dressed like they own the world. If only they could see themselves though the eyes of others.

The train, when it arrived was late and packed to standing only, like sardines. With me, and a thousand (best tweed) flat caps wearing twats and women dressed like hookers. All their faces made up to look the same with botoxed lips and eyebrows like caterpillars

All loud, drunk at 10.00am. and holding bottles or glasses of champagne. And worse of all. Talking. Actually shouting and laughing at nothing.

You actually couldn't hear the train never mind the announcements.

Thankfully they all got off at Cheltenham and left me alone on an empty train to Gloucester

A quick cab to Volvo waited for someone to deal with someone as lowly as myself. Got the car and drove away as quickly as possible.

The Nissan X-TRAIL I was collecting. Was as expected, filthy inside. Carry wet wipes!!

I fuelled it to get to Aylesbury and headed for the hills.

I decided to take the scenic route to Oxford along the A44 via Chipping Norton and the unfortunately named Salford. Got to Oxford and headed towards Aylesbury. Which takes me past the Mini factory in Cowley. And every time I say that I must make a factory tour. Still not done it.

Having done a few factory tours. Three with Land Rover. One at Halewood watching Evoque's being thrown together and two in Solihull. Brilliant experiences and would recommend you add the off road driving experience to go with it.

I also toured the Ford factory in Detroit Michigan. They build the Ford F150 trucks their now, but it's a great experience and you can see where the original production areas were. It's a huge place. Together with the Henry Ford museum and the Motown visit. Detroit is an experience I will not forget.

Passing Oxford which is a horrible place to drive through due to the one roundabout which nobody knows how to use. I headed to Aylesbury and got back to the customer for the Nissan X-TRAIL. Which really just drove ok. Nothing special to say about it. It was just dirty and I avoided touching anything other than the essentials.

One Nissan X-TRAIL delivered

Home on the dreaded X5 bus again. Another day behind me.