A Van With A Plan

Many years ago, shortly after finishing university I worked for a local factory as a van driver and cleaner, a stop-gap until I found a job in my line of graduation. The pay was dreadful and the company was very much behind the times.

I was driving back to the factory after doing a delivery and en-route noticed one of my house-share friends walking home along the road. I stopped to give him a lift since it was on the way.

Two minutes later, I looked in the rearview mirror and recognised the expensive 4×4 behind me as belonging to one of our senior managers. Now, the van I was driving had the company logo all over it. I was also aware that I shouldn’t be carrying any non-company employees and could lose my job.

I took the next turn onto a different road, hoping he wasn’t going to follow, but he did. We were now heading in a different direction to the factory, so I probably started to look a little suspicious. I devised a little plan in my head and shared it with my housemate: knowing a road coming up was a long road with a bend in the middle, I slowed right down and took the turn, then I sped up very quickly to get round the bend and slammed the brakes on, telling my housemate to jump out as fast as he can. He jumped out and I dashed off again just as the senior manager came driving round the bend.

I then headed up to a local garage the company had an account with for fuel and turned in, making it look like this was where I’d been heading all along. Thankfully the senior manager carried on driving past whilst taking a close look at me.

I was very glad he drove past as I couldn’t have filled the van up; I’d done that only ten minutes before picking my housemate up in the first place, and the van was already full of fuel!

That was the last time I “taxied” on company time! My housemate ended up having to walk for an extra half-hour because of my detour, although we had a good laugh about it afterwards and the manager never mentioned it.