The Full English Breakdown

I deliver frozen meats to motorway service stops all over my part of England. I had a delivery scheduled for 4 AM, and I had to leave base at 1 AM to get there by that time.

I got there at 3:50 AM, and at 4 AM, there was no sign of anyone in the restaurant. I call my office and notify them of this. We are supposed to give them half an hour wait time, so when 4:30 AM rolls around with no one on site, I pull out and move on to my next stop.

Apparently, the staff arrived at 5 AM, awaiting their delivery.

I did the rest of my deliveries while the office repeatedly contacted me to encourage me in any way possible to go back to that first stop.

Apparently, they were not able to serve much that morning, because they did not have enough stock to sell anything on the breakfast menu.

I said that if I were returning, the car park would need to be coned off so that I could get the entire truck into the car park and turn around.

The store managed this by merely closing the entire restaurant, necessary, as they were out of the key ingredients inside my truck.

I made the delivery and spoke to the store manager to remind him that if a delivery was scheduled, they would need to ensure that there was staff to receive the product as in the future I would not be returning, and the store would be charged a re-delivery charge, which I believe is quite a substantial cost.

Next week I showed up at 3:50 AM again, and the store manager had been waiting since 3:30 AM just in case…