I, the truckdriver
Yeah. Yesterday I acquired my truck certificate. The theory test was a piece of cake. 12 pictures, to each picture a question and 4 statements in response. We had to mark whether the statements were correct answers to the question or not. Very simple sort of test where we did actually have to remember the correct info ourselves but just had to recognize the correct info. 4 of the 12 pictures were about reading weight allowance diagrams. We were allowed to mess up the questions for two of the pictures, as long as none of them were a diagram, those had to be correct all of them.
And as I said: Piece of cake. I passed without a single error. As I had set out to :P
The driving test had me quite a bit more nervous. We had to drive three trucks each. A stacker, which works excatly the same as those I've used for the past three months, except this one has a mast and can lift higher than 15 centimeters, a battery truck and a gas truck. Both those trucks were what they call a counterweight truck (it's what most people consider a normal forlift). However, we could switch the battery counterweight truck for a battery reach truck, which I did, 'cause I like that one.
The test itself was fairly simple. We did exactly the same as we'd been doing in practice all week. Moving pallets, boxes, basins and pipes back and forth. The stacker and the reach truck I was comfortable with, but the gas truck.... yuck. The problem with the gas truck is just that... the gas. Sometimes you needed extra throttle to raise the forks with a load on them, and sometimes you had to use the brake pedal simultaneously with the throttle, which bothers me greatly because that's the very last thing you do in a car.
Anyhow, I managed to befriend the gas truck. And at the exam the examinator absolutely had to hover around me and one of the other girls while we were out driving our most hated trucks. Great, just fabulous. But it was alright, 'cause I'd placed a basin on a trailer and the examinator tok a look at it - I'd placed it exactly along the edge - and said that if I were to put a side rail on that the basin would be in the way, could I please move it 3 centimeters further in. So I did move it three centimeters further in. Exactly three centimeters. He took another look at it and looked up at me slightly nonplussed, I think, and then said: "You took me seriously about those three centimeters, didn't you?" I could only reply: "Yep, I did" and flash him a cheeky grin.
All in all it was quite relaxed.
3 failed the theory test, one of them failed the driving test as well. But the rest of us got through nicely.
So today I was back at work. Driving a reach truck more than twice the weight of the one we'd used at the school. That was awesome. First thing I did in the morning was go and pick up a full pallet of windows in 7.5 meters' height. I loves me some of that hehehe.
I pick somewhat slower than I did before... I need to get used to the new routines not to mention the truck. But I'll be up to par soon enough. Having a work day, in which I don't have to stand up on a roughly vibrating surface but can sit down instead, is so much less exhausting. I haven't been as fresh after a work day in a long time as I was today.
So that part of my life has just become a lot easier.
And as I said: Piece of cake. I passed without a single error. As I had set out to :P
The driving test had me quite a bit more nervous. We had to drive three trucks each. A stacker, which works excatly the same as those I've used for the past three months, except this one has a mast and can lift higher than 15 centimeters, a battery truck and a gas truck. Both those trucks were what they call a counterweight truck (it's what most people consider a normal forlift). However, we could switch the battery counterweight truck for a battery reach truck, which I did, 'cause I like that one.
The test itself was fairly simple. We did exactly the same as we'd been doing in practice all week. Moving pallets, boxes, basins and pipes back and forth. The stacker and the reach truck I was comfortable with, but the gas truck.... yuck. The problem with the gas truck is just that... the gas. Sometimes you needed extra throttle to raise the forks with a load on them, and sometimes you had to use the brake pedal simultaneously with the throttle, which bothers me greatly because that's the very last thing you do in a car.
Anyhow, I managed to befriend the gas truck. And at the exam the examinator absolutely had to hover around me and one of the other girls while we were out driving our most hated trucks. Great, just fabulous. But it was alright, 'cause I'd placed a basin on a trailer and the examinator tok a look at it - I'd placed it exactly along the edge - and said that if I were to put a side rail on that the basin would be in the way, could I please move it 3 centimeters further in. So I did move it three centimeters further in. Exactly three centimeters. He took another look at it and looked up at me slightly nonplussed, I think, and then said: "You took me seriously about those three centimeters, didn't you?" I could only reply: "Yep, I did" and flash him a cheeky grin.
All in all it was quite relaxed.
3 failed the theory test, one of them failed the driving test as well. But the rest of us got through nicely.
So today I was back at work. Driving a reach truck more than twice the weight of the one we'd used at the school. That was awesome. First thing I did in the morning was go and pick up a full pallet of windows in 7.5 meters' height. I loves me some of that hehehe.
I pick somewhat slower than I did before... I need to get used to the new routines not to mention the truck. But I'll be up to par soon enough. Having a work day, in which I don't have to stand up on a roughly vibrating surface but can sit down instead, is so much less exhausting. I haven't been as fresh after a work day in a long time as I was today.
So that part of my life has just become a lot easier.