To do or not to do!

It won't really matter if some items fall off the bottom of the to-do list; others stand at the opposite end of the scale of importance, and must be done by certain deadlines.  And yet others spread themselves at leisure along that broad swathe in between: any old time will do, so long as they get done eventually.  I confess that I'm a bit of a timing snob.  If something has to be done by a specific date - like submitting a tax return - I tend to jump on it as soon as it's possible to do it, and get it done out of the way.  I've just submitted my VAT Return for the quarter ending 31st October, notwithstanding that, because I do it on line the deadline for it isn't until 7th December.  As soon as I had all the figures to hand, it just had to be done!  And just in case I should forget (I've never forgotten in the nine years I've been registered!), the reminder e-mail had been sitting in my inbox for the last couple of weeks since it arrived, and has now been gleefully deleted.

As well as being punctual to extremes, I'm also lazy, and well aware of it - and the two don't make happy bedfellows.  For the most part, when it comes to domestic chores - for which there are no deadlines - the only person their execution or otherwise affects is me.  The landlord's agent comes to inspect the flat every quarter and, to be fair, so long as I don't vandalise the place, break windows, wrench doors from their hinges, etc., I don't think she's really bothered.  Nevertheless, the fact of her regular visit usually sends me on a guilt trip as I think of all the housework I haven't done, and the weekend next before the promised visitation sees me in a whirl of frantic activity which I'm sure is less than efficient, and could be totally avoided if only I were a bit more organised in that department.

Last week brought a pinprick of a reminder of things not being done when they should have been.  I say pinprick because the effect was merely that my earnings were about £10 less than ought to have been the case, although through no fault of my own.  What really annoyed me, however, was the underlying cause of this loss.  I shall explain.  In common with most self-employed courier drivers, I get paid only for the jobs that I do.  It won't surprise my readers to learn that the value of each job is determined by the distance travelled, i.e. from base to pick-up to delivery.  The advantage of working under contract to an agency is that both the procurement of work and the security of payment are handled by them - as also is that most delicate of all commercial flowers, Customer Relations.

Imagine for a moment that you are a regular customer, sending goods on a weekly basis to a single destination.  You could be forgiven for making some complaint if one week you were charged £40, the next £45, and the next £38, and so on.  Unless you had been advised of some specific change in pricing policy, you would expect the same job to cost the same amount week in, week out.  To ensure the smooth running of the business, when our jobs are charged to the customers each one is checked to see whether it has been done before, and if so, then it is charged at the same price.  The importance will therefore be appreciated that, when a new job is undertaken, it is priced correctly.

Twice last week I was sent on a particular job that I hadn't done before.  I was sent nominally to a large market town in the adjacent county, but when I collected the goods, I discovered that they were consigned to a village some ten miles further on - nearer, in fact, to the next market town than to the one designated.  Accordingly, when I returned to the office, I pointed this matter out, thinking that the price would require adjustment.  It is often the case that customers will just name the postal town as a guide to the area where the goods are going when they book a job, rather than the specific destination.  For planning purposes this is sufficient.  Most drivers recognise that, if the job takes them far from where they were originally told, it's in their interest, as well as that of the firm, to let the office staff know.  On this occasion I was told that, although it had only now fallen to me, this job has been done daily for several weeks, and no one had advised this discrepancy before!  Now, of course, a precedent has been established, and since this is one of our major customers, whose feathers are not to be ruffled, no price adjustment will be made.

My complaint had been overheard by other drivers.  There is now widespread disquiet, and some reluctance on the part of many to accept that job, now it's generally realised that it will be underpaid.  And all because the first driver to do the job - whoever he may have been - didn't highlight the error when it could have been put right!