Serving two Masters

... or more accurately, over thirty masters!

As I indicated here a few weeks ago, the business that has provided my courier work for the last dozen years has been taken over by a nationwide organisation.  I'm sure this has brought greater efficiency for our customers (initial 'bedding in' problems apart), and it has certainly been different for us drivers, if only in respect of the uniform and electronic means of recording our work.

One aspect that isn't quite so obvious has become apparent to me in the last week or so.  The man I loosely term my 'boss' was one of the founders of the company many years ago and, without consciously thinking of it I'm sure, he has always regarded the business, the office and the work provided by the customers as 'his', and the drivers as his employees ... even though, as self-employed contractors, we weren't.

Occasionally other work has cut across this domestic picture, like the time when I diverted after making a delivery in Durham, to collect an engine that a friend had bought on e-Bay from someone in Morpeth.  I was called with the eternal question, 'whereabouts are you?' when I was still on the far side of Newcastle, and was treated to a puzzled, 'what on earth are you doing up there?'  There was no obligation, of course, but I think he did expect to be told when we weren't going to be available.  And, in fairness, such a courtesy would have been diplomatic, even if not a requirement.  Sadly, diplomacy is not my style ... as I have realised to my cost in a number of ways in the past.

Under the regime that now prevails, serving a business catering for the demands of thousands of customers from a network of (I'm told) 39 centres across the country, it is accepted that, to maximise our earnings, we can legitimately contact another centre for work when we're free in their area. Equally, as happened to me on only the second day of working this way, another centre, seeing an 'incomer' on their screen in a convenient place (I believe the system also allows them to determine whether we're on a job or empty) can contact us to offer an attractive assignment to a distant destination.  It was just such a call that led me the other day to go out with jobs to Radlett and Greenford, and end up in Chelmsford!

On Thursday, I left home early with goods I had collected the previous afternoon for the distribution centre just off the M1 at Crick.  No sooner had I set off than I received another job to collect locally for Risley, Derbyshire. (I'm now wondering whether this came from our own night controller, or from a neighbouring centre ... the PDA makes no distinction.)  Thinking no further than about the time it would take me to get from one location to the other, off I went.  Once I had gathered my thoughts, however, it made sense to me to contact the office in Nottingham when I was available, and my day was completed with two jobs for them, from which I arrived home at about 5.50pm.

I was about to touch my phone to let the local office know I would be available for work the next day, when it rang.  It was 'the boss', calling to give me a job for the following morning.  I said that I had been about to ring him, and was treated to a line of 'banter' to the effect that he'd been watching me on the screen all day, wondering where I was going, and bemoaning the fact that I was doing work for other people.  I'm still not sure whether or not he was serious, but I take heart from the fact that there was a job for me at the end of it.  It does underline, however, the extent of the change that faces him in this new environment.

The Bible story that prompted today's title warns against trying to serve two masters; this situation is different, in that we're now all trying to serve one - new - master!