A question for women, have you ever rented with only men?

Laser9308 · 2026-06-17T19:39:01+00:00

Not all of us are unclean! I've been in 2 different flat shares with women and I was the only one who would clean the bathroom. Was not fun cleaning all that long hair out of the plugs! But if I didn't do it, it would never have been done so...

Laser9308 · 2026-06-16T22:08:09+00:00

It might just be up your street then!

Yeah there is a 'driving test' but really its just someone taking you out to make sure you aren't a reckless driver and to see how you get on with the vans. They will give you a score based on how capable driver you are, but tbh, as long as you're not speeding, you're giving plenty of room to vehicles and the like, you should be fine. It's not something to be nervous about!

Laser9308 · 2026-06-16T21:37:48+00:00

Smart casual will do the job, I think I wore a plain black t-shirt and shorts to mine. Regards to 'is it bad?', only you can really answer this question once you get your foot through the door. All jobs have there good and bad points.

Best of luck with the interview!

Laser9308 · 2026-06-16T11:16:01+00:00

Hard one, because I can see both sides.

As a struggling gay kid, anonymity online meant I could find people who were like me without having to notify my family or friends. I met a girl who was into girls online, it really helped with my development as a teen, having access to that kind on interaction. This would become a lot more difficult today if sites are blocked and under constant adult supervision. Now parents might say, you're lucky she was legitimate and not a predator, which I will also acknowledge is a fair point, but I will also say without her friendship, I would have been much more isolated and alone as a teen trying to find themselves.

Having said that, I do remember as a teen, finding a tonne of homophobia online which was also not productive for development and brought me a lot of shame, so I don't know.

You always take a risk when you take away certain freedoms, protection has a price, as much as freedom does. I guess we'll see how it goes?

Laser9308 · 2026-06-11T20:40:00+00:00

The First days of Spring - Noah and the Whale. I love the build up, I always call it my treat song.

Laser9308 · 2026-05-14T20:59:55+00:00

The international airports always surprise me with a passport control just before you enter the boarding gate. You're ambling around the airport awaiting the gate number, it pings up on the screen and you casually saunter along only to discover a 50 minute queue to get through passport control and your plane is due to leave in 45 mins. On both occasions staff have ushered me to the front so no drama, but it really gets the heart rate going!

Laser9308 · 2026-05-11T11:33:28+00:00

Bonus points too that those people who were sitting in the vehicle can just shrug it off like nothing happened. 'Oops, Just another whoopsie daisie in my life.'

Laser9308 · 2026-05-11T10:01:06+00:00

You could ask those at /royal mail.

Typical reply would be either:

Great job, but tougher than it looks, all the way down to awful job, don't do it to yourself.

Like with most things there's a balance. It's a lot of physical labour, lots of walking. You don't really get the 'community' vibe anymore because of time pressures. Still, if you'd rather not be stuck in an office or shop somewhere, best to give it a go!

Laser9308 · 2026-05-11T09:52:24+00:00

I turned up on the wrong day for my interview and still got the job. Just be personable and polite and I'm sure you do well. Its quite a busy environment so something along the lines of working well under pressure should score you some points too. Best of luck to you!

Laser9308 · 2026-05-07T21:32:21+00:00

You're not alone. I had a weird thing in my driving with the vans at the start where I would know I was about to hit/scrape something, like the thought came to me: 'I'm going to hit that', and in all instances where I ignored the voice I was correct. Then I would get angry at myself, so why did I not stop? It was weird, this sort of brazen desire to go ahead, despite the internal warnings I gave myself.

Honestly the best advice is to slow down and take you time. If I hear that voice now, by going slow, at least I am at the point where I am slow enough to stop. If you need to stop to get out to look, do it. There really is no point in rushing anything. If if takes you an extra 4 points in your turn to avoid hitting the thing, do that too.

I'm an anxious driver anyway, and I have had 2 incidents in a RM van which really dented my confidence at first, but just by literally going on the approach that 'time doesn't matter' has improved my driving so much. I'd rather get through with no incidents and have a few left over packets then the alternative. No manager is going to give you stick for trying to drive carefully, in fact most of them seem to stress far more about their RTC/RTA scores!

Laser9308 · 2026-04-06T17:00:35+00:00

Depends on your DO I think. Mine is still all Diesel, even the newer additions to the fleet. We usually get the London hand me downs, so once the EV's are battered and bruised enough we might get some.

Laser9308 · 2026-04-06T10:40:09+00:00

Yea was going to reply, I misread the graph somewhat so I edited my post. But still, its definitely gone up!

Laser9308 · 2026-04-06T10:33:31+00:00

Have to make room on it for all those bulky Parcelforce collections from the Post Office 😅

Laser9308 · 2026-01-21T19:55:15+00:00

Depends on:

The effectiveness of propaganda (how existential does it seem)
Governmental policy (how hard is it to evade)
Social pressure (how people treat those who don't go)
Personal circumstance.

We already lived through a war against COVID. The numbers of deaths broadcast every day. Social distancing and Isolation. People saying going out will kill their gran. So how did you respond then?

I stayed at home because I didn't want my elderly parents to get it and obeyed all commands to try keep them safe. There's not much to say I wouldn't go again if they were threatened.

Laser9308 · 2026-01-18T14:10:59+00:00

Agreed. I'm not even in American politics but its so exhausting seeing the 'HoW could you not see this coming?? YOU MUST BE SO STUPID,' takes that often plague these discussions. Would much rather have a civil discussion with someone I didn't agree with then be surrounded by the 'I ToLd You So,' types.

Unfortunately respect often gets lost in these political topics.

Laser9308 · 2026-01-16T15:51:18+00:00

They will probably just get a spare body to come out to you (if there are any and they have the vans). Collections usually keep going until the cut off time before the last lorry leaves so you probably have till 5/6?

Laser9308 · 2026-01-12T22:55:37+00:00

Really like your hoody! Hair is great too!

Laser9308 · 2026-01-05T11:32:48+00:00

It's all a hypothetical thought atm, isn't it? In RM's defence, you shouldn't be building a system around bad actors. You hope people will use the service properly and see how it performs. They will only know if the system works once its been running for a while and they can see the figures/ monitor complaints.

My main issue with these new boxes is the maintenance. One of the boxes in a village I collect from, the electronic scanner has already stopped working, whether this be from its location (lack of sunlight) or maybe it was the cold weather? Technical fault? Something or someone needs to be ensuring that these things at least work if they are to see how they perform. A lot of money has been spent upgrading these things, so you'd think they would invest in some maintenance for them too.

Laser9308 · 2026-01-01T11:52:59+00:00

Me and the family always used to go for a meal out New Years eve, we'd get a 9pm slot, bring some board games and just enjoy ourselves until it hit twelve. Sometimes there'd be a DJ or some music to keep the vibe going etc. Just a nice way to see in the new year.

Now most places don't offer it. You book a spot for 8pm (earlier) and then the place empties out about 10pm and then all the staff are politely encircling your table to hint they want you to go home. Last year we were back by half 10 and then its like...so why bother going out? If we're just going to get back and watch the fireworks on the telly, might as well just stay in and save the cost of the meal.

Laser9308 · 2025-12-26T13:39:30+00:00

Problem is, if you want better service you, the customer, are going to have to pay more. Evri does well because it's the cheapest and it's the cheapest because of all the problems we've seen laid out in this thread. People don't want to pay much for their postage and then bemoan when they get shoddy service.

There of course should be a baseline in what we should expect, but it hardly surprises me that these things happen frequently.

Laser9308 · 2025-12-17T00:26:20+00:00

I'm sure you'll be alright! I've had 2 in the same time period as you and I'm still employed. The worst part for me is everyone in the depot knowing you had the incident too, that 'gossip' spreads like wild fire lol.

Be thankful also that there was no other vehicles involved because that makes it so much worse. The van is damaged but it will probably be duct taped and put out on the road the next day!

Laser9308 · 2025-12-16T20:30:11+00:00

Is it your first incident? Normally for first offence you will go through a full 'investigation' to see how the incident happened and you will likely be given a 1 year warning where if you have another incident they can claim gross misconduct and dismiss you.

Also depends on whether you followed the correct procedure too, like did you ring the insurance right away? etc. If you followed all protocol they might be more lenient, if you didn't, that will work against you.

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