As for me
When we were in the old buildings, I was 'press-ganged' (my name was suggested...) for 'winter gritting'
Ie; a few of us were on-call, any non on-duty hours all the rest of the week in rotation
So... I got to play... sorry..... learn to operate these
A full week charging about, reversing trailers, digging holes (& filling them in), loading trailers ,etc....
And paid for it!!!
Then, I was introduced to the equipment we had
Archaic, was not the word...….
And, the JCB was even worse
Whilst the on-call money was okay (I think £2.00/hour, then paid o/t rates from answering the phone), I don't miss the 01:00 calls, & minus 3. in a tractor with a missing back window for 2 hours
On one occasion, I finished a 10 hour shift at 22:00, was back there for 02:00
And still on the damn thing, due to snow all night, till 09:00
Then, starting my own work, till about 18:00
Rather annoyingly, no-one told the quartet of us, that local rules/regulations that were still abided by (from the days of 'Wakefield Health Authority', we were a NHS Trust by the time I started) stated that
any member of staff, who was on-call, & had attended for more than 2 hours should be allowed the next day off - if they were working, & paid!!
Sadly, when we did find out, we couldn't have it retrospectively
