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I like to be organised, and plan well ahead. I do my Christmas shopping in early November, pack my suitcases to go on holiday four days before I go, and I understand the concept of time. If a chicken is going to take two hours and 15 minutes to cook, I put it in the oven two and a half hours before we are going to eat.
Unlike being organised at home, in the fleet business, any careful planning and organisation goes straight out of the window. At the beginning of this year, I knew I had a full twelve months to source 22 new vehicles. I am in control of the situation and like to plan ahead - but that's where the problem arises, as you can't seem to plan anymore.
I was told with varying degrees of commitment, that delivery of one of these new vehicles will be in six months. Just in case, I'd factored in nine months - to be on the safe side. Then low and behold, as if by magic, the 'magical pipeline' says we can have this vehicle in, not six months, not even nine months, but in just two to three weeks, as it's on a boat somewhere in the North Sea! This isn't helpful for me, because I can't have it in three-weeks, as I still must pay for the lease on the current car, and our boss refuses to pay early termination fees. Although, this is one thing I do agree with him on, but very little else.
I've since had endless calls with our very good and patient lease company about how reliable the 'delivery time' information is. Well, in my opinion and experience, it's not very reliable, and the dilemma continues.
I often now look at our stationery cupboard in the corner of the office and fantasise about it being an entrance to Narnia and I can go in it, to get away from Fleet Land, and all the hassle that goes with it. I look at the boxes of A4 in the cupboard (paper is not easy to get either, but easier than the bigger version of an A4, or A3, or A1!) and I imagine sitting on a box might whisk me off to a land that's not full of problems and drivers that don't have a brain. That's what I'm reduced to some days!
"My mate in the pub has got one," is usually the last bit of bargaining they use. They begin with," I'm really good at my job, ask the boss, I look after my car," and "I've been here a long time." When it comes to company car requests, I get all these requests when choosing a new one. In one case recently, one of our salespeople started demanding a car that needed to be converted from a "Commercial" so they could get a nice car, but with BIK advantages! There are some manufacturers who do specifically produce these commercial conversions, which I think are made with the pure purpose of converting them into passenger cars. Add some rear seats, seat belts, carpets, and there you go, a car, not a van.
There are many specialists out there who do make a good living out of these conversions, often using parts supplied by the manufacturer, and it can be a costly amount. But once done, the driver has the advantage of a very nice, and often luxurious car, for the price, in BIK terms of a van.
I don't think our drivers realise some of the implications of driving a van, despite it looking very much like a car, such as speed limits, that on a vehicle registered as an N1 (light van) are lower on some roads compared to an M1 (passenger car). Though sometimes I think some of our van drivers don't know the difference either, looking at some of the speeding tickets that come in. For example, on a dual carriageway it's 70mph in a car, but only 60mph in a van, or a converted van to a car.
Our leasing company are not keen on conversions of any sort, and the huge cost of turning van into car, is not available to us, and if they did agree to put a 'van to a car' on their fleet, the cost to us, per month would be horrendous. But if we bought the vehicle ourselves, paid for the work to be carried out, and we owned it outright, however I think it would be possible, but we don't buy them outright - every one of our vehicles is on a lease, so it is impossible.
I'm not too sure where we would stand with insurance or Type Approval, probably alright, but is it worth taking the risk, when you are an under pressure, hardworking fleet manager? So back to the 'my mate in the pub has got one'. Well, I told our driver, if your mate in the pub worked here, he definitely would NOT have one.
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