Rise of the robot RDC's

I have been on the road for over two years and have done a little bit of most things in that time.

It has been well documented on this blog that one of the many things I hate doing is food drops.

I was introduced to a new pet hate on Friday that could easily rival that. Alcohol!

My new company do a lot out of Magna park and even though I have had the (dis) pleasure of collecting and delivering there a few times, I am by no means a veteran.

I was delivering a load of spirits to a well known supermarket up there and was given a postcode and the name of the road it wasn't on !! A good start.


They have five massive distribution centers up on that estate and the one I wanted was the 5th.

I had visited 4 of them before I found that out . It would of been 5 but I knew I didn't have chilled or frozen food on board.

I went through the main gate and was directed to the goods in office.

After a while I was placed on a bay and told I'd be tipped soon after.


It was about an hour and the forklift driver still hadn't shown up and I still had the seals on the curtains from when I collected the load.

I spent a while looking around the warehouse and trying to catch someones attention.

I went inside and I saw something I had never seen before. I might be naive but I thought people worked in these places.

All I could see were rows and rows of pallets, stacked up 9 even 10 high into a dark and never ending ceiling.


A few operators stood on raised platforms in high viz and hard hats as these pallets were moved around with what looked like joysticks.

I was amazed.

It was like a scene out of I Robot .
Pallets were traveling around on moving floors and being wrapped and spun and tilted and lifted and there were no more than ten people in the whole place.



They eventually started to unload me when the computer had decided it was my turn and I thought I was out of there and off home.

No. I had to go back and wait at the goods in office until 'HAL' had decided I was empty.

I knew I was empty, the fork lift driver knew I was empty, the goods in office knew I was empty. The whole building knew I was empty, but the computer had decided I wasn't empty.

I wasn't the only one.

One bloke I was sat next to had this wine took off only to be told it was all going back on because the pallets were unacceptable to the computer!

He wasn't very happy but the computer didn't know that, everyone else in the building knew though.

Another guy sitting with the rapidly growing group of drivers praying the computer let us go, made a quip to the goods in office saying "any chance you can be a bit faster mate , the MOT's running out on my lorry" we all laughed, but the computer didn't. He was still there when I was handed my paperwork, by a human.

I have a collection on Monday so I hope they are faster at giving it out than they are at taking it back.