Jump to content

First volockie irritation of the year.


nicknorman

Featured Posts

20 hours ago, nicknorman said:

... and it’s only March 6th!

 

Arrived at Atherstone top lock. Volockie on duty, opened top gate for us. So far so good! His colleague went away down the flight to fill the locks for us. Great!

 

I drove boat in, volockie closed gate whilst I opened offside paddle. Still good! By the time I walked across the bottom gates he was sitting on the balance beam leaning over the other bottom paddle. I thanked him for his help and then went to open the second paddle. But he was in the way, so I said “I’ll just open this paddle”. But he didn’t budge, and proceeded to explain to me that because these locks drained twice as fast as they filled, I should only use one paddle.

 

Well he sort of has a point in that it is true, they are fast drainers and slow fillers and thus in order to avoid putting water down the bywash of the next lock, I suppose there might be a case for it. But the other chap, having gone ahead, had the lock below mostly full and anyway, with the rain last night, water was pouring over all the bywashes in the flight. So he just obstructed my normal use of the lock for no reason and short of physically pushing him aside, I had to comply with his wishes. I decided to “let it go” and complied with his suggestion that I carry on to the next lock. I had the gate open and had to wait a minute or two before the lock gates were finally opened “still just one paddle up” and our boat was able to approach the lock.

 

Obviously this is not a big deal in itself, we wasted perhaps one minute. But it did annoy me. It seemed to be a power and control thing. He wanted to exert his authority and power (not that he actually has any) and short of a major argument and fight, I had to comply.

 

By contrast the other chap continued to fill locks ahead of us down most of the flight, which was great. And he was picking up rubbish. This is what volockies should be doing, not telling boaters with over 50 years experience how to operate a lock. I think I shall make a complaint. I didn’t just pay £900 quid for my licence to have some volunteer tell me which paddles I may and may not use.

 

 

If it really irked me, I reckon I’d have insisted he move out the way. Politely of course. 

 

Did he stay at the top lock while his mate set the locks ahead? Or continue to help (or hinder)?

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, nicknorman said:

You continue to be offensive, I wonder why? Not that it bothers me, you clearly have limited cognitive ability since you don’t understand the difference between a volockie advising me to do something, vs a volockie physically preventing me from carrying out normal lock operations, and therefore your other views have no weight either. Or perhaps you did it deliberately? It’s one or the other. And yes, I don’t like being told what to do (or in this case, prevented from doing something) by someone who both has no authority to do so, and is wrong anyway.

 

Anyway you clearly have a massive chip, are quite a nasty person just looking for a fight, therefore I shall from now on ignore you (before Mr Athy tells me to!) and hopefully never meet you on the system. Unfortunate like most cowardly bullies, you are hiding behind anonymity so I know neither your name nor your boat name (if you even have one) so you will be hard to avoid, pity.

I wish you would stop surmising about me as your totally wrong again. Your clearly irked about what happened and didn't like being told what to.  Do you feel like you were bullied by the Volockie? As you say you were physically stopped from using the paddle, so once again I ask why you never addressed the problem face to face with the Volockie and educated him in his role.

Edited by PD1964
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Goliath said:

If it really irked me, I reckon I’d have insisted he move out the way. Politely of course. 

 

Did he stay at the top lock while his mate set the locks ahead? Or continue to help (or hinder)?

 

 

 

Fortunately he stayed at the top lock. We were relieved! We then whizzed down the rest of the flight thanks to the other guy who had gone ahead as far as the old Barry Hawkins yard lock. I think it took about 1:45 which is pretty good for Atherstone. In the next pound we passed a boat coming up so the last 4 were also full, more or less.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think some posters are forgetting that you can tell from someone's attitude how they will respond to criticism. Some vlockies are obviously going to make your life miserable if you "try to educate them" and that can ruin your day as well as theirs. It's then best to shrug and walk away, follow it up with CRT if you think it necessary. 

The one at Bosley who watched me single my way up while sipping his tea who then lectured me about how to work a lock was like that. Pointless arguing. 

That being said, I reckon 90% are excellent these days, at least the ones I've met. 

  • Greenie 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

All this wittering on! 

Volockies are trained to advise, not order and or obstruct. The boater is in charge. So maybe carry a copy or two of that document quoted by Alan (I think). Calmly state your case with the uppity volocky, back it up with the statement from their health and safety chief. Then if they carry on, report them. 

Simple. 

 

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, Jim Riley said:

All this wittering on! 

Volockies are trained to advise, not order and or obstruct. The boater is in charge. So maybe carry a copy or two of that document quoted by Alan (I think). Calmly state your case with the uppity volocky, back it up with the statement from their health and safety chief. Then if they carry on, report them. 

Simple. 

 

 

If you can be arsed! As I've said before, life's too short.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

15 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

 

If you can be arsed! As I've said before, life's too short.

Quicker, more effective and easier than coming on here and dealing with the witterers, naysayers and grumbling old gusts of smelly wind. 

Edited by Jim Riley
Link to comment
Share on other sites

18 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

PS I do notice that a lot of the nastier comments on this and other threads are being made by people who have made very few posts. Odd. 

I think it’s just a feature of modern social media. Not a nice one, and one of the reasons why I dont come on here much here days and never venture onto Facebook! Ironically I find Thunderboat better - at least on there you know who your enemies are and don’t get random people popping out of the woodwork to snipe!

Some people haven’t got much to look forward to in their lives. They have nothing to offer but seem to get pleasure by lurking on social media looking for an opportunity to make others suffer for their own misery. Sad really.

Edited by nicknorman
Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, haza said:

so what if all this went on at grindley brook and he gets paid for it lol

Some lock flights (including GB) have professional lock keepers. In my experience they know what they are doing and anyway, as far as I am aware they do have lawful authority to control locking. I don’t have a problem with that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I thought it was English

Sort of. Vide is borrowed from Latin and is just a high-falutin’ way of saying “see”, serve me right for being pretentious.  POTUS is American for President of the United States and was me being lazy.

 

So – lazy and pretentious... I blame the new drug but I won’t hijack this thread any further. Meanwhile, all my sympathies are with Nick, I’d have done just the same.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 hours ago, PD1964 said:

Once again you surmise that I think Volockies are great just like you surmised I was one. I do think the Thead post should or been "First Volockie bashing of the year" I also think you've let yourself get worked up over something totally trivial that a Volockie advised you to only use one paddle instead of two and you didn't like it, I think my remarks aren't offensive there's no swearing or nasty name calling, just my opinion, but with your remarks like "with over 50 years experience how to operate a lock" and "I didn't just pay £900 quid for my license to have some volunteer to tell me which paddles I may or may not use" It just looks to me me you think your something special and who doesn't like being told what to do by someone you obviously think inferior. I take it you have a brand new shiny boat too, you seem that type, sorry if these remarks offend some people.


See previous post.

 

From the highest levels within CRT - what is meant to happen.....

 

Quote

 

3. The boater has the overall responsibility/control. The lock keepers are there to advise, guide and assist.

6. The VLK should always ask the boater before offering assistance.

 


Very clearly the chap that Nick has encountered is not adhering to the first of these, as he hasn't just "advised, guided and assist", but actually imposed his own rules about what he will let happen.  In fact far from assisting he has impeded.

 

It is correct to register a complaint about him, because either he is not adhering to what he should have been told in training, or he was trained incorrectly.  For the safety of other boaters either possibility needs to be addressed.

You seem to think he should be allowed to deviate from the rules and not challenged - I disagree.

  • Greenie 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

One more reason I am glad to be out of it all.  Only had proper lockies when I was boating.  They left you alone if they could see that you knew what you were doing.

The Thames did have 'Summer Assistants', but they knew what they were doing.  Apart from one, who insisted that I stopped the engine.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.