The mad world of relief milkers...

kfpben

Member

Location

Mid Hampshire

• Jan 22, 2018

• #21

DairyGrazing said:

Where do I start when I was in Auz, NZ, Canada and the US I felt more like a social worker than a farmer.

One guy hit his house mate with an axe. One lad shot a girl with a B.B. gun she rang the police. I turned on to the farm road to be met with a tactical team with four more on the farm. One lad has a mental break down because his dad started sleeping with his gf the day she moved in with him.

Click to expand...

I have noticed that dairy job adverts in NZ/Oz quite often state that mandatory staff drink/drug testing will be in force.

Never seen that in the UK before, probably wouldn’t even be legal. Perhaps they’re even more wild down under!?

 

DairyGrazing

Member

Mixed Farmer

Location

North West

• Jan 22, 2018

• #22

kfpben said:

I have noticed that dairy job adverts in NZ/Oz quite often state that mandatory staff drink/drug testing will be in force.

Never seen that in the UK before, probably wouldn’t even be legal. Perhaps they’re even more wild down under!?

Click to expand...

Another classic I lived with a couple at one job. I only went there as a milker to kill some time before ski season started and I ended being made unit manager. One of the local lads who I had got on well with up until that point wasn’t too happy. He got drunk drove to our place and crashed his car into the ditch. Walked to the other farm’s manager house thinking it was mine. He sent Shannon round to mine and didn’t even text me to warn me.

He started kicking off in our porch and drew a knife. Anyway I managed to talk him down and got his girlfriend to come pick him up. As he left he started giving it the big I am and Tori cracked with a piece of firewood.

Then a few days later it came out the other farm manger hadn’t given us a heads up about Shannon so she went round and put a log through his car window. She was his wife’s niece so that was interest the next family get together!

 

ollie989898

Member

Location

Hanging from a twig, in a deep sleep.

• Jan 22, 2018

• #23

Very common to see drug testing stipulated in some jobs in the USA. I guess the problems for folk living away from home doing routine or perhaps unstimulating jobs, maybe the temptation. Not clever if you are supposed to be operating a big machine or something.

 

hendrebc

Member

Livestock Farmer

Location

Denbighshire but not the vale of clwyd

• Jan 22, 2018

• #24

We had a gang of pylon painters working out of our yard for a couple of years and drug tests on a monday morning was a regular thing for some of them

 

DairyGrazing

Member

Mixed Farmer

Location

North West

• Jan 22, 2018

• #25

hendrebc said:

We had a gang of pylon painters working out of our yard for a couple of years and drug tests on a monday morning was a regular thing for some of them

Click to expand...

Everyone had to take a breatheliser in the morning on the gas platform and pipeline in Aus. I think we had to do a urine sample on the spot as well but I’m not sure.

 

buffalo_soldier

Member

Location

cumbria

• Jan 22, 2018

• #26

Mate of mine is in construction, he had to bring in drug testing as part of his insurance.

About 1/3 of his staff resigned before the first test

 

Dead Rabbits

Member

Location

'Merica

• Jan 22, 2018

• #27

ollie989898 said:

Very common to see drug testing stipulated in some jobs in the USA. I guess the problems for folk living away from home doing routine or perhaps unstimulating jobs, maybe the temptation. Not clever if you are supposed to be operating a big machine or something.

Click to expand...

It's all a big game. Insurance companies want drug/alcohol testing to cover their ass. Everyone just gets a pee belt and gets on with life.

 

Rossymons

Member

Location

Cornwall

• Jan 22, 2018

• #28

One chap wanted to work here and came down by train so we went to pick him up. Got on with him, cracking stockman.

Couple weeks go past and he goes home for the weekend. Doesn't arrive on Monday. Not Tuesday. Not for the week neither despite us ringing him.

Turns out he was arrested for drink driving. Not for the first time neither and had lost his license hence he caught the train down initially. And the wedding wasn't actually a wedding it was his court date and he had been found guilty and sent down for it.

We discovered it was his court date as we emptied out his room in the house and found the summons in his bin.

 

happycows

Member

Location

North Devon Cornwall border

• Jan 22, 2018

• #29

Ha best I had was a druggie who as you said, used to sleep on site under the office table too avoid the cost of traveling. He would smoke weed through some sort of pipe thing and found bits of tin foil that had been heated up!!! ??heroin?.
He had fabricated 2 references and my employer hadn’t checked up. He’d actually been working in the ladder factory at Launceston previously.
After a weekend off I’d had a call late Sunday evening too say there was a dead cow in the calving field. When I arrived at 4am and went too check the calving field he was there administering a bottle of calcium too a cow that had been dead for 12 hours.

 

multi power

Member

Location

pembrokeshire

• Jan 22, 2018

• #30

This thread makes me feel normal ish and no not the drink or drugs
I'm just a miserable sod and rather work with cow's than people
That said I had to shout at a cow today, very rare event

 

kill

Member

Livestock Farmer

Location

South West

• Jan 22, 2018

• #31

One guy I heard about didn't make morning milking a couple years ago as the police had smashed his door in and charged him with rape.
Another was sacked for peering in the window at the farmers wife in her nightie.

A YTS was sacked for peering at a different farmers wife who was washing dishes while playing with himself.
My mates brothers marriage finished after he had been caught with each (2) females relief milkers in the parlour at different times.

But the biggest idiot was the guy who was asked to give 3 buckets of barley to the calves which he done with the telehandler and killed most of them but he was probably high!!!

 

Woolgatherer

Member

Location

Angus

• Jan 22, 2018

• #32

I'm very boring, I've done nothing criminal, not even a parking ticket. Yet.

 

kfpben

Member

Location

Mid Hampshire

• Jan 22, 2018

• #33

A friend of mine’s dad had a student working on the farm about 30 years ago...

Said student was sacked on the spot after the farmer walked round the corner to find the student in the calf pen with his trousers round his ankles encouraging the calves to ‘feed’.

 

Red Fred

Member

Location

Hants/Dorset border

• Jan 22, 2018

• #34

Crikey, we lead sheltered lives here! only odd cowman i remember was the one on the next door farm who took to having his packed lunch in the ditch next to our house or up a nearby oak tree so he could ogle my older sister when she was sunbathing in the garden. Must have been a complete nutter....
Actually, there was another on a farm where I worked who regularly went explosively angry. He was locked up after loading his little daughter in the truck and going off on an off road self destruction derby. Luckily they stopped him before he killed anyone.

 

U

upnortheast

Member

Livestock Farmer

Location

Northumberland

• Jan 22, 2018

• #35

Blimy, some rum charactors you folks employ.
Makes milking with robots seem quite dull, but I know which the cows prefer

 

hendrebc

Member

Livestock Farmer

Location

Denbighshire but not the vale of clwyd

• Jan 22, 2018

• #36

Wtf is wrong with people

 

Cowabunga

Member

Location

Ceredigion,Wales

• Jan 22, 2018

• #37

hendrebc said:

Wtf is wrong with people

Click to expand...

Just remember that we have a cross section of people on this forum, and discreet readers, who have probably been described above. And worse. Its a jungle out there!

 

kiwi pom

Member

Location

canterbury NZ

• Jan 23, 2018

• #38

kfpben said:

I have noticed that dairy job adverts in NZ/Oz quite often state that mandatory staff drink/drug testing will be in force.

Never seen that in the UK before, probably wouldn’t even be legal. Perhaps they’re even more wild down under!?

Click to expand...

Yes drug testing common here before you're hired, not sure how many farmers do it as it can kinda narrow down your choices.
I was tested when I started my job on the tankers and if drivers had any kind of oops with the truck they were required to stay on site until a mobile tester arrived to test them,
Local transport company has randomly tested its drivers and office staff a couple of times which has resulted in quite a few job vacancies.

 

Landyman

New Member

• Jan 23, 2018

• #39

They do random drug tests at the foundry and you have to take one at your medical before being given employment, one of the lads from my old foundry got an interview ( prolific dope smoker ) we warned him about the test and not to have a joint for at least a week before the medical, thick twatt got sh!tfaced the night before , failed the medical and got escorted off the premises ( shame because he was a good bloke and a grafter

 

hendrebc

Member

Livestock Farmer

Location

Denbighshire but not the vale of clwyd

• Jan 23, 2018

• #40

Cowabunga said:

Just remember that we have a cross section of people on this forum, and discreet readers, who have probably been described above. And worse. Its a jungle out there!

Click to expand...

Fair enough i think its like a couple of others have said ive lived a sheltered life it seems!