Our Boss (The MD) drives, or as it turns out drove a Mercedes-Benz X-Class pick-up and did like it – especially the BIK benefits that came with it. But, he’s got a new girlfriend, and she hates it – it makes her feel sick when in motion, and she doesn’t like the dark grey. Anyway, the Boss gradually ends up falling out of love with his ever-reliable pick-up. Next, I got a call into his office a few weeks ago, where he tells me he wants to change his car, or more precisely, ‘he needs to change it,’ he says in a louder than normal voice. ‘You can’t,’ I tell him, it’s in the middle of a lease, and an early termination will cost a fortune, and there’s nothing left in the budget for that – it’s tight enough.
I walked out of his office thinking I’d won that one, but just four days later I saw a brand-new estate car in a bronze gold colour in the Boss’s parking space – the only space in the car park with no overhanging branches dropping tree sap onto the cars. ‘Great,’ I thought, ‘someone has pinched his place.’ I did chuckle to myself; in fact, I almost broke out into a laugh. My amusement was quickly cut short, as the Boss passed me in the corridor, I asked him if he knew someone had parked in his parking spot. He told me it was his new car – ‘a friend of a friend sorted it for him,’ and had even had the cheek to go behind my back and lease it with our company.
A few hours later, I was asked politely if I could pop into his office, where he greeted me with a friendly smile, and asked me to look at his computer screen. There were no bank balances, new company starters, or any financial things. Oh no, he wanted to show me a photo of a very nice (and no doubt expensive) Chateau in France, that he told me he was going to at the weekend with his new partner, in the goldy-bronze new estate. I said: ‘Make sure it has UK on the number plates, a full European touring kit – including hi-viz jackets, and do you want me to sort European cover?’ He told me he’d do all the necessary preparation. He even showed me his screen again with his planned route and stopovers, where to eat, and which vineyards they were going to stop at. ‘Lovely,’ I said with a faint growl.
Fast forward a few weeks, the office is quiet, with no calls to go into the Boss’s office – everyone is so relaxed. This was broken by a phone call from the man himself! He said he needed help, and as I’m the fleet manager, I’m the one who can help. He told me he’d clipped a kerb going down a country road, damaged the wheel, and the tyre was ‘beyond repair’. Although looking at the photos of the damage, I think he clipped more than a kerb, at quite a speed. He asked me to find someone local who could get a wheel and new tyre. Where was I going to find this garage, who could get a wheel and a tyre when the car is in the middle of nowhere? Presumably halfway up a mountain on a Friday afternoon!
I told him it was best to call European Assist, the company I told him he had to inform that he was taking the car to France. He promptly said, ‘he thought I had done that’. ‘No,’ I said, ‘you were going to do it.’ A brief argument followed, but quickly stopped as we both agreed to argue about it when (and if) he got home.
After a lot of calls, to the manufacturer in the UK, who got onto their counterparts in France, our Assist company, plus our insurance company and many others, and I finally got it sorted some seven hours later. A new wheel and tyre were fitted at a garage about 25 kilometres away – the Boss and his girlfriend were mobile again. I genuinely thought it would have taken days, with the possibility of a car rental, and flying home, but no, it was effectively and quickly sorted by the fleet manager.
His old Merc pick-up is still at the far end of the car park, under the biggest tree, blocked in by a broken-down van, which is waiting for parts!
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