Skip Hire Blog

We had a customer yesterday saying she had something unusual to be taken away.

When we asked what, the lady calmly said “HORSE SHIT”

Oh, the glamour of working in the skip hire industry....

We do have a number of celebrity customers at Topskips - we'd never tell anyone about them though: client confidentiality is paramount to us. You never know who wants to know about famous people throwing things away!

We do feel safe in sharing this with you. Yesterday we had skip hire orders from Mohammed Ali, Sharon Osbourne and Tom Finney. None of which were the original articles, but all of which are very welcome onboard as Topskips customers!

Michael in our sales office received a call from a keen reader of "The Skip" magazine (Topskips publishes this magazine every month as The Voice of The Skip Hire Industry in the UK and Ireland") asking why skips were shaped liked skips and not like boxes!

Michael panicked and quickly passed the call to John, who then proceeded to explain that the unique shape of skips is due to the need to stack them when they're empty - can you imagine the room that would be taken up in a skip yard if all the skips were box shaped?

Needless to say, we're brushing up on everyones sales training - we never expected anyone to ask that question before!

This story came in from Louise Malpas, Head of Customer Service at Topskips.com today:

"I took an enquiry from an exasperated landlord who had evicted his tenants after unsociable behaviour and complaints from neighbours. He was clearing out the mess that they had left and rang us up to see if we accepted marijuana in our skips!

"Apparently, in their hasty exit they had left their stock of marijuana plants growing in the loft. Although we accept green waste, we had to decline this particular kind, and advised him to consult his nearest constabulary.

"However, he ended up booking skip hire for the household waste with Topskips after all!"

Thanks Louise!

Here's a great story from Alan in our Finance Department about one of our skip hire customers and the phone conversation Alan had with him:

"I phoned a domestic customer a couple of weeks ago with regard to a credit card number he had given that was declined, and I needed payment. I needed to know whether we had taken the number down wrong or if there was no credit left on the card. The conversation went along the following lines:

Me: Mister Jones, its Alan at Topskips, we appear to have a problem with your recent debit card transaction. Could I just check the card details with you please?

Mr J: (On his mobile) No problem. Can you just wait a minute, I have no pants on, and there is someone at the door.

Me: I don’t really need to know that, but OK.

Mr J: It was only the postman. Right, I am going to have to take you upstairs, I still have no pants on.

Sound of muttering and Mr J going upstairs.

Mr J: Right, found em. Just check the pockets. No. Not here. Must be in my jacket. Wheres my bloody jacket. Found it. Right got my wallet. Will have to take you back down stairs, not got my bloody glasses on, or my pants.

Sound of walking downstairs then a stumble.

Mr J: For F*%!ks sake. Nearly broke my ba$*&rd leg. F%&*ing boxes everywhere. I am moving tomorrow, that’s why I needed the skip, get rid of all this sh!te. Right got my glasses. What did you need?

Me: The long number across the middle of the card, the expiry date and the 3 digit security code on the back.

Mr J read the number out and it was the right one. Told him he needed to put some money into his account.

Mr J: I will go to the post office now and top it up.

Me: Make sure you put your pants on first.

Mr J: It wouldn’t make any difference in this village whether I had pants on or not, they are all f*&^king puddled, that’s why I am moving!!

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He phoned me back an hour later and the transaction went through, But we still don’t know if he went to the Post Office with his pant on or off!!!

*************************************

Cheers Alan.

Warning: DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO IF YOU ARE EASILY OFFENDED OR DON'T HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOUR!

This is what happens when you combine the following deadly ingredients: Manchester rain, a skip, a builder who's also a part-time stripper and a video camera. Result: well, it cheered the neighbours up (except the old woman at number 15 who had a heart attack). Only click play if you find mens bums funny.

Okay, this may not be funny to some people, but this is a video we found on YouTube that justifiably shows what could happen if you overfill your skip or didn't use a firm like TopSkips that takes credit card payments upfront (so you don't have to deal with the driver or his cash demands):

Skip Boys Revenge -Click here to watch the video

I'm getting this for my 2 year old son because it's (a) Bob the Builder Friction Skip and he bloody loves that and (b) part of my plan to ingratiate him into the skip hire industry :-)

We had to share this with the world ... our inimitable Head of Customer services at Topskips.com, Louise Malpas, corpsing on her rehearsal for our corporate video. It made us laugh...plus it's nice for any of the thousands of customers she's dealt with to see what she really looks like (although I think she wishes she'd put some make-up on that day :-). Did I mention that she's also my sister-in-law and will kill me when she sees this