No i haven’t got a message scrawled on the back of the cab, nor do i have the bhp or engine cylinder configuration stencilled on the fuel tank, however i have been known to keep me alloy wheels and fuel tank polished from time to time.
But aside from that, lets get real, for most of us there’s a reason or several reasons we drive lorries.
me?
- it’s what i always wanted to do, though with constant dumbing down of the job requirements it’s true to say it doesn’t give the same job satisfaction any more.
- i hate being inside, can’t do office politics, miserable buggers get me down, don’t want to have to be around the same people all the time, love being out and about with a certain amount of job freedom (while that slender margin of freedom is being eroded).
So i’m a working class geezer, i go to work early most mornings, prepare then drive me lorry to wherever, tip me load, return to base, and bugger off home early afternoon most days, i look after me kit so might have washed down before i left might wash it down after i get back, might or might not have to load for a night man if the lorry’s going out, thats it basically, short hours short working weeks due to shift pattern, and paid rather well for that easy life.
Now where the hell else can i find a job with a 43 hour week that pays this well for basically doing bugger all other than delivering product?
Best of it all is in our game, the older you are and more experience you have (and a provable work record to confirm), the more desirable you are to the better employers out there, what other industry could i possibly work in where i get all that and not be chucked on the scrap heap at 55 or replaced by a younger willing or better looking or more snazzy young donkey with ■■■ appeal.
So yes, maybe in some ways i am living the dream, as are many other drivers, the reality that is of normal working class geezers.
Would i want to be rich, well in all honesty no, had my circs been different i wouldn’t have met the good lady, to whom money social standing materialism or the accoutrements of wealth and privilege mean nothing.
We have a nice home and a life that we enjoy, doing the things we want to.
Lorry driving has had its ups and downs, but i struggle to think of anything else i’d rather have done, overall i’m living my realistic dream.
and that’s just for starters with my furtive imagination.
