How healthy do you think you are?

Radar19:

Juddian:
There’s a generational thing at work here too.
Some of us were sole breadwinners whilst our wives (usually but not always) raised any children.

Its never been easy running a comfortable solvent home on one working persons wages, so the sole breadwinner often took it upon themselves to earn the money of two well paid people, hence where 70/100 hour weeks became the norm for many working class breadwinners who worked in the real world, not just lorry drivers lots of working people have worked themselves into early graves over the years, many of us here come from the last years of that era, and the work was in most cases a hell of a lot harder than today and working two or more jobs common.
That generational thing also included being net earners, taking a (foolish? well to some it might appear so) pride in not asking the state for any help.

We all carry the scars aches and long term issues, that our work has tolled on our bodies and minds.

Unfortunately lorry driving has now gone backwards, the huge strides in the 80’s in particular, where drivers could earn very decent money without having to work all hours God sent have taken a gradual dive back to previous days, the move away from own account to contact haulage bears a lot of responsibility for this, hire and reward is always going to be pared to the bone extracting as much work as possible from your tools (vehicles and bums on seats) as possible for as little cost as possible.
The actual work isn’t usually as physically hard any more except for one or two sides of the industry (usually at the better paid end but not always), but the hours in reality have gone up, remember pre about 1979 we had a 12.5 hour working day, then we got safer european parity and went for a 15 hour day.

I’ve been there lads, worked all hours, near enough become part of the bloody machine, if the present Lady J a woman far too good for me hadn’t stopped me and thanks to her intervention getting me away from the car transporters (not a game for old men) i’m not sure i’d be in the reasonably if a bit overweight rude state of health i find myself now in, touch wood, not being melodramatic here i hadn’t seen where i was going cos all i did was work and sleep the sleep of the dead but she had seen it

Thats why i often pipe up when i hear of ■■■■ poor pay schemes and obvious shark infested waters where you can see young and new drivers heading or being led by the dishonest down those same endless roads and not even being paid decently for it, cos i’ve been there as have many others and have the bloody T shirts the scars the aches and the damaged lives, and have at long last found something better, hence why i try to encourage others to seek the same.

All the best DDi, a worthy thread indeed, worth thinking about deeply.

Kinda makes me feel guilty for working those 15 hour days, 70+ hour weeks.

It’s your health Radar, only you and yours will care about it.