Containerships assessment drive tomorrow.

[Garbo2018]

I've just been invited by their driver trainer to do an induction and an assessment drive at their Billingham site.

Anybody else currently work/or has worked for them before and knows the ins and outs?

Cheers.

[m.a.n rules]

try pm'ing lucy on here she used to work for them.. she's a good gal, know's her stuff..

[malcolmgbell]

Not work for them, talking to a couple drivers down the grain their pay structure is all over the place, paid by the mile,payed to tip.there was a topic on here a couple years back if I rember

[mark1284]

£0.34 per mile
You get payed for ‘extras’ like starting before 4am, reloads, stripouts, self tips about £15 for each £26 nightout
Can earn good money if your willing to graft


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[mark1284]

Theres also rumors that they are moving back to teesport and going to hourly pay


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[malcolmgbell]

Here u go https://www.trucknetuk.com/phpBB/viewto ... ainerships.

[malcolmgbell]

Theres also rumors that they are moving back to teesport and going to hourly pay


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When you say moving back to t port, what pulling out of the grain

[chaversdad]

Theres also rumors that they are moving back to teesport and going to hourly pay


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When you say moving back to t port, what pulling out of the grain

They moved there yard from Teesport to Billingham, talk of them moving back to Teesport

[Lucy]

They'd have a job, there's a Freightliner depot on the old yard now IIRC...

Anyway, I can't be arsed to type it all again, so have a copy and paste of my last post on the subject:

I worked for Containerships for nigh on 11 years, finishing at the end of 2014. The company has changed as it's grown, and a whole rake of long-servers all left around the same time for various reasons, although a good few have since gone back. I shan't bore you too much with how it used to be as it's not really relevant here.

Firstly, the whole question of how they get away with paying mileage. It is not illegal, and trust me we all got very bored of explaining this one over and over again. The position is this: the law states that an operator must not structure their wages in such a way as to reward bent running. At Conships the mileage is paid off the computer rather than the tacho for starters, and regular analysis of cards is undertaken. Drivers' work is planned to be done legally. The combination of all that means the local DVSA are totally happy with the scheme. As a side note, I wrote a feature on the legality of pay schemes for Commercial Motor a few years ago, and the conclusion was that hourly rate is actually far more likely to be illegal if no limits are set on the maximum number of hours.

The waiting thing. This is NOT bog standard deep sea container work, it is short sea. Short sea containers compete with the unaccompanied trailer market and most loads are palletised. From what I can gather, most of those which aren't are now done as drop and swaps, so drivers don't sit that much anyway - I certainly never did.

Driver Assist means pump truck. And if the stuff's heavy, it means helping the customer shift it with a pump truck. It does NOT mean handball. The hardest jobs are probably those involving open-sided containers which need stripping down, but they attract extra too, and you can refuse to do them.

There's been a change in office staff since I left, but while Tricia Green, the transport manager, doesn't suffer fools gladly and will most definitely let you know if you've screwed up, I can honestly say she's the best traffic planner on the face of the planet. The whole thing used to fall apart when she went on holiday. She's VERY brisk in her manner, largely because she's always stretched to the limit for time, but ultimately she's fair - hell, she was fair to me and I don't think I've anything to lose any more by saying she didn't even like me. At all.

Do Conships drivers tear about? I did, but I suspect that was as much my own desire to crack on as any pressure from the company. I was diagnosed with MS in 2006 and by 2010 needed to cut my spreadover hours. I generally got away with doing 13 on/11 off the vast majority of the time and made a decent wage doing it. They've had a long-overdue pay rise since then and do very nicely now, from what I've been told by those I'm still in touch with. Don't knock 1ppm extra for adr, it adds between £15 and £20 a week - nearly 750 a year.

The reason the whole scheme is so complicated, by the way, is because it's grown up over many decades of drivers reps negotiating a bit here and a bit there - it was 25ppm flat rate when I first started in 2004, then we got reload money, then we got a bit more for open-siders, and so on and so on as the job changed. It got simplified when the MD changed into a higher mileage rate and fewer add-ons, but they've managed to get all the extras back ON TOP of the higher mileage since then. I was certainly never someone who argued for hourly pay - why would I want to have to work longer hours to get higher money, when I could do the same on mileage by simply thinking about how I showed breaks etc. to keep my spreadover down?

You get a photocopy of your timesheet back in your payslip so you can check your pay, btw. All the mileage rates etc are noted on by the pay clerks so you can see if they've missed anything, and if they have they'll sort it. Diverted a long way off route by an accident or closure? Note it down and usually they'll pay it. There used to be a few anomalies - you always had to write "via Penrith" when you went to Lancaster, for example, else the computer routed you through the weight limit at Kirby Stephen - but generally the rates were based on sensible, wagon-friendly routes. Oh, and I had no problem at all getting a mortgage.

All in all, they're a decent company to work for. Sure, if you like to hang the bag out and sit around in laybys and cafes it won't be for you, but if you're happy to run your hours out you could do a damn sight worse.

[Lucy]

Oh, and as for assessment drives, I never had to do one of those but so long as you don't drive like a total prat I'm sure you'll be fine.

[Garbo2018]

Well...

Had the assessment drive today, which consisted of coupling and uncoupling a skelly with a 45' box, a quick drive around Teesside, and then a simple reverse.

Got offered the job (which I took up). Starting on 27th August, 06.00-16.30 Monday-Friday (£10.30 ph, O/T after 16.30, plus time and a half every other Saturday), mostly backwards and forwards to Teesport (with occasional local deliveries or collections) and WILL be home every night!

I am now officially a box jockey!

[mark1284]

Shunting by the sounds of it.
Who done the assessment? Shaun?


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[Garbo2018]

Shunting by the sounds of it.
Who done the assessment? Shaun?


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Yes. It was Shaun. In one of the 65-plate MANs.

This shunting job suits me right down to the ground.

Do you know anything about the blue and white 09-plate CF DAF that's sitting around in the yard?

Do you know if I'm cab hopping for a while (doesn't matter since I'm just doing days)?

[mark1284]

They were used for shunting but i think there [zb] now. About cab hopping not sure mate best see gordon


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[Gidders]

I expect the job may have changed a little since I was knocking about there.C/ships used to run out of the Bell Terminal and the boss(Wayne Batt?)used to flee about the dock at 100mph in his Porsche.

[humbug]

did the assessment include treating the a66 like a race track, staying in the outside lane all the way along it even at the lights when loaded alongside empty trucks, attempting to barge in after rinnen on the way to teesport, intimidating cars by driving right up their back end, not paying any attention to lane markings at the mcdonalds roundabout and driving inside the docks like they're always late? bumped into a few when out and about and always seemed happy enough but an odd sense of superiority.
i believe their old place on teesport is now a pd ports warehouse. good luck with the new job.

[Lucy]

I expect the job may have changed a little since I was knocking about there.C/ships used to run out of the Bell Terminal and the boss(Wayne Batt?)used to flee about the dock at 100mph in his Porsche.

Ahhhh, ol' Batty. never met the man myself, but heard a lot - some of it might even have been true!

Humbug - they didn't call them the Middlesbrough Fly Boys for nowt...

[the maoster]

Humbug - they didn't call them the Middlesbrough Fly Boys for nowt...

Back in the golden days when Owen et al were there me and Mark used to call them the formation overtaking team as you'd see four or five glued together approaching in your mirrors and when the first one indicated to pull out and overtake you the rest would move en masses into lane two in one fluid movement!

[malcolmgbell]

synchronised platooning done for safety reasons