How do you guys cope with it?
I’m on my 2nd year of it now and my god it ■■■■■.
Thinking of switching up to something else but the convience of just having shifts whenever I want is what is making me stick to it.
I get zero job satisfaction from it.
I was CO-OP before and that was similar but drops took longer and were more of a workout but with Tesco it’s just soul leeching mundanity. Also the reversing at Co-OP was an actual challenge as you were taking artics into some crazy tight places.
I feel your pain , the waiting rooms with rock hard plastic seats , coffee vending that tastes like creosote , and some places have very rude and ignorant staff .
I went to one place and saw a driver have a mental breakdown due waiting too long and lack of natural sunlight made him lose the plot .
Aldi and Lidl is not so bad , you are in control of the delivery by unloading yourself .
adam277:
How do you guys cope with it?
I’m on my 2nd year of it now and my god it ■■■■■.
Thinking of switching up to something else but the convience of just having shifts whenever I want is what is making me stick to it.
I get zero job satisfaction from it.
I was CO-OP before and that was similar but drops took longer and were more of a workout but with Tesco it’s just soul leeching mundanity. Also the reversing at Co-OP was an actual challenge as you were taking artics into some crazy tight places.
That’s my rant anyway.
I would say you need to make your mind up. You like the shifts but hate the mundane work. Maybe find another type of work with similar shifts? I did some supermarket work on agency in London many years ago. I quite enjoyed it although it was not for very long. I enjoyed crazy tight places. The challenge made the job more exciting especially in the dark!
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
do they stil refer to those special places as padded cells?
tesco type rdc/shop work is just completely demeaning and an insult to anyones intelligence.
fair play if you can be brain dead for the duration of your shift,but apart from that,its an embarrassment of a job.
toby1234abc:
I feel your pain , the waiting rooms with rock hard plastic seats , coffee vending that tastes like creosote , and some places have very rude and ignorant staff .
I went to one place and saw a driver have a mental breakdown due waiting too long and lack of natural sunlight made him lose the plot .
Aldi and Lidl is not so bad , you are in control of the delivery by unloading yourself .
Wrong end of the stick I think chief.
He is delivering to the actual shops for COOP and Tesco, not to the RDC’s.
Do some regular work for a company that have the contract to do some store deliveries, did it a couple of times and never again. I know people say that lorry drivers are just steering wheel attendants nowadays but at least with tesco, you are actually just a steering wheel attendant, every single decision is already made for you bar none. It’s on par with night trunking in my opinion, extremely easy but you’d lose brain cells doing it full time.
MegaHips:
Do some regular work for a company that have the contract to do some store deliveries, did it a couple of times and never again. I know people say that lorry drivers are just steering wheel attendants nowadays but at least with tesco, you are actually just a steering wheel attendant, every single decision is already made for you bar none. It’s on par with night trunking in my opinion, extremely easy but you’d lose brain cells doing it full time.
Heres the thing though. If you do the same drops in trunking supermaket work. Body goes into autopilot. Ive seen in the past myself blinking at carlisle and next thing i know im at hamilton services.
Can make for an easy life. Rather than sit in traffic all day with dashcam on and uploading to utoob. Id much rather shunt trailer from A to B in the dark with less ■■■■■■■■■ on road.
I occasionally do Scotch rdc.s on a Saturday with my back load.
Hate the ■■■■ places,.could not do them full time, it would drive me more madder than I am now.
Some drivers just like to know what and where they are going every day and if it’s the same thing every day all the better, some would say it’s a routine so no stress, boring yes but it suits some people down to the ground
Bigtruck3:
Some drivers just like to know what and where they are going every day and if it’s the same thing every day all the better, some would say it’s a routine so no stress, boring yes but it suits some people down to the ground
Indeed…I used to do the day shift on a unit working out of Newhaven and the night shift guy used to do a trunk to a services(swap trailers), sometimes do a drop in London in the early hours and back to Newhaven…He came out with me one day when the weather was bad and he couldn`t get home…Not sure he could believe what we were doing…I had never been to the drops before and had no idea where I was going, but that is how I like it…I could not do a regular run, I need stimulation, I need to be in unfamiliar territory, I need to be able to use what is left of my brain, I need to meet different people, I need to be challenged…I need to be out of my comfort zone everyday in whichever way I can find, only then can I grow and be more beneficial to others around me, otherwise, plant me in the ground, water me and watch me wither…
If you are working out of an RDC then it depends on which one and what shift. I enjoyed Tesco Strood a lot, maybe because it had a large delivery area and you went a fair distance, reasonably often out all day with for instance a couple of stores on the South Coast and the last one just short of Bournemouth. Day trunking: Brooklands back for Kiln Farm then back for Fenny Lock. Night time Strood Middlewich Strood or a local store and two Brackmills.
try to find an angle to it. iv found that [for example] doubling my walking speed , doing a monkey walk, bird calls ,long streamer ,not for 5 minutes but for days at a time at work can set off a chain of events that you cant imagine. Keep a straight face though
Never minded either RDC or store delivery work tbh, as already mentioned, if someone wants to pay me to sleep/drink coffee/browse the web, happy days!
Store delivering can be a ball ache but certainly Tossco stores are generally easy enough, if the yard is tight I get them to move whatever is making it tight (wherever practical) and always have a good crack with the staff.
You encounter the inevitable miserable sod from time to time, I’ll just enjoy reminding them that they are stuck there day in & out, I’m not!
I think the majority of the issues with supermarket or indeed any other work is often down to your own mindset.
Not for me, on the other side of the coin there was a thread the other day about agricultural work with a bulker which would butter my muffin a treat but quite a few said it sounded like a toss job.
I find working for supermarkets is like a normal job, do your shift then go home. Where general haulage is a way of life. It depends what suits you the best.
Yeah it can be boring as hell but its easy, well paid work. Think of it as driving a bus without the passengers, get your route in the morning and crack on. Plenty of holiday, sick pay (not just statutory) Lieu days for bank holidays worked (double lieu in my case, do a 13,5hr shift on a BH and I have 27hrs or 3 days lieu to use)
Option to only work contracted hours so 45hr week, start at say half 8 be finished half 5 for 34K a year. I did 54K on days last year without really breaking a sweat, dont even get close to WTD limits for the week or the 45hr average. Plenty of POA with my feet up reading the kindle or watching downloaded netflix.
Yes there are downsides of same old places and a smallish area to cover (I get bored senseless seeing the same bits of motorway) but its no different from a regular night trunk and to be honest a fair bit of general haulage has you loading and tipping at the same places for the same customers using the same roads.
End of the day its horses for courses, everyone wants different things from life and a job. Suits some and infuriates others.
toby1234abc:
I feel your pain , the waiting rooms with rock hard plastic seats , coffee vending that tastes like creosote , and some places have very rude and ignorant staff .
I went to one place and saw a driver have a mental breakdown due waiting too long and lack of natural sunlight made him lose the plot .
Aldi and Lidl is not so bad , you are in control of the delivery by unloading yourself .
Wrong end of the stick I think chief.
He is delivering to the actual shops for COOP and Tesco, not to the RDC’s.
is anyone listening except you and me ?. HE IS DELIVERING TO SHOPS , not RDC’S. ffs
