I was recently offered a job at a very low rate, but because I lived close by I decide to give it a go. It lasted three nights and by common agreement it ended. I offer this as a contender for the top ten impossible fixed deadline jobs in the UK.
1/ Rugby to Wellingborough, load and onto Palletways at Litchfield. (Those who have been to Palletways Litchfield will now be laughing as the timetable gives 30 minutes to get through the multiple sheds).
2/ Part unload at SC depot and onto the main hub nearby. Continue unloading from two to four sheds.
3/ Drop trailer.
4/ Pick up trailer.
5/ Pre-loaded full load back to Rugby.
6/ Drop trailer.
7/ Pick up trailer.
8/ Run back empty to Palletways Litchfield.
9/ Drop trailer.
10/ Pick up pre-loaded trailer.
11/ Go through all sheds again to top up the pre-load.
12/ From Palletways back to Rugby.
13/ Drop trailer.
14/ Run solo to nearby.
15/ Pick up trailer to take back to the yard.
Job includes unloading/loading queues, motorway closures and speed limits, trailer swops unstrap/strap up and a time schedule that states things like ‘arrive at 01.03 minutes …’ You have 11 hours, begin …
This was advertised as a straight forward trunk run and a dozen people later on they’re still looking for drivers …
IMO, it’s not a shortage of drivers, but physically demanding labour and impossible deadlines that companies can’t get the drivers to do many jobs. I’m still looking for a trunk run at my age (60+), the description of which bears even a passing resemblance to that advertised.
I worked for pallet line place ages ago when 1st past test.
Was in Liverpool vosa were out in force stopping everyone.
I got waved in. Rang office to tell them. The amount of abuse I got was terrible.
All.they said was you have am deliveres got a schedule to keep to why didn’t you just drive past. Then the cheek they said to me give them your detials tell them your come back later.
Can’t make it up at times really.
Not my fault got stopped and didn’t find an issue anyway with me
You can thank your fellow drivers for that, the heroes bless them.
They are the reason why lots of once good jobs are now forever f*****
And the reason why any driver with an ounce of common sense avoids anything to do with hire and reward unless it is specialised.
The above is 2 days work by any measure.
My last shift.
Clock in 05:30
Cup of coffee
I’m not planned on anything so I get a choice so I choose
4 drops 1 in Bristol 1 in Trowbridge 1 in Stroud 1 in Gloucester
Another cup of coffee find the unit de smeg cab go find trailer
Trailer has a light out get it fixed leave depot 06:45
First drop is shared delivery yard 2 in front of me, ear plugs in fall asleep for 90 minutes
four cages off another cuppa this time tea
Next drop,1 just gone on the bay, bugger, drift off for another half hour 6 cages off
Cup of tea
Nobody at the next drop 6 cages in and out
Tea, this time to go
last drop decker outside, we agree I go in first 4 cages off, no tea reload and back to depot.
Tip trailer which takes 20 minutes, 11 hours paid
Clock in at 07.00, have a chat with the bloke who allocates the trucks for the shift. Wander out find lorry, kick tyres, fill out paperwork, find trailer, couple up, top up washer bottle, top up fridge diesel, stop for a chin wag with Joe Bloggs and leave yeard. Drive for just over an hour then stop at Six Hills for 20 minutes break, a sossige sarny and a mug of tea. Arrive at Magna Park drop and swap trailers and another 20 minutes on break then set off for delivery. Stop at Woodall service for an hour break. Make delivery and show other work whilst tipping load two pallets at a time. Stop on the way back to the yard for 25 minute snooze. Arrive back, drive lorry through wash, tidy up paperwork, get all my bits out of the lorry, clock out and go home.
The problem is you will always get some prick who will not only attempt it but actually achieve it.
These are the guys you’ve to thank for all that type of crap, the ‘Yes Men’ who will complain to everybody about an injustice except the guy he ought to be complaining to.
If you’re daft enough to attempt it, they will always give you it…fact.
I sat in a long queue at Litchfield Palletways on Friday and watched two drivers outside their cabs facing off each other to fight. I just wondered, how much they were being paid to want to fight each other to get in front of a queue.
What I’ve found is the agencies in one area all have the same advertised jobs, written differently, but they’re all the same jobs with companies that advertise constantly because no one will touch them as the workload/schedules are dreadful. I ask the agencies if they’ve got anything that even resembles a trunk run instead of promises of ‘earn up to £1K a week’, or ‘bonus loyalty points’? They tell me ‘yes’ and they’ll email the details. Silence. I write to the same companies directly. Ditto silence.
Shortage of drivers? I passed my test in 1988 and have a clean licence. Boxes, DD, fridges, curtains, days/nights, tramping … I’m 60 plus and my wrists and shoulders only allow a minimum of un/loading and pulling back curtains/strapping and not up to up four or five times a shift.
At this rate I’m going to end up on the dole and the companies can wonder why they can’t find drivers.
Grandpa:
I was recently offered a job at a very low rate, but because I lived close by I decide to give it a go. It lasted three nights and by common agreement it ended. I offer this as a contender for the top ten impossible fixed deadline jobs in the UK.
1/ Rugby to Wellingborough, load and onto Palletways at Litchfield. (Those who have been to Palletways Litchfield will now be laughing as the timetable gives 30 minutes to get through the multiple sheds).
2/ Part unload at SC depot and onto the main hub nearby. Continue unloading from two to four sheds.
3/ Drop trailer.
4/ Pick up trailer.
5/ Pre-loaded full load back to Rugby.
6/ Drop trailer.
7/ Pick up trailer.
8/ Run back empty to Palletways Litchfield.
9/ Drop trailer.
10/ Pick up pre-loaded trailer.
11/ Go through all sheds again to top up the pre-load.
12/ From Palletways back to Rugby.
13/ Drop trailer.
14/ Run solo to nearby.
15/ Pick up trailer to take back to the yard.
Job includes unloading/loading queues, motorway closures and speed limits, trailer swops unstrap/strap up and a time schedule that states things like ‘arrive at 01.03 minutes …’ You have 11 hours, begin …
This was advertised as a straight forward trunk run and a dozen people later on they’re still looking for drivers …
IMO, it’s not a shortage of drivers, but physically demanding labour and impossible deadlines that companies can’t get the drivers to do many jobs. I’m still looking for a trunk run at my age (60+), the description of which bears even a passing resemblance to that advertised.
4,5,6 and 15 in place of 7 were all that made any sense to me the rest went way over my head not my job guvnor.That’s what you should have told them at the interview.
Look on the bright side I recently walked out of a recruitment ‘open day’ meeting regards self employed parcel delivery work with own car.The advert and telephone conversation suggested the employee can choose their own workload although the clue was the silly daily rate also suggested.The reality being yes you can earn £10 + per hour ( which I don’t even want £6 will do fine ) but you’ll need to do around 80 + drops/collections in a shift to get it.So let’s say one drop/collection every 5 minutes of a 10 hour shift with no break.Oh and absolutely no opt out along the lines of no thanks I’ll just do 30 max that’s more than enough for me.
The reality is that employers are obviously taking the ■■■■ out of hourly pay and an obviously thick desperate or both labour market in that it’s all about how much work expected per hour.On that note I was absolutely gobsmacked by the amount of 20 somethings there swallowing all this ■■■■■■■■ in trying to make a young person’s wage needs from a semi retired person’s job.Make no mistake employers are only getting away with all this zb because of younger workers’ desperation and/or lack of simple basic maths.If not those workers literally wrecking the job market with their own stupidity and then walking away leaving it for some other mug to do.Because they don’t want to work in the environment that they’ve created for themselves by saying yes to anything then suddenly realising they can’t do it having been blinded by the bottom line.I was even more gobsmacked by one of these muppets asking the question can he sub out the job having enthusiastically gone for the idea of 100 drops + per shift potential.Obviously on the basis of take the money but get some other mug to do the work.
robroy:
The problem is you will always get some prick who will not only attempt it but actually achieve it.
These are the guys you’ve to thank for all that type of crap, the ‘Yes Men’ who will complain to everybody about an injustice except the guy he ought to be complaining to.
If you’re daft enough to attempt it, they will always give you it…fact.
And on top of that they think they are great drivers because they think they are great workers
Most who do work like that would not get a job sweeping the streets, maybe that’s why they do it, no chance of getting a half decent job
You will always have people like that it’s the balance and it’s in every walk of life
Simpletons, how they dress themselves in the morning is one of the wonders of the world
Clock in at 07.00, have a chat with the bloke who allocates the trucks for the shift. Wander out find lorry, kick tyres, fill out paperwork, find trailer, couple up, top up washer bottle, top up fridge diesel, stop for a chin wag with Joe Bloggs and leave yeard. Drive for just over an hour then stop at Six Hills for 20 minutes break, a sossige sarny and a mug of tea. Arrive at Magna Park drop and swap trailers and another 20 minutes on break then set off for delivery. Stop at Woodall service for an hour break. Make delivery and show other work whilst tipping load two pallets at a time. Stop on the way back to the yard for 25 minute snooze. Arrive back, drive lorry through wash, tidy up paperwork, get all my bits out of the lorry, clock out and go home.
11 hours worked 10 1/2 paid.
Whoa I say whoa let me stop you right there, TOP UP THE WASHER BOTTLE!!! TOP UP THE F****** WASHER BOTTLE thats a defect and another cup of tea, carving the job up so you are.
mike68:
You can thank your fellow drivers for that, the heroes bless them.
They are the reason why lots of once good jobs are now forever f*****
And the reason why any driver with an ounce of common sense avoids anything to do with hire and reward unless it is specialised.
Amen to that. When I’m on days where I’m at its similar to yours and funnily enough they don’t run wagons for profit either. Every drop you turn up at the first words out of their mouth is “would you like a drink?” Nights even easier. Most runs have plenty of time to spare, the ones that are planned tight if you go over nobody cares. You could go 2hrs over if say there was a road closure and you needed to take a second 45 and they’d not even say a thing.
I did Palletways. It is on my “I’d rather cut my nuts off with a rusty spoon” blacklist and I have turned down work and sat at home unpaid when the words Palletways or Fradley Park has been mentioned.
Amen to that. When I’m on days where I’m at its similar to yours and funnily enough they don’t run wagons for profit either. Every drop you turn up at the first words out of their mouth is “would you like a drink?” Nights even easier. Most runs have plenty of time to spare, the ones that are planned tight if you go over nobody cares. You could go 2hrs over if say there was a road closure and you needed to take a second 45 and they’d not even say a thing.
I did Palletways. It is on my “I’d rather cut my nuts off with a rusty spoon” blacklist and I have turned down work and sat at home unpaid when the words Palletways or Fradley Park has been mentioned.
Fradley Park. It’s literally hell on earth, isn’t it!
I genuinely fell sorry for people who are in jobs like the one described in the OP.
The stress and anxiety will slowly kill you, not being able to relax or have time for yourself is bad for ones health.
Doing it year in year out until the DVLA take your licence off you how very sad, we had a couple of really good drivers come from pallet ways and general haulage and within 3 months they both looked ten years younger the transformation was quite noticeable.
OK its not all milk and honey, productivity is abysmal, imbeciles sick notes and licence holders fill the ranks but that for me is a good thing, the management is too busy wet nursing these clowns to bother me.
And next week I am being “re trained” because said imbeciles have stoved the rear of the cab in on nearly half the fleet, you cant just re train the imbeciles because that would mean that the nasty man has been picking on them and they will have to go sick with stress and anxiety just after they have gone bawling to the union.
EVERY time I leave the yard as I’m going out the gates, the bleedin’ washer bottle light comes on and spends the next hour or two reminding that I should have topped it up before I left.
You have a point mike68, I should take a 15 before leaving after topping fluids up.
Grandpa:
Fradley Park. It’s literally hell on earth, isn’t it!
When the UK has…
An enema, that’s the where the pipe will go in.
When I did it, there were three sheds on one trailer, meaning tip shed X Y or Z (or what ever they were back then) including queuing for all of them in turn. Then reloading three different sheds. In later years it was worked down to one lorry one shed but you still had to sit in your motor whilst suffocating from diesel fumes pumped out by 20+ fork lifts driving around like nutters.
I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than do that again.
mike68:
I genuinely fell sorry for people who are in jobs like the one described in the OP.
The stress and anxiety will slowly kill you, not being able to relax or have time for yourself is bad for ones health.
Doing it year in year out until the DVLA take your licence off you how very sad, we had a couple of really good drivers come from pallet ways and general haulage and within 3 months they both looked ten years younger the transformation was quite noticeable.
OK its not all milk and honey, productivity is abysmal, imbeciles sick notes and licence holders fill the ranks but that for me is a good thing, the management is too busy wet nursing these clowns to bother me.
And next week I am being “re trained” because said imbeciles have stoved the rear of the cab in on nearly half the fleet, you cant just re train the imbeciles because that would mean that the nasty man has been picking on them and they will have to go sick with stress and anxiety just after they have gone bawling to the union.
We all get older and the job that was easy at 50 becomes impossible at 60+. It’s not a matter of saying ‘I won’t’, the knowledge is there, but not the physical strength. There comes a time when you just can’t pull back heavy curtains and strap up four or five times a shift on timed deadlines. I retire in around 18 months and I look young for my age, but I can feel the stress and muscle aches after only a few days/nights.
Once upon a time it was about what trailers you’d used, could you blind side without smashing the rear end in, or could you lift and lower the suspension … Now it’s how many drops/collections you can do and un/load yourself without collapsing! With the bad weather and icy roads coming in, I predict more than a few deaths this winter from our ‘heroes’ as they try to complete dead line schedules from planners googling post code distances for cars!
I’ll still do 12 hour shifts, day/night, occasional nights out, but the physical side of it which is now standard practice is beyond me and all the jobs I’ve tried in the past few months contain hard physical labour and/or impossible targets. The one thing I fear is the dole, but as I start to spend savings unless something happens I can’t see an alternative.
Glad I don’t work for these types of pallet companies as just going in and out of Palletforce is stressful and that’s a single shed (luckily don’t do often).
Only way to do pallet trunking is within the same companies depots, but there aren’t many who have that. Ours do, but pay probably not the best.
Grandpa:
Fradley Park. It’s literally hell on earth, isn’t it!
When the UK has…
An enema, that’s the where the pipe will go in.
When I did it, there were three sheds on one trailer, meaning tip shed X Y or Z (or what ever they were back then) including queuing for all of them in turn. Then reloading three different sheds. In later years it was worked down to one lorry one shed but you still had to sit in your motor whilst suffocating from diesel fumes pumped out by 20+ fork lifts driving around like nutters.
I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than do that again.
It’s now SC for Scottish – pull back the curtains and unstrap. Do up the curtains then drive out a half mile for the main hub … FA, FB, KA and KB. All five sheds to be tipped in, plus a trailer swop, plus report to transport and tell them what trailer you’d brought in and out. I was given a deadline of 30 minutes for the whole lot and when I said that’s impossible I was told to take in a packet of sweets to bribe the FLT drivers and ask the yard marshal could I go to the front of the queue because I was busy . Seriously! So if we weren’t out in 30 minutes it was our fault. It’s why they lost their two permanent night shift trunkers and all the agency drivers and it continues.
Glad I don’t work for these types of pallet companies as just going in and out of Palletforce is stressful and that’s a single shed (luckily don’t do often).
Only way to do pallet trunking is within the same companies depots, but there aren’t many who have that. Ours do, but pay probably not the best.
Palletways probably was a good idea initially, but it outgrew itself and just became a place of chaos. I did three nights and no more. For the last two nights I’ve been having a bath instead of a shower to get rid of the stress and ease those aching muscles. Tried general haulage sub-contracting for Aldi’s, but lost interest when I helped a same company driver pick up a split pallet of shampoo – all 1000 bottles of ’em! Then the run from Rugby to Hollyhead docks in 4.5 hours racing up the A41 with the Irish and the rest of them … Palletways is by far the worst I ever came across though.
Glad I don’t work for these types of pallet companies as just going in and out of Palletforce is stressful and that’s a single shed (luckily don’t do often).
Only way to do pallet trunking is within the same companies depots, but there aren’t many who have that. Ours do, but pay probably not the best.
I only ever do Palletforce during the day so it’s obviously a lot quieter.
I’ve often wondered what it’s like at night. Manic I suspect. And how the queue works etc. Like is it an actual queue, is it a scramble for the door, do you get called in etc etc.
Grandpa:
Once upon a time it was about what trailers you’d used, could you blind side without smashing the rear end in, or could you lift and lower the suspension … Now it’s how many drops/collections you can do and un/load yourself without collapsing! With the bad weather and icy roads coming in, I predict more than a few deaths this winter from our ‘heroes’ as they try to complete dead line schedules from planners googling post code distances for cars!
I’ll still do 12 hour shifts, day/night, occasional nights out, but the physical side of it which is now standard practice is beyond me and all the jobs I’ve tried in the past few months contain hard physical labour and/or impossible targets. The one thing I fear is the dole, but as I start to spend savings unless something happens I can’t see an alternative.
It’s nothing new.My back was effectively destroyed by the age of 40 largely by too much physical labour expected in the job doing work that no one else wanted.Obviously local building deliveries and multi drop zb being some of the worse too much load handling not enough driving.Let alone trunking which ironically turned to hub system handball zb from direct depot to depot trailer swaps.( You won’t drive so far so now you can work in the warehouse doing the resulting trans shipment operations oh and it’s all loose loaded now no pallets ).
While ironically my experience ( so far ) has been plenty of sympathy from the Dole office workers for over 60’s at least having run my savings down to crisis point combined with the loss of my late Mum’s pension income.In large part owing to suicidal interest rates in which sick workers’ payouts and savings have been decimated to subsidise the costs of younger fit workers’ living costs.I think the realisation is dawning that a working age calculation based on non productive pen pushers and bankers doesn’t/won’t work for those who have had to work for a living.In which case the scumbag workshy politicians seem to think that killing us off by making us work until we drop saves money in pension costs.
What I have found is that the East Euro workforce isn’t as compliant in that regard as seems at face value.The usual situation being that they know a reasonable job when they see it to the point of those jobs being in even shorter supply than before obviously in high demand by ‘them’.But none of them to a man wants to do all the same old permanently advertised heavy manual labouring zb dressed up as driving work.Or numerous other types of multi task job overload in which even trade plating now usually involves the job of a self employed vehicle condition inspector and/or sales executive role in addition and all the responsibilities which go with it.All for around minimum wage.
).