Conor:
There are fewer and fewer drivers willing to leave home before the sun comes up on Monday morning and not get back home til late Friday/Saturday because the pandemic allowed them to finally get a taste of what they’d been missing. Lets be honest tramping is a single man’s game. It’s not fair on you or your family if you’ve a missus and kids and there’s many a tramper who has been divorced at least once, some more than once and all because of the job. My lad is a tramper and it worries and saddens me at how much time he’s missing out on his kids, age 6 and twins 11 months old. When he is home on a weekend when he’s got the full weekend off he’s often that knackered on a Saturday he doesn’t want to do anything and on Sunday he’s going shopping and getting ready for work for Monday. On the weekends he’s working a Saturday he may as well not come home because Sunday is lie in, go do the shopping for the week, wash work clothes, tea, bath, bed up at 4am.Talking of vancancies his spot had one for 7 weeks that went unfilled. Meanwhile a company near me who used to be renown for being crap to work for with crap pay have had a massive wage rise and are advertising jobs where you can choose to do 3,4 or 5 week days or weekends only or basically whatever the hell you want. If even they have woken up and smelled the coffee there’s hope for the rest. I’ve also noticed other businesses doing the same and not just in haulage. I guess the more forward thinking ones have realised that people don’t want to live to work anymore.
I for one would not be sorry to see tramping die a death like many practices of old that long outlived their welcome have. I get the feeling that it may be starting to come to an end as more and more companies will have to re-evaluate how they work as tramping vacancies continue to go unfilled.
Or maybe, just maybe tramping will evolve to the degree that reflects it’s inherent…lack of appeal.1K in the bank p/w would sure get me back in a cab.