Just a quick question…
Are there many opportunities to regularly work a 4 day week in this industry??
Are there many of you that do■■?
There’s a few company’s that do 4 on 4 off
or it’ll be 4 on 2 off
I do 4 day weeks, Mon, Tue, Thu, Fri unless I decide otherwise. Long weekend this week so I’m doing Wed, Thu, Fri.
However its agency which may not suit everyone. Don’t know where you are but companies who run 7 days a week have 4 day shifts. Stobarts will do 4 on 4 off or used to, Reed Boardall probably would.
I do 4on/4off and it suits me fine although it wouldn’t suit some.
Pro’s: Short working week with long break. Holidays, it’s easy to fit in a long break and you can have 12 day holiday and only have to take 4 days off. You can do extra shifts and still have plenty of time off, I’ll sometimes do 6 days and still have 2 full days off. 
Con’s: It’s on a 7 week cycle so if you’re working a rolling week over a fixed pay week you get paid 4 x 4 days, 3 x 3 days. Forget about weekends, public holidays as they don’t exist. You find yourself asking people “What day is it today?” 
Our office staff do and all they say is [[we only work half a year]] 
wing-nut:
You find yourself asking people “What day is it today?”
I recently found a couple of Apps for the phone (my shift planner is one) that allow you to predict ahead of time when your on/off work.
Which is ideal for those working 4 on 4 off etc, which is good for figuring out holiday time in the year & ideal for SWMBO to know when your not at work
seth 70:
Our office staff do and all they say is [[we only work half a year]]
Surely they work LESS than half a year, by time you’ve took holidays into account.?
In Manchester area, Shred-It were advertising for a 4 out of 7 driver - 4 days out of Mon - Fri, every weekend off.
I must admit, I was VERY tempted myself, but the money was just too low. 40hrs per week, around £380 IIRC top line.
I do 4 and a half, Tues to Sat a.m. doing about 55 to 60ish hours and 4 nts/ out. UK only now.
I just had a ■■■■ gut full of doing excessive hours, and was ready for jacking completely. Had a word with the boss and we came up with this.
Loving the long weekends with the Mrs, Sat lunchtime to Tues morning. I feel better for it, and would cut down to Wed to Sat a.m. if I could afford it.
Just grasped the fact after 30+yrs threre is more to life than all this ■■■■.
robroy:
Just grasped the fact after 30+yrs threre is more to life than all this [zb].
When the WTD was coming in I argued like hell with Pat from the PDA about it, how it should be 48hrs duty fullstop because of the hours in the job you had no life and missed out on lots of things which she vehemently disagreed with. Some time later as we all know she was forced to stop driving. A little while after she contacted me to simply say that she now saw what I meant.
I was lucky and figured it out early on. When you come home on a Saturday morning, pick your baby son up and he screams his head off because he doesn’t know who you are then its a bit of a wake up call. I’ve also come across far too many divorced drivers in this job too and was unfortunate enough to see one drivers marriage implode when he went home early one night (was on night shifts) to find “a mate” in his bed with his missus. Prior to that job he’d been on European tramping so god knows how long his mate had been looking after his missus for him.
Think N R Evans do a four on four off system at some of their depots
Been doing 4 on 4off for 10 years now and recently thought about going on 5 days until the wife pointed out the pros and cons of the 2 …what was I thinking
4 on 4 off its the future
Conor:
robroy:
Just grasped the fact after 30+yrs threre is more to life than all this [zb].When the WTD was coming in I argued like hell with Pat from the PDA about it, how it should be 48hrs duty fullstop because of the hours in the job you had no life and missed out on lots of things which she vehemently disagreed with. Some time later as we all know she was forced to stop driving. A little while after she contacted me to simply say that she now saw what I meant.
I was lucky and figured it out early on. When you come home on a Saturday morning, pick your baby son up and he screams his head off because he doesn’t know who you are then its a bit of a wake up call. I’ve also come across far too many divorced drivers in this job too and was unfortunate enough to see one drivers marriage implode when he went home early one night (was on night shifts) to find “a mate” in his bed with his missus. Prior to that job he’d been on European tramping so god knows how long his mate had been looking after his missus for him.
Yeh Conor mate something we agree on at last. 
The nature of the job is longer hours than most industries granted and I fully accept that, but things will never change when you get drivers that would do 23 hour days if they could. Just read some of the comments on here for instance, if/when somebody dares to suggest that we should not have to do excessive hours or that 9 hours off between 15 hr shifts is not condusive to road safety… gems such as ‘‘I only need 3 hrs sleep after a 15 hr day me’’ and ‘’ If you don’t like the hours get another type job, let those that want to do it do it’'…the same guys that genuinely and naively think they are on a good wage for doing a week and a halves work in a week for single time, ■■■■■■ heroes the lot of em.
When I started it was something like a 12.5 br spreadover max, and about 11 off I think it was, then it went mad… OK when I was an owner driver but not as an employee.
When the heroes I mentioned get the stabilisers off and get a few more years under their belt they WILL be saying the same as us in 20yrs time when it’s too bloody late.
I missed most of all my 4 kids growing up, time I will never get back. I put a pic up of the wife on Bullys bar forum drivers wife thread, and one of the lads commented ‘why do you prefer to be away all the time when you have her at home’ …and I thought you know what mate? you are right, how ■■■■■■ sad is that.
I still do 4 nights out but the extra day off is spot on, and as I said hope to reduce things even more soon.
btw. Who is Pat from pda??
Threads gone dead for a couple of days.
Could it be that my last comments were a bit close to home for a lot on here
robroy:
I do 4 and a half, Tues to Sat a.m. doing about 55 to 60ish hours and 4 nts/ out. UK only now.
I just had a [zb] gut full of doing excessive hours,
You don’t consider 55 - 60 hours being excessive then ■■
steelgoon:
robroy:
I do 4 and a half, Tues to Sat a.m. doing about 55 to 60ish hours and 4 nts/ out. UK only now.
I just had a [zb] gut full of doing excessive hours,You don’t consider 55 - 60 hours being excessive then ■■
Yeh that’s a fair point mate, but as I said long hours do go with the job. The way I see it I aint maxing out any longer, and I have more free time at home. I finish early on a Sat and do not start again to Tues am, instead of finishing late Fri night, home to bed and away again Sun pm or first thing Mon.
It was a bit of a compromise, but yeh, I would prefer to cut back further, been there done all that ■■■■ so time for a change.
What about you how do you work it?
5 weeks out of 8 are a 4 day week for me and and the other 3 weeks works out at 5 days a week, I work 5 on 3 off.
waynedl:
In Manchester area, Shred-It were advertising for a 4 out of 7 driver - 4 days out of Mon - Fri, every weekend off.
Now that’s the best shift pattern ever, zb 4 on 4 off:)
Maritime do 4 on 4 off, but as stated earlier on you do lose track of what day it is.
We do 4 10hr shifts, mon off one week, next week tues next wed etc. When off on friday you also off on monday so every 5 weeks you get a long weekend. After your long weekend you do a saturday morning. If busy and you work your day off then its all overtime. Shift pattern suits me just fine!
My mate also does Tues to Sat on a walking floor. On salary, they were doing great, loading on a Fri pm or Sat am, running back in, washing off and finishing about 1 to 3pm… so everybody happy.
Then the heroes among them 
■■■■■■ it up for the rest of them …as usual. These guys tear arsed around when there was no need, got loaded asap and back in the yard parked up Sat am. Obviously the boss asked questions now everybody is struggling to get finished before 6/7 pm’.
Before the heroes on here start 
my mate and the other guys were not ‘hanging the job out’ but doing it at a steady safe and sensible pace, and furthermore the bosses were happy with it.