If you was unhappy with your current job would you leave full time work to go and try agency work and risk not getting 4/5 days work per week… Cheers.
No way, this question has been asked many times before on this forum and the answer is that if you need to rely on getting work full time then don’t rely on agency work, especially in the slow months after Christmas.
I did 7 years ago, and haven’t really looked back.
Ken.
it depends on your current situation, worst case scenario, how long can you afford to have no work?
lgamston:
If you was unhappy with your current job would you leave full time work to go and try agency work and risk not getting 4/5 days work per week… Cheers.
My dad used to have a saying for ideas like this and it went like ‘You should be shot with s++t from an elephant gun ,for being so bloody stupid’
If you’re good and are prepared to do anything, not ■■■■■ about the cab being dirty, not go home because you’re given a wagon one level up from a shunter then you’ll do fine.
If you’re a mediocre driver who ■■■■■■■ about all the trivial crap they complain about on here and say they’d never do or have packed jobs in for then you’ll spend a whole lot of time sat at home waiting for the phone to ring.
Conor has summed it up in a nutshell
I did exactly that a few years ago, packed in a very well paid but hard graft job (transporters) and went on agency.
18 months later i luckily fell into just about the best job i’ve ever had, if i’d stayed where i was i wouldn’t have found this.
Having no debts and house paid off made the decision relatively easy for me (backed 110% by wife) doubt i would have done the same if money was desperate.
You can only play the game with the cards you’ve been dealt at the time.
edit…the only mistake i made was to not research the agencies before leaving the job…though thats difficult to do if you know no one on agency work, no good speaking to the agencies, in my experience they’re all lying cheating blighters who couldn’t tell the truth if their very lives depended on it.
Don’t do it Luke,best is keep your mon t fri job & register with agency for weekend work,an odd sat or Sunday when legal will help out regards alan
Juddian:
I did exactly that a few years ago, packed in a very well paid but hard graft job (transporters) and went on agency.18 months later i luckily fell into just about the best job i’ve ever had, if i’d stayed where i was i wouldn’t have found this.
Having no debts and house paid off made the decision relatively easy for me (backed 110% by wife) doubt i would have done the same if money was desperate.
You can only play the game with the cards you’ve been dealt at the time.
edit…the only mistake i made was to not research the agencies before leaving the job…though thats difficult to do if you know no one on agency work, no good speaking to the agencies, in my experience they’re all lying cheating blighters who couldn’t tell the truth if their very lives depended on it.
another accurate post.
but you can make it work,there are a load of drivers out there with a crap attitude…these are the ones who`ll earn ■■■■ all…show willing and the agency will phone you first.
Sigh 
Agencies are the curse of the industry (I believe I have said that before 
) They exploit drivers and treat them like crap, don’t give a toss about their rights and when work drops off they will just leave them sitting at home, unpaid and no benefits of any type. Agencies should be outlawed.
I agree with pat I honestly wish they’d get rid of all agencies then at least all drivers would at least have some kind of rolling contract with companies
I work on agency have done for about 2/3 years but I don’t like em,they’ll ring your phone of the hook when they need a driver ASAP and that’s usually because its a crap job and no one else will do it.
ok on paper the rates look good but not when your getting cancelled at 5/6 on when you should be starting work at 7,its not like then you can find some work at 5/6 pm,so you loose yet another days/nights pay.
I’d take a job on the books tomorrow without doubt you hear lots of agency drivers tell you they are earning £700/800 a week,but when you average the amount of time your at home because of a cancelation it’s no better paid than working for a company on there books.
stick out your job until you find another job on the books or even do some weekend work on the agency like someone else said.
I’ve done some crap jobs on agency but as yet never had a crap motor all be 1/4 years old,but some of the work my god I’ve come home and been glad to see the front door.
to many ,many company pay 9-10 p/h.Royal mail-easy jobs.
you blame Stobart,but Stobart pay more for agency drivers
deano32:
you hear lots of agency drivers tell you they are earning £700/800 a week
^^ ahahahahahahahahahaahaaaaaaaaaaahh, classic
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lgamston:
If you was unhappy with your current job would you leave full time work to go and try agency work and risk not getting 4/5 days work per week… Cheers.
Standing at the bottom of the ladder looking up & seeing far too many people above you can be daunting, especially when you know that itll be a long time before youll get to the top
Conor:
If you’re a mediocre driver who ■■■■■■■ about all the trivial crap they complain about on here and say they’d never do or have packed jobs in for then you’ll spend a whole lot of time sat at home waiting for the phone to ring.
Been there done that … its a very harsh lesson to learn.
One that I never want to repeat. Being bolshi and even (dare I say it) using the word NO can have a major effect on your reputation as an agency driver. Which can keep you stuck at the bottom of the pecking order
Conor:
If you’re good and are prepared to do anything, not ■■■■■ about the cab being dirty, not go home because you’re given a wagon one level up from a shunter then you’ll do fine.
This is so true … I do well now, but only because I`m flexable, & not fussy. Clients know I can & will do the job to their satisfaction
But even then its not perfect, as there are times when clients chop, change and cancel, do late bookings (8pm+). Need someone ASAP at 4am and many other scenarios that can spoil your day & income stream
lgamston:
If you was unhappy with your current job would you leave full time work to go and try agency work and risk not getting 4/5 days work per week… Cheers.
Yes! Have done so many times. But would be looking for perm job while doing agency work. Taken me 6 weeks this time round, start fulltime today.
I 2 have done the same, left a well paid but very hard grafting job which I will add I miss a lot but got fed up of not having any days off (recovery) and I’m some one who unfortunately just can’t say no…
Been on agency 4 2 months and its going well, good agency’s seem few and far between so aslong as you do what your paid to do then I can’t see any probs, I know a chap who’s been doing this for 10 years and has rarely not got work. When I first started I worried I wasn’t gonna get enough work but its been quite the opposite. It does however depend on your agency and your situation.
Good luck in what ever you choose to do, but do remember this time of year agencys will promise the earth as its busy, but just think of jan/feb… Maybe its worth stayin in your job till next year then have a think about it■■?
I was one of those agency drivers who would say no quite often. When I registered for the last gang master I made it quite clear what I would and would not do. Worked great for the first 18 months but then the cancellations began at short notice and them trying to get me to travel silly distances for shifts. This continued until the day I cancelled myself. They did not like the half hours notice I gave them for some reason. I had a few interviews lined up so ignored the phone calls for a day or two and then told them ruck off.
Agencies, can’t stand them, but you can make it work if you are a yes man. Stay put until you can find some thing else.
I didn’t give up a well paid job but I did fall into agency work soon after passing my test and worked for various agencies for 20 odd years up until the start of this year.
Whether agency work suits you will depend on a few things. If you can be flexible with when you work and what you do, can accept there may be periods where you spend more time at home than working (it’ll help if you have little cash put away to tide you over) accept that you’re most likely to be given a motor that gets driven by any number of drivers and might not be as clean as you’d like (I did find some notable exceptions), if you’re happy to say yes to whatever you get offered for a few weeks until you get your feet under the table and might be able to be a little more choosy and think you’ll enjoy getting a variety of different work then you might as well go for it and see how you get on. If you find you don’t get on with one particular agency you can always go elsewhere. If you have experience and good references you should find it easy to get a start with someone new, as long as it’s not January/February.
This time of year they’re likely to falling over themselves looking for drivers to cover the pre Christmas work but after then work is likely to dry up fro a while. It might be better for you to hang on to you current job for a while, maybe look at doing some weekend agency work for a while so you get a foot in the door. When work starts to pick up again next year you can tell them you want something more full time and see how it goes. If you’ve already been doing good work for them they’ll be glad to give you more if it’s available.
The thing you hear all the time is how they’re all liars and don’t give a s**t about anything other than filling jobs. Ultimately filling jobs is what they have to do to survive but the agencies I’ve worked for know that they have to balance that with keeping drivers happy, otherwise they’ll end up with no drivers to do the work. There are exceptions and maybe I’ve just been lucky.
Round where I live the rates for agency drivers compares very well with those for full time employed, in fact we used to get a fair bit of resentment at a few firms when their drivers saw us ‘getting all the cushy jobs’ and getting paid more than them for doing them.
There’s a lot of ignorant stuff talked about agency drivers by those that have no experience of that side of things. These are usually the guys who spend years doing the same job day in day out and think they know it all. They don’t have to think about doing their job any more so they have more time left to spend moaning about others. There are good and bad everywhere it’s true but in my experience agency drivers are as good as anyone else, better in some ways as they are having to put more effort into doing unfamiliar jobs more often and so are more on the ball. If you start getting any of that don’t let it get to you.
I have a full time job now. I have to do more work to make the same money I used to make from agency jobs but have the security of ongoing work and a brand new truck all to myself but I’d still go back to agency work if the fancy took me. I loved doing it while I was involved in it, the flexibility suited my lifestyle, the variation of work kept things interesting and I always had enough continuity of work (with a bit of cash put by to cover the quiet times) to keep me going. In the quiet times I made the most of it and enjoyed the opportunity for a break. When the work was there I did as much as I could to build up a cushion for the quieter times.
It’s horses for courses in the end though. Some love it, some don’t. Try it and see how you fit with it. Nothing’s forever and it might just give you a stepping stone from where you are now to somewhere else you’ll be happier.
COOKiEEES!!:
deano32:
you hear lots of agency drivers tell you they are earning £700/800 a week
^^ ahahahahahahahahahaahaaaaaaaaaaahh, classic
i have actually broken the £700 threshold a couple of times but its very rare. its certainly not every week and its more luck than anything else ie getting the right runs. double manned multi drop runs in aberdeenshire are pretty good for getting a high figure without paying dearly in working time