Glen A9:
Actrosman:
If it takes 14 hours to do 15 drops, it’s not for you…we knocked out 25/30 a day at my old depot in 8-10hrs…but maybe us Southerners are workers and not shirkers! 
I depends how far you have to travel to do those 30 drops.
I had 30 in Caithness yesterday, stopped for the night after 14:30 hours, then had 1:30 back to the depot this morning. On Monday I’ll probably have about 35+, which’ll take most of Tuesday to finish, but that’ll be a 300+ mile round trip (a lot of which is on single track roads). 
More depots down South making them closer together so the furthest they used to go from Abingdon was Bicester/Banbury to the North, Swindon/Marlborough (West) and East along M4 to Heathrow/Staines/Ashford. It seems a lot of the new depots are being built 2hr or so drive to the next nearest. And back in the day before the Logistics sites were even thought of, depots had there own contracts…we did a couple of drops in Edinburgh! Plymouth, Hull & Manchester/Chester was also covered and I did a night out 3 times every wk doing Norfolk & Suffolk
Glen A9:
Actrosman:
If it takes 14 hours to do 15 drops, it’s not for you…we knocked out 25/30 a day at my old depot in 8-10hrs…but maybe us Southerners are workers and not shirkers!
I depends how far you have to travel to do those 30 drops.
I had 30 in Caithness yesterday, stopped for the night after 14:30 hours, then had 1:30 back to the depot this morning. On Monday I’ll probably have about 35+, which’ll take most of Tuesday to finish, but that’ll be a 300+ mile round trip (a lot of which is on single track roads).
do you actually get paid for that glen? what a dream of a run , i spend my holidays near kinlochbervie on the back road to skerricha . i don’t suppose it has the same appeal for you with drops and hours to keep up with but it is the finest part of scotland . dave
Yep, get paid to drive on roads like this,
Or spend the night out in places like this,
Most of the drops are between Wick and Thurso, so once I get them cleared it’s an easy drive round the North West coast with maybe half a dozen drops. 
Skye’s not too bad for a night out, either. 
Now show us a picture from January 
Surely your asking to have your fuel nicked and/or raped parking overnight in the middle of know where 
I can’t say that being raped is ever something that has worried me while being parked overnight in the Highlands.
I used to have a lorry that didn’t lock so when I parked up at night in places like Newport S.Wales I put a rachet strap between the doors just incase
@GlenA9…So with 30+ drops every day and the crap we both know that goes with it, can you actually say you like the job or (as said earlier) you couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere else? I stayed because even on the toughest days, it was a good craic and I only went on the trunking because (after divorcing the 1st wife and moving back to my hometown) the depot is nearer and it was more the travelling to/from work and a full tank of petrol every week that was getting me down!
I’ve not done the actual food, but I did the same drops, hotels pubs etc many moons ago. I’d give up driving before is go back to that. Going in at 2am and waiting until 4 to be loaded, getting grief off the loaders for not helping. Rule of thumb was do the first hour without your card in, then you’d never have to do much more than the last one after you’d pulled it. On break for pretty much every drop. Then they had this imaginative way of paying you. Your basic. Then something called WHB, which was a bonus based on the picking rate for the depot, (more than likely how often they picked their noses)
You got an annual rise of a whopping £500 a year for staying with them, which was usually lost after the new minimum wage kicked in.
Alliance Disposables (and in particular TM Paul Shaw, I wouldn’t work for you again if the only other option was jump off the Thelwall) used to think he was a flash got by buying you a pint a the Xmas do, and then if you had a wage query he’d talk to you like you’d urinated on one of his kids.
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mrginge:
Surely your asking to have your fuel nicked and/or raped parking overnight in the middle of know where
You fanny. The more remote the better. Would rather park in the middle of nowhere than in a stinking rat infested truck stop.
merc0447:
Who remembers the original 3663 depot in newbridge before the new one was built? Offfft what a [zb] shambles it really was. Delivering there you could kiss a whole morning goodbye.
Just sort yourself a bike lock and padlock your pallet truck and barrow
Used to enjoy going there. Grab a coffee and sit and watch the constant bickering between the drivers and the office. I once saw a driver take a complete radge, he flung his toys out of the pram and jacked in.
@Glen A9
Wasn’t the original poster asking about the Edinburgh Depot. You seem to be working from the former Inverness Farmers depot up North? Most of the runs from Edinburgh are nothing like what your very nice pictures portray (Even if they do feature an 11 year old lorry )
Actrosman:
@GlenA9…So with 30+ drops every day and the crap we both know that goes with it, can you actually say you like the job or (as said earlier) you couldn’t/wouldn’t be able to get a job anywhere else? I stayed because even on the toughest days, it was a good craic and I only went on the trunking because (after divorcing the 1st wife and moving back to my hometown) the depot is nearer and it was more the travelling to/from work and a full tank of petrol every week that was getting me down!
Nah, I only do 'cos no one else will employ me.
But seriously, yes on the whole, despite the physical work and long hours it is generally an enjoyable job. Once you get to know the customers on a route you can have a laugh with them, get plenty of cups of tea and coffee and quite a few bacon rolls along the way, and sometimes a free dinner at the last drop of the day before a night out. And the customers are generally appreciative to see you, rather than just as an inconvenience they have to deal with.
I’m sure I could get a job on artics at a general haulage/pallet company if I wanted to, but the ones I’ve seen advertised locally pay quite a bit less, so I’m happy where I am.
My previous job was delivering laundry and that really was back breaking - most of our deliveries were loose bags rather than cages and many of them had to be carried up and down stairs. And of course it was collecting as least as much as was being delivered. Despite the hard work and the regular back/shoulder/neck pain that it caused, it too was an enjoyable job dealing with most of the customers - many of whom are the same customers I see delivering to the kitchens of the same hotels with Bidvest.
Plenty of handballing here:
Malky80:
@Glen A9
Wasn’t the original poster asking about the Edinburgh Depot. You seem to be working from the former Inverness Farmers depot up North? Most of the runs from Edinburgh are nothing like what your very nice pictures portray (Even if they do feature an 11 year old lorry )
Yes, I work at the Inverness depot, but we are a satellite depot of Edinburgh, so we report through the management at Edinburgh. And as all our deliveries are picked and trunked from there we have the same issues with crap cages and having some runs picked on pallets.
I also worked in Newbridge for a week earlier this year when they were short on drivers due to many people off sick, so got to experience some of the runs down there. Including being given a truck with a malfunctioning freezer, so the load had to be swapped over before I got away an hour late going to Arrochar.
BTW LHM didn’t make it passed ten years old, after several repairs to the gearbox last year, it wasn’t worth repairing the last fault it developed in December, so CDU is now the only sleeper cab we’ve got until the new fleet arrive at the end of the year. But despite being a 55 reg it was actually in better condition than a lot of the 08 reg day cabs.
We were supposed to be getting new Mercs at the same time as Edinburgh, but they decided as the Merc dealer is in Nairn to order DAFs instead, so we’ve ended up at the back of the queue.
Good to see you enjoy it m8. Not heard anyone say that about 3663 (Bidvest) for many years now. Good luck to you.