Dear Landylad, Rob K, OllieNotts, Smashedcrabface, Peter Smthye,
Thanks for all your contributions on this post and sorry for the delay in being polite and responding 
“Urgent job” got sent to Isle of man for nearly last five weeks, shame every job we do is always ultra urgent! I’d like to know how people survive living on the edge of urgency nowadays, especially in the context of construction it astounds me
Anyway I don’t have one of them newfangled “eye” phones or whatever they are paranoid androids etc, so I couldn’t post back! 
Landylad
I hope them jobs are getting better for you bud now? Be interesting to hear what you are up to.
I take your point on board about the job not being easy or cushy, but no matter what I have done work wise, unfortunately for me it never has been easy or cushy must be something to do with my body size or face, so it will continue to be the same for me I’m sure, it’ll be alright when I retire…right■■?
Doh look like I’ll be joining your club then.
Rob K
Rob K thanks for your input on the matter any comment is widely appreciated, seriously no sarcasm!
Thankfully now in the UK we have such great negativity in this country (if only we could use this power for good) I will use the negativity to try and work out a positive rather than dwell on it.
But alas I digress I will use your comments on the pro/con chart I have on the back of an envelope here. Thank you for taking the time to post to me and I assure you the point you raised is in the column.
OllieNotts
Thank you so much for taking the time to write that detailed post for me, it was really appreciated, balanced and informed on experience just the type of thing I’ve been looking forward to receiving as I got from the other previously too.
Thanks for the advice with starting out being “the whipping boy”. Always best to treat everyone with respect (cleaner to director - cleaner more as they end doing the jobs you don’t want/have to do in the end!) and have a good attitude. I’ve always done it on building sites and it has always paid off, even with the lorry drivers delivering or aiding us in some way so I will carry on with that. RE the experienced lads will help you out etc.
My response to the negatives, to see if I have any chance of making it in this big bad world —
Early starts, so common in my work it unreals. Worst shift the week before I went to Isle of Man, was to be in Wimbledon via North Essex by 06:30 from South East Essex and we didn’t leave the Wimbeldon site until 18:30 that evening then add on the commuting both ways via picking up and dropping my assistant off near M25 junction 28. A shift like that is usual once a fortnight, majority of “normal” shifts are 12 - 13 hours including about a hour and half total commute for site work, drawing work usually in excess of 12 hours a day staring at a {zb} computer screen, which does my nut in! Late finishes are very typical as is working late into the night to make sure a project goes out the next day as the director has agreed a crazy deadline 
Also you should see some of the B&B’s I’ve stayed in recently, think they’d compare to what you describe about the services and living in a truck, I’m a bit worried the UK is beginning to like living in filth.
A little secret we keep in work, unfortunately most of our clients don’t like us using their facilities so I have my “bleach” bucket in the back or if its wooded the trees (never go without my toilet roll though) and a large 3 litre orange squash bottle for the other duty. You can see construction has come on with leaps and bounds like trucking for bare minimum health and safety facilities and no-one cares. I do sympathise with you on that point, that’ why i prefer going to proper building sites, (they have this new invention called a toile) but i don’t get that very often, like yourself 
Crap planners - If it wasn’t such a litigious society I would swap notes on mine on here to compare with yours. Unfortunately we can’t so enough said otherwise I’ll rant about that lot another day in private.
Being away all week - sometimes this does happen to us but we do get to normally get home at some point, sometimes you get to go to somewhere like Isle of Man for quite a while. This is the only contentious subject at home and i can understand where my wife is coming from though with me not being home at night. But she is coming round to the idea as in the long run watching someone be so miserable because of their work is worse in her eyes to me not being around every night.
You can’t often plan anything outside of a weekend, happens so much in this game too and the office paperwork invading the weekend is so so common, last Saturday was the first Saturday night we have been out since March this year except for our wedding and holimoon.
Usually not working on site on Saturdays but mainly all day, part of a evening staring at a computer screen.
Majority of the work we do is external so we get a full shift in the rain with the wind (bar breaks in the van) and I still ask those same questions as you “what the hell am i doing here?”. I never thought of the driver being out there for long times in it too, but I imagine fighting with a full curtain does take some proper time and effort to get under control so respect to you for that.
Are you finding driving un-stimulating or the job in general? Do you mind me asking what you do in a general day, even by PM if you prefer? Also what are you retraining in? Best of luck with that bud, always good to try something new!
I wish my friends were close but this game puts paid to that. Majority are in Midlands, some Scotland or best friend in Germany with the army so only get to see them on true UK festival holidays, Christmas/Easter if they are not on tour etc. That’s the only thing that worries me with trucking, as construction has the shutdowns at these times. It’s one of the last industries to do true holiday shutdowns, so that will take a lot of effort to plan around that and get to see them all. As we all know up to Christmas Day and over New Year period everyone is on huge rush to do haulage work before the annual winter downturn.
Unfortunately now adays people pride themselves being nob heads wherever you work/live and (yes I have seen it on here
) we can’t rely on natural selection to overcome it, ■■■■ you Darwin, for your failure!
Definitely follow all your advice, Mrs has gone down the route you have to try it, just to see if you don’t like it at least, because she can’t bear how miserable I’ve become in these last 18 months! I will book a few assessment drives in W+D and Artics to see difference too. Will travel as well like I did with the C class when I stayed in Wales with my mum!
Thanks again for all your advice it has been so helpful for me anyway! Hope it helps others on here too who read it 
Pete
Thanks for your input in this post too. I’m definitely saving up 6 months of salary debits and my training costs on top too. I will be definitely following your advice and doing as many trial drives as I can with different vehicles and see what they are like compare/contrast.
I think I may even contact you in the very near future about seeing your outfit in operation too; I’m very intrigued by your “money back” course too, never done one before and I know I live a distance away but somehow I found that easier to do my training last time!
Finally SmashedCrabFace
I truly enjoy reading your posts on this subject to date and others around on Trucknet too. Like you with this current job, I’m doing now what I thought was better (being closer to home and have taken a £10k pay cut (down to £25k now) on top to do it for a 45 mile round trip commute to the office alone. Regretted it since the first month as I don’t enjoy the work or the other parts of this job now and not done anything about it, bar think of what else I should be trying and not sorting it.
Like you I believe whatever job you do, you normally have to do long hours and I’ve got to a stage in my life if I can genuinely afford to live in my comfort zone (which is a lot different to the majority of the UK public, as I don’t want for much), but also really enjoy being in the job, then I think I will be an go back to my old happier self. This in turn means I will enjoy my time with my wife and hopefully she will with me and then feel more content rather than chasing the illusion of money all the time like 98% of the working population, it only brings misery now in my honest opinion 
You’ve hit the nail on the head and I’ve developed my saving plan to get my licence and some other vocational training fully completed. Once I have successfully passed, I will put all my efforts into achieving this and then go and find this final contented job that I have been trying to find over the last 10 years.
Thank you to all of you gentlemen, you are right this is in my court now and only I can resolve the situation.
Thank you once again for taking the time to respond and provide guidance over the last couple of months directly to me.
C