Can I ask your advice on changing career? (Newbie)

NEW AND WANNABE DRIVERS (INTERACTIVE)
1

Hi all another newbie here,

I was wondering if you can help me with some thoughts I am having with changing my career. I know that some will think I am mad to think of entering haulage/distribution

I’ll try to explain my situation at the present and what experience I have done to date with driving.

I currently work as a engineer for a small company, been with them a year, worked in construction full time since I was 23. As with all industries including haulage it is changing but I don’t feel the same vibe/passion whatever you call it for construction as I did at the start nearly 10 years ago.

I know the world has to constantly change, but I’m just not enjoying my job/career anymore.

With construction I took a large pay cut to work “less hours and from home” neither of which has happened and found that companies do exaggerate facts to what you want to hear. :unamused:

My current working patterns vary, very early starts, sometimes we have night shifts for some jobs obviously as people don’t like us being in the way. And of course we have the obligatory weekends to catch up on extra work/drawings. It’s always been expected of technicians/intermediate management to do all overtime work for free and is written in the contracts and let’s not get started on the forced exemption from the WTD!

Anyway I digress the only people who can advise me from within my family are my father, a C+E driver all of his working career coming up for retirement in 3 years. He says surely construction is better, but he wouldn’t discourage from a driving job but in the same sentence wants the best for his son too, so he says think very carefully?!

My uncle finished his career as a C driver (now retired) after being a submariner most of his life, but did other jobs after. He said lorry driving was the second best job he ever done but could never be compared to his favourite in submarines.

In my young life I followed my Dad around trucks every weekend i was with him while he did local runs and shunting and carried on into my late teens helping with wide loads etc as attendant. I did 6 years part time as a young teen through to the end of university with a company on unloading bays in various shops across East Anglia and Reading area, including 1 year in a distribution centre (always enjoyed the work and ironically the pay per hour I was on then is better than I am on now pro rata!)

For four years I worked part time (Saturday nightshift only) with Menzies on 7.5 tonners doing a multi-drop/handballing newspaper deliveries. Really enjoyed it but had to give up due to permanent job requirements.

Previous to Menzies I got my C licence in 2005 and did do some holiday cover for a friend’s firm when I was on holiday, as and when they needed me, unfortunately he passed away and I lost contact with that company.

Finally my wife supports me in this as she knows how miserable I am currently jobwise and understands the likely haulage working conditions as stated many times on here and from my Dad.

But like a lot of you she takes the line “If you don’t try, you will never know and it’s better to be happy in what you are doing rather than chasing pounds!” Also we won’t be having a family so we have no dependants - little ones to worry about.

Now my question to you all is, should I go for C+E training, especially as i haven’t been behind a rigid for at least 2 years now.

For my CPC, would it be worth doing an ADR course to get at least 21 hours and maybe a fuel efficiency and tacho/driving/WTD hours CPC courses to build up my last 14 hours of CPC? To hopefully give me more knowledge of this ever changing industry?

Would these be the kind of things an agency/company would be looking for from a new driver?

Sorry for the long post but wanted to clarify my situation to you.

Many thanks to those who read this far! :stuck_out_tongue:

C

2

Hi mate, I’m a newbie here as well so can’t answer everything you’ve asked but I took my C about 4 months ago and I’m loving driving work, maybe cause I love driving in general tho :slight_smile:
I was doing warehouse work for the agency I’m with now before passing my test, and was told it would be hard to get C work, but it didn’t turn out that way. I did one day on a 7.5t and next working day I was in a 16.5t and never been back in a 7.5, now I’m driving 18t full-time. So in short work is easy to get and the pay is ok on agency (£8.50-£10 p/h) and with the new laws if your at a place for 13 weeks you have to be paid the same as full-time staff :slight_smile:

If its been a while since you drove a HGV maybe get in contact with a local training company and take a day or two refresher? I wouldn’t suggest taking C+E yet as its been 2 years since you had exp on C, but that’s just what I think.

Hope this has been some help to you, and good luck.

D

3

I passed my Cat C mid July, didnt get any driving work till mid August but have been doing agency 7.5 ton or mating or class2 work about 3 days a week since.

Here is my gut reaction advice.

get yourself a C+E assessment (some are free, some you would pay an hourly rate for).
That will determine whether or not you should get more cat c work before C+E or whether you should just go straight for your C+E. I would do the C+E as soon as you can afford it. Can you afford it?
What will you do about time off work to do the C+E training?

Why dont you do some agency work for a week or so to get back into driving wagons?

However, dont think that wages are high anymore. You will work really hard and long to take home £350 per week. I really do mean long and hard. you can expect £6.70 to £7 per hour for driving and £6.06 for driver’s mate work.

If you give up your current job, there’s probably no getting it back so can you book a fortnight holiday to do the C+E?

good luck with whatever you decide.

LandyLad

4

I agree with LandyLad except this bit -

LandyLad:
You will work really hard and long to take home £350 per week. I really do mean long and hard.

You will probably have to work long hours, at least 12 hours a day to take home £350. But work really hard? Not really.
I might just be lucky but the hardest thing I have to do is find my vehicle in the yard, get it out from behind a couple of others and open/close the curtains twice a shift. The rest of the time I’m sat in a comfy chair, listening to the radio and generally chilling out.
No disrespect LandyLand, but it really annoys me when people say it’s hard work. I don’t know exactly what your job involves, but I’m quite confident a good chunk of your working day is spent sat in a comfy chair, listening to the radio and generally chilling out.

5

I wouldn’t say you need to do long hours to get £350 a week, I take home about that (before tax ofc) and work tuesday to saturday ok so I start between 3:30-5:00 am but I’m always home by 1pm at the lastest, 7.5t work maybe 12 hours but not cat C :slight_smile:

6

acholflocik:
I wouldn’t say you need to do long hours to get £350 a week, I take home about that (before tax ofc)

That’s not what your ‘taking home’ then is it. Take home means the money that you, wait for it… take home. In other words, after deductions such as tax and national insurance, the money you actually get in your bank.

7

Dear Acholflocik, Landylad and SmashedCrabFace,

Thank you so much for your replies, all were very interesting and I loved your honesty, which seems to be the great part of this forum.

Acholflocik, congratulations on passing :smiley: and getting onto the trucks so quickly that’s really good, well done man. So glad to hear for once in the UK that someone is enjoying the job they are being paid to do. Awesome :smiley:

The only reason I get a little enjoyment out of construction is the driving too and from our sites on some of our jobs I love seeing how everything changes on the way everyday, so I think I have the driving bug too!

When you doing your C+E or are you even interested in doing that?

Where you based in the South or North of UK, because the information you quoted for my attention seemed to be similar to what I am discovering round here in Essex. With those rates this would be comparable to the paid work I am doing now full time.

I know hour reduction doesn’t work like that in UK society now in most industries regardless of your role, so I may as well find a job I enjoy whilst having to do the long hours.

I know my Dad does rip the p out of me sometimes saying you worked that long are you trying to go to an early grave, for that amount. I know he is right and i think he is giving me a hint i’m getting on at 31 and won’t be able to do that forever and do you really enjoy standing somedays in the rain and wind for 12 hours with half an hour break in the van. Of course to not lose face to my Dad I lie and say its great in Summer, not so great in Winter (unfortunately he doesn’t know I prefer to be cold than hot :smiley: )

The shifts you stated are very reasonable to me compared to what happens now in my current work. It kind of reminds me of when I was a youngster those were the typical hours in construction, but can’t find them anymore :open_mouth:

LandyLad, thank you so much for all that useful advice for me. I’ll go and approach some training companies in Essex about C+E assessments. I know this is a contentious subject on the forum, but i should really be looking for training companies that train you in a artic rather than a W+D shouldn’t I?

I also like your comments on going out in a rigid for a day or two to see whether I remember how to drive one :blush: That’s really good advice and should get my abilities assessed correctly again.

I will start approaching companies for a couple of reminder days in the rigid and start investigating the C+E assessment drives to see what the beasts are really like to be in control of.

At the current moment in time I can afford the C+E training and some remaining enough for one resit (should the worst happen best to be prepared). Getting time off is ok with the company I am with, I have holiday i can use for training and test, me and the missus have two weeks off a year to leave our area, so i have another 3 weeks left to take and this would be constructive use of my time rather than sitting around in my pants!

Also you are right if i have time remaining for holidays i should really see what the agencies have to offer.

On the very good last question I could get back into my industry with some effort, (maybe not the same company but thinking about it they always have vacancies but i don’t like going backwards) all my cards are uptodate (for next five years) should things go wrong and i certainly have enough experience to ask to go back if i so desired.

I know what you mean by long days i remember the handballing at Menzies (fun but hard too) if you was lucky and had Cheps on, you could leave them at the supermarkets, pallet truck, tail lift, boom, next. If you had news international pallets, bad news literally - can’t leave them behind, handball everything onto cages and then return their pallets to depot. I’ll let you guess what the usual pallet was :laughing:

SmashedCrabFace, you sound like my Dad, he always says it easy and makes it look easy, well his gig is chauffering cages around for Aldi, but I know what you mean too, if you get the right job like the supermarket boys you have a large support team behind you to do other roles that you don’t have too. Thank you for reminding that if you look for the right job it need not be hard depending on your circumstances. Also i’ll make sure I’ll use the internet calculators to make sure I calculate the correct net pay.

Another question is at the current time I can save enough for ADR or CPC at the moment (not both, well not for quite a while anyway), struggling to know which is the best to get after C+E to make me more employable?

Seriously guys thanks for all the eye opening considerations and your input, really useful and I promise to take it all on board and use your wisdom.

C

8

gosling72000:
When you doing your C+E or are you even interested in doing that?

Where you based in the South or North of UK, because the information you quoted for my attention seemed to be similar to what I am discovering round here in Essex. With those rates this would be comparable to the paid work I am doing now full time.
G

I’m planning on taking it after I have two years exp, don’t see the point in taking it now as no-one would take me on but then that could be due to my age (24) lol :slight_smile:

I’m from Luton in Bedfordshire, so most likely same sort of pay rates.

D

9

Dear Smashed Crabbers,
I really disagree with your comments on our job being easy!! :open_mouth:

I do Agency Multidrop work and I have to HANDBALL all of the wagons contents off the wagon.

Sometimes it’s just to the rear of the wagon, where an occaisional fork lift truck takes it off but most of the time I am physically and personally unloading the wagon WITH MY OWN precious hands, legs and feet.
Sometimes there may be a small ladder or steps (never much use though) to help me climb into the back of the wagon. Sometimes there may be a taillift, sometimes there may be a pump truck and sometimes there may be a sack truck, but not very often. Quite often there are none of these high tech aids!

Sometimes there may be a driver’s mate, but not always.

Have you ever tried lifting 6 or 7 concrete based washing machines up 2 flights of stairs into tight cornered and awkward doored flats?

Have you ever tried getting 2 or 3 tall Larder Fridges through awkward doors with several concrete steps leading to the door?

Newbie, trust me the job is not cushy or easy. :confused:

Crabbers, any jobs going at your depot please, I could do with a rest! :smiley:

Seriously though, it just goes to show that some jobs are easy and some jobs are tough.

That’s life!

Anybody else got any opinions either way on this?

Cheers,

LandyLad

10

gosling72000:
Hi all another newbie here,

I was wondering if you can help me with some thoughts I am having with changing my career. I know that some will think I am mad to think of entering haulage/distribution

Stay where you are. Already thousands more drivers than there are jobs for (THERE IS NO DRIVER SHORTAGE :unamused: ) and all that you are achieving by joining the queue is driving the wages even lower.

11

Ignore rob k he rarely has anything positive to say about anyone or thing unless it’s about him.
If you want to do it, have a go. You’ve already got your class 2, so you’re already a trucker on paper. Get yourself onto your c+e training asap, it’s 2 different jobs normally and artic work is loads better, and easier(on the whole). You are already cpc trained till 2014 like the rest of us so I would concentrate on getting you class 1 first and then if you have disposable cash then get it done now so you have 5 years on top, and it’ll be a nice refresher for you. ADR work probably won’t be available to a new c+e driver so see what else is on offer. I prefer driving an artic, find it easier and more money in the bank once you get working. Also plenty of places taking on new drivers these days plenty of success stories on here, and every artic driver out there went out on their own one day :wink: also with a good attitude most experienced lads will help you out with things like reversing or telling you how things work in certain places like RDC’s or builders yards etc etc ALWAYS ASK! better to look a ■■■ asking then trying to be the hero and messing it up, can cost the gaffa lots of cash and you your job.
That’s the positives, here’s the negatives…
Early starts and or late finishes, lack of decent places to park means parking in some dives and no facilities means you may need to go toilet in the truck :smiley: , crap planners can make your day long and sometimes stressful but you’ll learn to let it go over your head just do as you can do, some jobs mean being away all week you may need to take that job to get experience can you do that and have a good home life with the mrs? You can’t often plan anything outside of a weekend to ensure you’ll do it unless taking holidays and by weekend I mean sat lunchtime in case you don’t make it home and you need to rub in sat cause golden boys have gone early and no one can pick you up. Trying to close your curtains in the rain while blowing a gale is not fun and one of those wtf am I doing here moments :smiley: they never go away.
I’ve made many mistakes and some I’ve learnt from the hard way, the job isn’t bad but I also don’t enjoy it that much I find it very unstimulating so I’m re-training but I do miss stopping out for some reason. It’s not a great job if you like to meet your mates for pool in the pub after work or a meal with the mrs, but some genuinely love it. Some drivers are complete nob heads plenty on here to prove that but that’s life :wink:
Ignore the doubters it’s your life, talk it over with your mrs. Go and see a few training schools before you hand over your cash and DON’T use a broker. Everything you need is on here, good luck with whatever you choose hope it works out :slight_smile:

12

LandyLad:
Have you ever tried lifting 6 or 7 concrete based washing machines up 2 flights of stairs into tight cornered and awkward doored flats?

What, like all at the same time? Dude you are strong! If I could lift seven washing machines I wouldn’t be working my ■■■■■■■■ off for £6.70 an hour, that’s for sure. You should look into doing World’s Strongest Man or something.

Seriously though, although there are jobs like LandyLad’s, there are also jobs like mine where all you have to do is turn up and drive. And don’t let the voice of doom Mr Rob K put you off either. I left a £25k job less than a mile from my house to get into driving and walked straight into permanent fulltime work. I now have a 32 mile daily commute and earn £7 per hour. Stupid? Maybe. But I’m much happier now I’m doing something I actually want to do. If you really want to do it then do it, only you can make that decision.

13

My two pennyworth: make yourself more employable/valuable and get your CE. Not going to get involved in the Artic v W+D argument - my views are well known and there’s a good few folk on the forum who have been glad of my advice in this regard.

To repeat some of the advice given, keep away from the brokers and (unless you’ve got trusted recommendations) visit the school before you pay your money. Not all training is the same and the cheapest is rarely the best.

Don’t want to rant but I’m spending too long lately clearly up the mess left behind by rubbish trainers. So take care and choose carefully.

You don’t need to do your driver cpc at the moment - but it is being asked for at interviews from time to time and is a step forward to employability. Drivers’ hours and tachos is a must otherwise you’ll possibly be in ■■■ very early on. ADR is also excellent to have under your belt. But concentrate on the CE first would be my advice.

Good luck with whatever you decide, Pete :laughing: :laughing:

14

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 :blush:

“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 :unamused: Anyway I don’t have one of them newfangled “eye” phones or whatever they are paranoid androids etc, so I couldn’t post back! :smiley:

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■■? :laughing: 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 :laughing:

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 :neutral_face:

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 :unamused: ) 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 :grimacing:

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 :smiling_imp:

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

15

Excellent. You seem like a sensible chap. The UK motorway network could do with more people like yourself and less partially evolved apes behind the wheel.

Also, if you’re considering Peter Smythe for your training but concerned about the distance, as far as I’m aware, Peter offers free B&B accommodation for people who live in far away lands. Peter is a good bloke and will see you right. I did my C, CE and Mod 4 with him and I highly recommend his services.

16

Cheers bud, I look forward to seeing you out on them motorways as soon as i physically can. :laughing:

I look forward to try and make the motorway network a little bit more of a safer and saner place with all you decent drivers as it needs to be shared. Also the “sheep” need to be guided by the professional drivers…if only the “sheep” listened more! :smiley:

I will definitely be going up to see Pete and the distance wouldn’t put me off as i would try to have a busman’s sort of holiday with the wife up there going out the weekend before training starts and spending time with her in the evening while she goes around the Nottingham area in the daytime. As she’s never been around there, however I have with Uni friends up there and travelling in course of work, there’s a lot for here to explore and she’s brave enough to do it alone too!

Keep up with helping the newbies and younger ones, as positive support is hard to come by in any walk of life! Also I will keep you informed of my progress as and when I do something proactive.

Take care on them roads and stay safe!

C

17

I will definitely be going up to see Pete

Look forward to showing you around. Might even stand you a coffee!

she goes around the Nottingham area in the daytime.

Watch out - lots of shopping opportunities!

Peter offers free B&B accommodation for people who live in far away lands.

True

Peter is a good bloke and will see you right.

True

I did my C, CE and Mod 4 with him and I highly recommend his services.

Thankyou

I’m very intrigued by your “money back” course too, never done one before

It’s precisely what it says on the tin. As far as I am aware, I am the only trainer offering this course.

All the best, Pete :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

18

I’d not spotted this till now and will add my thoughts.

Personally I’d not pour money into another licence just yet, you’ve got your class 2 licence and are not technically a new driver that’s one stumbling block out of the way. Potentially you could change jobs without further investment and likely earn similar wages driving a class 2 as in an artic. It depends on what sort of work you want to do, you’ve got experience of the construction trade this is where there is a lot of class 2 vehicles used it’s also in some instances a bit more specialised, often localish and often better paid. If driving isn’t your thing then if you move back to your measuring stick you’ve not spent a load of cash. If you want you can always cough up and train for CE later or if you are really lucky get it paid for you.

For the record I live in Chelmsford and at the age of 30 was running a timber yard, self funded class 2 and now work for a plant hire firm driving a hiab. Hours are regular, work is local and CE was paid for me. Looking around I’d do well to better my pay locally without doing loads more hours, weekends, nights or nights away.

19

Dear Pete,

Call it a Tea and I’m in. However if it’s only Coffee you’ll have to “sell” the course to the Mrs as she’s chief drinker of this chemical in this household :laughing:

Let it roll with the shopping opportunities, the lass earns her money hard and hardly spends it on herself, would do her the world of good!

The Mrs is very fussy with B&B’s so I know I’d have to check it out before I came up even for the trial/show around with yourself! But I’d budget accordingly regardless, unfortunately I have to do things like this properly, whereas I’m happy sleeping under the stars for the right reasons, the Mrs just isn’t up for that kind of lifestyle!

I didn’t think there would be anything suspect with the money back guarantee, I would just like to see T&C’s, ask questions and also make sure that you thought I was a suitable candidate. But that can all be done on the trial visit I am sure! :grimacing:

Thanks for all your replies Pete

C

20

Dear 8wheels,

Thanks for your advice, out of interest does it really remove a stumbling block having the licence for nearly 6 years, even though I haven’t had much paid experience recently and obviously i can’t claim the time messing around with Dad in Artics as that isn’t ethical!

I’m intrigued about ADR and I’m coming around to HIABs. However working on the Olympics was a horror with HIABs, the amount of paperwork I had to produce just to use one was immense (loading calculations of the ground they sat on, lift plans and gaining various consents from other parties e.g. Network Rail etc). We had two rigids and one artic on constant hire with us for the two years I worked on numerous bridges there. However I had really good relationships with the drivers there (They all came from MPS) and some of the lifts we done were complicated and extremely akward and I don’t know if I’d trust myself in those situations (I do suffer with confidence issues sometimes, I’m not afraid to admit that or my limitations, once I’ve done it a couple of times successfully I’m a lot more happier in myself). They always impressed me with what they did and delivered what I asked of them, but then again I had a lot of respect for them and they always helped me out if I was stuck and vice versa.

If I could get a localish paid job, e.g. a reasonable commuter distance for a deopt, and a typical wage, I would be very interested and my Mrs would be extremely interested in me having the regular hours and the work being reasonably local to us. Having somebody else pay for the course to train me would be awesome, but not something I ever thought would be possible in my circumstances.

We live in Essex, so you know where we are in relation to you, which is very interesting to me, as you are the closest geographical lorry driver I have had the pleasure of speaking to on here, except my father of course.

Thank you for the advice about not spending the money I will take that on board too. On a jokey side about the measuring tape I wish i had one of them at the moment. Hence I may be looking for a job sooner than I thought :frowning:

Thank you for taking the time to give me your opinion and as always I will always take people’s point of view on board and use their experience to help guide me on my decision making. This is definitely something I will be doing with your advice. :smiley:

C