Conor:
I don’t mind doing New Years because my days of getting ratarsed on NYE are long done with but Xmas day is a red line for me. I would quit a job over it.
Definitely feel this way. Spent 16 years in my old job and was rostered every Christmas. Got a little one now so would do pretty much what they wanted se NYE but not Christmas.
Xmas day and Boxing Day off, but as Sunday and Monday are my normal rest days anyway I get paid bank holiday rates for Tuesday and Wednesday instead! I found that hard to believe at first but I guess that that is one benefit of a very strong Union presence. Double time + a day in lieu or double time + 10 hours, which ever I prefer.
My last place of work if your shifts fell on them then you had to work xmas eve and boxing day if you worked days and if you were nights you worked xmas day and boxing day…
you also worked new years eve and day and every bank holiday throughout the year…
the best part was…
you never got paid a penny extra for doing them as they were classed as normal working days !! 
yea we all loved that place !! 
Anyone who has to do it they have no choice its part of there job.
Anyone else is just mean hunger person who would not know there kids if they were in front of them, scabs is what you call people like that and most of them do it for peanuts on top of there pittance of a wage.
Don’t mind this tripe of 3 days or 30 or 40 pound a hour, they are dreamers
Ah ahh… the annual TN “working Xmas thread” I wondered when it would appear
We’ll be shut from 24th, very possibly the 23rd Dec, until the 3rd Jan.
As I’ve no family and usually spend the day on my own, it wouldn’t bother me if I worked, though I do like the break.
I once did Xmas day night,on the newspapers
Single (no permanent significant other 
), kids grown up, only day i told agency not available is 26th (family get together) and 29th (birthday)
Any other days available .
If no work Xmas day will be getting drunk at sisters,eating burnt roast turkey!
And watching Dr Who
How many of us believe in all this religion stuff, I don’t and didn’t particularly like working christmas day, boxing day when our kids were little, but you’re in the transport game. On the one hand some of you reckon the country would collapse without lorries, but then go on to say you don’t want to work on certain days. Bread buttered both sides ?
“but you’re in the transport game” is no excuse and just a cop out. Absolutely everywhere in my entire town is closed on Xmas day other than one corner shop run by Asians which opens for a couple of hours. Nobody else I know works Xmas day, the management won’t be working Xmas day and the world won’t come to an end if stuff doesn’t get delivered for another 12hrs or so so why should a truck driver “because transport”? Its not like its a surprise what date Xmas comes around every year so they should plan for it accordingly.
No family and no kids, just another day as far as I’m concerned. It’s a shame our place closes down until January.
Haulage yard and office in Malaga shut from Fri evening to monday morning this year, all trailers destined outbound have to be back by friday , just Jose on the gate to let in stragglers/lates…
mbax81:
Reed Boardall? I saw one out on M1 heading south last Xmas day
That’s the one
Conor:
“but you’re in the transport game” is no excuse and just a cop out. Absolutely everywhere in my entire town is closed on Xmas day other than one corner shop run by Asians which opens for a couple of hours. Nobody else I know works Xmas day, the management won’t be working Xmas day and the world won’t come to an end if stuff doesn’t get delivered for another 12hrs or so so why should a truck driver “because transport”? Its not like its a surprise what date Xmas comes around every year so they should plan for it accordingly.
Totally agree with you but lots of drivers are believing the “that’s transport” line and just sucking it up,Iv no issue if a guy wants to work for the big dollar but when I guy doesn’t want to and just does because his firm tell him is not right on xmas day
When I worked for TNT Newsfast we ran on Xmas night and every other Bank Holiday the only night that was not run was Xmas Eve.
Xmas night,Boxing night,New Years Eve depending on how your rota worked out,sitting in Wapping waiting for the Sun or News of the World to come of the press
Surprising how many people expect to be off at Xmas but still want others to work,so they can have their morning paper or to be able to nip to the supermarket for stuff they have run out of or forgot to get,and get rattled when they can`t.
dave_k:
Probably more do with the fact its too expensive for factories to shut down for a day and they may have no storage space available etc.Example being a local factory (24/7 manufacturing place) I used to work at…when they shut down for whatever reason/problem etc it can take a day or two to get things back up and running smoothly. So they have no option but to pay employees extra and get shifts covered in order to keep things ticking along nicely and not lose a couple of days of production which would probably be tens/hundreds of thousands of pounds.
Unfortunately that knocks on to hauliers being required.
Obviously milk/fresh food supply chain etc is ususally pretty time critical anyway. If they banned fridge truck movements in the uk on xmas day we’d all be the first to complain in the supermarkets on the 26/27th??
in the late sixties, as a whippersnapper! Lol, everywhere was closed for two weeks! Everywhere! all cousins, aunts and uncles including siblings went to nanas 2 up 2 down on the roughest council estate in Manchester. 
they had eleven children, seven married had three children each, blah, blah, blah but we were all happy. 
nowhere needs to open, whatsoever. 
Scrooge worked out fine in the end. 
Captain Caveman 76:
No family and no kids, just another day as far as I’m concerned. It’s a shame our place closes down until January.
christmas is a sad time for some folks, so people work. That is a fact. 
peterm:
How many of us believe in all this religion stuff, I don’t and didn’t particularly like working christmas day, boxing day when our kids were little, but you’re in the transport game. On the one hand some of you reckon the country would collapse without lorries, but then go on to say you don’t want to work on certain days. Bread buttered both sides ?
i don’t do religion, well apart from the stretford end choir of the PROPER religion! 
but as the P.I.R.A used have a temporary ceasefire from Xmas eve til the 27 th of December! by eck at 00:01 hrs you was on the net " contact, WAIT OUT! " funny as being in golf three zero, with 7.62mm jibbing round the sangar! always loved drawing the short straw dressing up as santa in a red suit over the DPM in west Belfast lobbing presents out for the kids! Wondering if they’d open up on a defenceless Santa Claus. Lol
Break up on the 22nd and don’t go back til the 3rd.
AndrewG:
just Jose on the gate to let in stragglers/lates…
What if Jose is not there, will his son be there to show them the way …
Ex recovery driver here. Christmas Day just another day doing that… there was some upsides however. Double bubble on commission, every single person I picked up tipped me in either cash or food/drink. The worst thing was working between Christmas and new year, I’m fairly sure (by fairly I mean definetly) we were doing illegally long hours… I was younger and stupider and I wanted a house so I just did it, it was almost worth it when it came too pay day in January!
Our work is mainly related to the construction industry and we are pretty much shut down 23rd Dec to 3rd Jan we have a couple of lorrys out between Christmas and new year but not on holiday days but generally done by lunch time.
Since I’ve had kids I’ve taken the whole time off but before I used to put my name down if anyone was needed to let the family people have the time off.
I know certain jobs like milk collection and newspapers go on but do we really need all the shops and supermarkets open Boxing day