Bagged myself my first and new job as a class 2 pallet truck driver 18t. I’ve been in the motor trade all my working life sat behind a desk and listened to countless moaning customers all my life. I’ve now got in to a company that pays 25k basic and an on target earning potential of 30k with driving bonuses and meal allowance etc. It’s pallet work with between 10-13 drops a day. I know it’s gonna be different but with that many drops, there must be some driving involved as I know of 20-30 plus drops which is ■■■■ straight up dot com. I think it’s the right move and wanna believe that. If I don’t try, I’ll never know eh? I’m so nervous but want this to be a good introduction to trucking. I am making the right decision aren’t I? I can’t be dealing with admin shizzle no more but can go back if it don’t work out. Monday to Friday 6:30 start for 10 hours. That’s alright init?
10 to 13 drops sounds about right, as you’ll only get about 16 pallets on an 18t truck anyway… But once you’ve delivered those you’ll probably be expected to make some collections… I did this job when I started and think it’s a good introduction, but that the same time you’re only a Newbie once so don’t really have anything to compare it to! 
However I have a mate who started the same time as me doing home deliveries and his job was a right [zb] in comparison… 
With pallets it’s generally a ‘kerbside delivery’ yet you will have customers trying it on asking you to put it here, there, and the otherside of that pallet truck assault course. 
So stand your ground and don’t be too scared about failing the drop, as a lot are repeat customers and once you start… 
But do check that you have a decent TM that will back you up. Quoting H&S is always the best reason! You’ll probably also get some drops that you just can’t get into, and most firms have a 7.5t truck and a van for these, so again, don’t be afraid of failing a drop, it’s better than hitting something! 
I think pallets are also a good start as they generally run class 1 trucks as well, so you can use the firm to more up. I’m not saying that you should let them upgrade you and tie you into a 2 or 3 year deal. I’m saying pay for it yourself if class 1 (and easier work) is your goal.
Best of luck and any questions, ask away pal!
Cheers mate. I was hoping it would be you who replied as you’re well clued up and know your stuff. I’m looking forward to it really. A few months back I did a trial day with a company that delivered cooking oil and collected waste oil. All in central London and man was that hard. Lugging 20 litre containers of cooking oil downstairs into busy kitchens and then having to get a wheelie bin of waste oil and carry that upstairs with someone!!! Absolute nightmare and there must’ve been a good 25-30 drops. They offered me the job and I actually turned it down. I just couldn’t do it so I’m relieved that I have this pallet job. I don’t mind moving goods on a pallet truck and 10-13 drops a day and a few collections has got to be better than 25-30 or more. They are willing to put me through training. They wanna get my adr so I’ll take that but yeah. Do wanna get class 1 sorted. That’s the ultimate goal but wanted to gain some experience on class 2 first. If the company is good and I like the work and that. I’ll do my class 1 with them as they do run artics but we’ll see. Thanks for your info mate.
Sounds a lot like our set up.
The Beezer has summed it up well, jobs easy enough once you’ve got used to it, biggest problem with our place is the Forkies & Management.
I do mostly Class 1-distance, but we help with pallet work as well, we can come back to the yard at lunch time & wait 1-2 hours to get tipped & reloaded, go out again, tip, then reload with collections, only to get back at 17.00 (already done a day’s work [emoji57]) & wait in a ‘Poxy’ Queue of 10 or more lorries, taking anything up to 2 hours to unload (that’s one of the reasons why I’m leaving [emoji6])
Go for it, for the experience, but keep your eyes open for other positions.
All the best with it. Seems a good place to start, especially if you can progress to Class 1 with them.
Pete
martinviking:
Sounds a lot like our set up.
The Beezer has summed it up well, jobs easy enough once you’ve got used to it, biggest problem with our place is the Forkies & Management.
I do mostly Class 1-distance, but we help with pallet work as well, we can come back to the yard at lunch time & wait 1-2 hours to get tipped & reloaded, go out again, tip, then reload with collections, only to get back at 17.00 (already done a day’s work [emoji57]) & wait in a ‘Poxy’ Queue of 10 or more lorries, taking anything up to 2 hours to unload (that’s one of the reasons why I’m leaving [emoji6])
Go for it, for the experience, but keep your eyes open for other positions.
That sounds good. Apart from the waiting of course. However, I don’t think the depot I work at run that many trucks so hopefully won’t be hanging around too long at the end of the day. Saying that though, I’ll just unload with the pump truck and say see ya haha. These guys actually seem like a really good company. I’ve done some research and can’t really find a bad word said. The fact that they have given a 32 year old pen pushing office bod a chance confirms that. Just can’t wait to get started and gain some experience and the money ain’t too bad.
Peter Smythe:
All the best with it. Seems a good place to start, especially if you can progress to Class 1 with them.Pete
Cheers Pete. I really can’t wait to get started.
I’ve been delivering pallets since getting my licence in May 2015. Driving a 16tonne Daf around Norfolk with normally 2 runs plus collections so averaging 15 drops per day. It’s not the easiest job in the world but at least it’s only kerbside deliveries. My biggest problem when I started was route planning but working with a good bunch of forkies is the key. Getting the pallets in the right order from the back of the truck to the front saves any fannying about. I also find that my Phillips map (plus tomtom) are essentials esp. for finding out of the way farms (farms are marked on the Phillips) as postcodes can be wrong.
Other tips - strapping loads. Not just at the side - always useful to back strap tall pallets as they have a nasty tendency to topple if you pull away quickly (learnt that lesson on day three whilst delivering to a shopping mall in Norwich down a steep slope to get to the loading bays).
Pallet trucks & tail-lifts. Before we changed the fleet, some of our trucks had tiny tail-lifts - barely big enough for the pallets and it was remarkably easy to pull out a pallet & off the tail-lift right on top of you 
Now, our trucks have tail-lifts that are the whole rear door - much safer.
Kerbside deliveries - we are not allowed to go onto a private customer’s premises with the truck (not insured) so it has to be kerbside only. You can take the pallet truck & loaded pallet onto the premises (unless it’s gravel, uneven etc) but customers will always try & want to “push the envelope”. “I want it in the garden, bathroom, over the wall hehe etc” - be firm. Agree beforehand where it’s going and if they are not happy, say you’ll take it back to the depot. Worse scenario? You struggle with a one tonne pallet of stone slabs and the customer changes their mind cause you can’t get it down the 100 yard drive and wants you to take it back. Getting a loaded pallet off the truck can be hard work - getting it back on can be a b*****y nightmare.
All in all though I do enjoy the work and if I wanted to there is a route onto driving artics through the same firm. So got for it, good luck & enjoy the experience 
NIce one Zeethron, that’s what I wanted to hear. I pretty much know what to expect and luckily I’m no pushover so if anyone tries it on, they won’t win with me. However I am a nice guy really and always helpful so if people treat me right, I’ll do what I can. Most people I’ve spoken to about pallet work generally like it as there’s a nice mixture of driving and manual work. What appeals to me is exactly that and the fact that I get a bit of alone time in the cab but then also get the customer interaction when delivering as all I know is customer service so looking forward to the variety. And the fact I get to drive a truck?? Helllllll yes!!! Driving a truck!!! Love it. I loved doing my course and didn’t want it to end. Just wanted to drive all day everyday. Haha.
You’re getting plenty of good advice there…
I personally didn’t have to plan my route, as we had a brilliant bloke in the office who worked out everyone’s run for them, bugger knows how he managed it! So my main focus in the morning aside form checking my vehicle was making sure I was happy with my load. Obviously the pallets are loaded in drop order, but due to the different sizes and weights of each pallet I’d sometime have a nice polite word with the forkie and ask them to switch it around a bit to make it more stable (i.e. keep tall pallets together and against the headboard if possible). However there are limits to what you can do, so extra load security on certain pallets can be key. It’s a lot easier than picking it all up later and trying to shrinkwrap it again in the back of the truck. 
(So ensure you have a roll of wrap with you! )
Also pay close attention to the pallets themselves to ensure they have all their feet! Forkies obviously run the pallets around as close to floor level as possible and often knock the feet off a pallet, and if you think they won’t just dump the pallet on your truck without telling you or putting a support block in, you’re mistaken! So as you remove the other pallets around a dodgy pallet, it no longer has anything to hold itself up and you can guess what happens next!
Hopefully all firms by now doing pallet work should be using trucks where the whole back door is the tail-lift, and if it’s not, you be very very careful and always try to spin the pallet in the back of the truck and push it onto the tail-lift. As Zeethron says, you don’t want to end up falling off the back and then having a ton of pallet landing on you… Also if a pallet looks like it’s about to go, do not ever try and save it, let it go. It’s replaceable at the end of the day, you are not!
ADR is good, and can make you more valuable as an employee. I was only ever a limper, but because I was ADR I was always the last limper to be stood down. I suspect they will only put you through the ‘packages’ part of the ADR and not the ‘tanks’ module which is a bolt on at the end. So if tankers is something you fancy doing later, make a note of the trainers details and possibly have a quiet word with thme about how much it would cost to add this. Don’t let the firm know though!
I never minded the wait in the queue at the end of the day to unload, it gave me a chance to unbuckle my curtains and toss it off chatting with the other drivers. But I guess after a few years I can understand Martin getting annoyed by it, I feel sorry for the other drivers who had to talk to him!
You’ll learn lots of little things mate and when you get assigned a specific truck do your best to get it all up together. It will probably be missing half it’s internal straps, have no no ratchet straps in the cab, the fire extinguisher boxes will be empty and the tail-lift key will be nowhere to be seen, as everyone has has robbed it before the new guy starts!
Finally, when taking a new truck out, make sure the tail-lift works a you know how it operates, as that can be embarrassing!
Best of luck and as you have said, be polite and firm with people. Greet them in a cheerful manner as that generally sets the tone of how things are going to go. Not always though, and personally the ruder they get with me, the more sarcastically polite I get with them!
Mr. Beezle you’re a top guy!!!
Awesome advice as always and has put me much more at ease now knowing what to expect. The thought of the work and all it’s glory really does excite me. About to buy the Phillips atlas and a garmin dezl 770 to aid me for the beginning weeks and the future. Im pretty sure I’ll like this career and the beauty is I can now gain experience to open new doors in the future. I start on Monday 31st and will be doing a week with someone to learn the processes so I’ll let you know how that goes and then once I’m allocated a truck, happy trucking days!!
Cheers fella!!!
Hi mate thought I’d just chip in with my bit, I’ve been a pallet driver for approaching 7 months now and love the job! I was on the nearest route to my depot in a 16ton DAF doing double runs avg 18 drops and 4 colls a day, wasn’t bad though as stated it was the closest route to the depot so was usually out last but one of the first back in! I’ve recently been changed to a 26 ton DAF (still getting used to rear steer and massive tail swing!) on one of the furthest routes from the depot. It’s all kerbside for my mob but I do use discretion (elderly, disabled and etc) a cheery polite attitude works wonders but it doesn’t mean I take crap, I’ll be firm and stand my ground when I need to. I’m still one of the buggers that has a useless width tuck under tail lift to use and what’s worse is my new 66 Volvo FE that’s due for delivery soon still only has a tuck under anteo tail lift. Always turn the pallet on the lorry where possible, never take a pallet (especially heavy!) backwards towards the tail lift as they can go without notice and it’s never worth trying to save it just let it go that’s what the insurance is there for bud. You’ll get drops that are tight but try to keep your wits about you and don’t be afraid to call the office and tell them you can’t get to any of the drops as they will have a plan in place for this eventuality. (I had to call in for 2 Friday as I wasn’t prepared to put the bosses lorry anywhere near either of them) you don’t get extra pay, credit or medals for it! I’m lucky my mob are excellent and will back us drivers up no matter what as long as we aren’t taking the ■■■■ or breaking laws etc! sorry for rambling and wish you the best of luck in your new job it doesn’t take to long to get in to the swing of it and I’m sure you will enjoy it. You’re in the best place if you have Q’s as the members on here are excellent and will help where they can
UselessForce:
Hi mate thought I’d just chip in with my bit, I’ve been a pallet driver for approaching 7 months now and love the job! I was on the nearest route to my depot in a 16ton DAF doing double runs avg 18 drops and 4 colls a day, wasn’t bad though as stated it was the closest route to the depot so was usually out last but one of the first back in! I’ve recently been changed to a 26 ton DAF (still getting used to rear steer and massive tail swing!) on one of the furthest routes from the depot. It’s all kerbside for my mob but I do use discretion (elderly, disabled and etc) a cheery polite attitude works wonders but it doesn’t mean I take crap, I’ll be firm and stand my ground when I need to. I’m still one of the buggers that has a useless width tuck under tail lift to use and what’s worse is my new 66 Volvo FE that’s due for delivery soon still only has a tuck under anteo tail lift. Always turn the pallet on the lorry where possible, never take a pallet (especially heavy!) backwards towards the tail lift as they can go without notice and it’s never worth trying to save it just let it go that’s what the insurance is there for bud. You’ll get drops that are tight but try to keep your wits about you and don’t be afraid to call the office and tell them you can’t get to any of the drops as they will have a plan in place for this eventuality. (I had to call in for 2 Friday as I wasn’t prepared to put the bosses lorry anywhere near either of them) you don’t get extra pay, credit or medals for it! I’m lucky my mob are excellent and will back us drivers up no matter what as long as we aren’t taking the ■■■■ or breaking laws etc!
Hello mate.
That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear. Someone who’s currently doing it and enjoying it as well. I’ll definitely remember your wise words as well. Can’t wait to get started and will keep you posted as I progress.
Cheers mate!
Doobz84:
That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear. Someone who’s currently doing it and enjoying it as well.
I enjoyed it while I did it, I just moved on to better things, as you all will if that’s what you want…
Evil8Beezle:
Doobz84:
That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear. Someone who’s currently doing it and enjoying it as well.I enjoyed it while I did it, I just moved on to better things, as you all will if that’s what you want…
Yeah definitely mate. I wanna do this to gain some experience and know what to expect and then do my class 1 and do that. I know I’ll love that. You’re on class 1’s aren’t you?
Doobz84:
Evil8Beezle:
Doobz84:
That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear. Someone who’s currently doing it and enjoying it as well.I enjoyed it while I did it, I just moved on to better things, as you all will if that’s what you want…
Yeah definitely mate. I wanna do this to gain some experience and know what to expect and then do my class 1 and do that. I know I’ll love that. You’re on class 1’s aren’t you?
Yeah I pull tankers now doing what is basically trunking work. The hardest thing I do is wind up the legs and connect a few hoses…
Evil8Beezle:
Doobz84:
Evil8Beezle:
Doobz84:
That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear. Someone who’s currently doing it and enjoying it as well.I enjoyed it while I did it, I just moved on to better things, as you all will if that’s what you want…
Yeah definitely mate. I wanna do this to gain some experience and know what to expect and then do my class 1 and do that. I know I’ll love that. You’re on class 1’s aren’t you?
Yeah I pull tankers now doing what is basically trunking work. The hardest thing I do is wind up the legs and connect a few hoses…
That’s awesome mate. I’d love to get into tankers one day. Bet you love that!
Doobz84:
UselessForce:
Hi mate thought I’d just chip in with my bit, I’ve been a pallet driver for approaching 7 months now and love the job! I was on the nearest route to my depot in a 16ton DAF doing double runs avg 18 drops and 4 colls a day, wasn’t bad though as stated it was the closest route to the depot so was usually out last but one of the first back in! I’ve recently been changed to a 26 ton DAF (still getting used to rear steer and massive tail swing!) on one of the furthest routes from the depot. It’s all kerbside for my mob but I do use discretion (elderly, disabled and etc) a cheery polite attitude works wonders but it doesn’t mean I take crap, I’ll be firm and stand my ground when I need to. I’m still one of the buggers that has a useless width tuck under tail lift to use and what’s worse is my new 66 Volvo FE that’s due for delivery soon still only has a tuck under anteo tail lift. Always turn the pallet on the lorry where possible, never take a pallet (especially heavy!) backwards towards the tail lift as they can go without notice and it’s never worth trying to save it just let it go that’s what the insurance is there for bud. You’ll get drops that are tight but try to keep your wits about you and don’t be afraid to call the office and tell them you can’t get to any of the drops as they will have a plan in place for this eventuality. (I had to call in for 2 Friday as I wasn’t prepared to put the bosses lorry anywhere near either of them) you don’t get extra pay, credit or medals for it! I’m lucky my mob are excellent and will back us drivers up no matter what as long as we aren’t taking the ■■■■ or breaking laws etc!Hello mate.
That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear. Someone who’s currently doing it and enjoying it as well. I’ll definitely remember your wise words as well. Can’t wait to get started and will keep you posted as I progress.
Cheers mate!
Hello bud,
Always here if there is anything I can help with but there’s plenty of us around, can’t imagine doing anything else now Yeah I bet, I’m still as excited going to work as I was my 1st day. Really never worked at a place as good as this one. Can’t grumble about any aspect of it… ideal mate it’s always good to hear how others are getting on
Evil8Beezle:
Doobz84:
That’s EXACTLY what I want to hear. Someone who’s currently doing it and enjoying it as well.I enjoyed it while I did it, I just moved on to better things, as you all will if that’s what you want…
Don’t know if I want to move on, even put off going up to class 1 for a few years now as I’m well happy on this pallet work and more then happy with the 26t probably move on to class 1 when the kids are older
This is all proper awesome info guys. Thanks so much. It’s good to hear it coming from the professionals themselves. I have just this week and next and then that’s me. Starting the new career but I feel so much better now I’ve heard from you lot!! THANK YOOOOU!!!