Easy/Mundane vs Challenging/Interesting Work

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
1

With a change in personal circumstances at home I’m looking to possibly get back into class 1 tramping again after a two year break. Thing is right now I couldn’t have it easier at my current job (basically doing 6 hours a day paid 8, no pressure) but am getting a little bored.

I’ve enjoyed tramping previously and the variety of work that comes with it but know that it will be so much harder than I have it now. So my question is am I stupid to look at getting back into it or should I stay put? Do you guys prefer a challenge or like to take the easier option?

2

I’d take the easy, 6 hour, plodding along to an RDC option any day of the week. Twenty years ago however, I’d have been tramping all over
Europe given the chance.

My enthusiasm and energy for the job is completely lost now.

3

djt1881:
With a change in personal circumstances at home I’m looking to possibly get back into class 1 tramping again after a two year break. Thing is right now I couldn’t have it easier at my current job (basically doing 6 hours a day paid 8, no pressure) but am getting a little bored.

I’ve enjoyed tramping previously and the variety of work that comes with it but know that it will be so much harder than I have it now. So my question is am I stupid to look at getting back into it or should I stay put? Do you guys prefer a challenge or like to take the easier option?

Challenging/Interesting keeps the mind sharp.

Easy/Mundane brain cells start to fade.

4

Stick to the easy job and find some interesting hobbies to occupy your spare time or waste your life tramping?

5

djt1881:
With a change in personal circumstances at home I’m looking to possibly get back into class 1 tramping again after a two year break. Thing is right now I couldn’t have it easier at my current job (basically doing 6 hours a day paid 8, no pressure) but am getting a little bored.

I’ve enjoyed tramping previously and the variety of work that comes with it but know that it will be so much harder than I have it now. So my question is am I stupid to look at getting back into it or should I stay put? Do you guys prefer a challenge or like to take the easier option?

As long as you are okay financially doing the 6 hour shifts and paid for 8 then it’s a no brainer - stick where you are.

You have so much free time presently to do anything you want with your life. Don’t give that up to spend double the amount of time driving a lorry. There is so much more to life than work, especially when it comes to truck driving.

6

See I sometimes have to drag myself into work to do mundane supermarket trunk runs. There is literally zero to think about other than road closures. Sometimes that is what makes a shift exciting.

Then i look back at my old job, could’ve gone here there and everywhere, night out, somewhere different tomorrow etc etc. It was still driving a truck buy it had some freshness to it.

Then I remember I worked 50% more hours at that job, spent 50% less rime at home, had inferior pay, terms, conditions, pension and so on and it focuses the mind a bit whene I look at how much time I have to myself now compared to then and I soon snap out of the whole “dragging myself into work” mindset and remember to enjoy simplicity of what I do now.

7

I’d choose challenging over mundane every day of the week IF it was the same pay and hours. However following your description of your job I’d say it’s a no brainer; stay where you are.

8

I have to…

Go with team mundane for the reasons outlined by others. Been there done that moved the machine in that prints the T shirt. I’d like to think that transport is moving forward to new and exciting times but, it isn’t.
I’ll continue to dictate the shifts I want that, work for me and sit on my backside at home if they don’t.

9

Another vote for easy/mundane.
If you want challenges in your life there’s plenty of stuff I can think of: read a good book, do a distance learning course, learn to play a musical instrument or learn a language - DuoLingo is free and you can do it on your phone.

10

I prefer work that needs some thought and care with some reponsibility, ie have been happier in specialised sectors, but especially i need to avoid RDC hell, even 20 minutes in one of those places and i would be phoning potential other employers.
I wouldn’t call general tramping interesting, challenging in the sense can you put up with it for another day maybe, but each to their own.

11

Stay where you are. Find some thing of your own choice to do for personal fulfilment out side of work. Do you know about girls?

12

I liked my last job. Most off jobs were off haulage exchange so never knew where was going or what to expect. And love a challenge especially building sites lol.

If worked somewre where and was going same.places week in week out etc think I’d get a bit bored. Wouldn’t say I’d leave the job just get bored seeing same.thing day in day out

13

Nah,.■■■■ the easy stress free 6 hour day finish and home to spend the rest of your day as you please,…You go for the 15 hour days tramping mate, no brainer, I know I would.

Btw can you pm me your firm’s phone no before you leave?
Asking for a friend. :wink: :laughing:

14

I did agency work for 7 years. A different job every day. Maybe a week or 2 in one place, then on to the next job.
A weeks night trunking maybe, or a week at Willy Lows/Tesco/ other supermarkets.
Supermarket work was ok, but boring. Day work was fine, but limited to 4.30 from base was meh.
Night trunking was very boring. I was once on the same night trunk for 3 months, no wonder I’m going bald.
Then I got a regular day job. Same routine week after week for 2.5 years.
Then I got a job for Murfitts, International tramping. WOW!
Now? International tramping is no longer WOW!
A motorway is a motorway, is a motorway, which ever country it’s in.
Same for industrial estates.
The scenery can be fantastic. But I’ve done most of the main routes so often now…

It’s still good. I work for a good company, doing work I like.
OK money, good kit, well looked after. Decent work, and no great pressure to ‘get on’. Decent boss, has been very helpful over the last few years through my ‘troubles’.
He still needs his pound of flesh. Small private company, everyone has to pull their weight. There’s work to be done, get it done.

I’m going to continue on there, until I retire in a couple of years.
I can’t face RDC work, from either side. Done it.
I don’t fancy day work, as a full time job. Done it.
I definitely don’t want local delivery work, as a full time job. Done it.
UK tramping, I’d have to start again as the ‘new’ boy. Don’t really fancy that either.
So staying where I am seems the best option, for me.

As for you? It’s your life. Make your own decisions, don’t let us make them for you.
But make your decisions with as much information as you can find, and balance what you want with what you need.
Tramping, especially International, probably pays less than you’re on now.
But if it’s what you want to do, do it.
You’ll be away for a week, probably two at a time. Home for a weekend, then away again.
If you’ve got young kids, you’ll miss a lot of their growing up.
You can’t take a day off mid week, to see a doctor, attend a wedding, whatever. You’ll be half way across Europe.
Anything like that has to be arranged for the weekend, or Monday if the boss will wear it.
Some firms, your partner can come with you. Some, they can not. ADR work, that’s illegal anyway, unless they ‘could’ be a 2nd driver (fully qualified).

On the other hand. You could be travelling over huge swathes of Europe.
Driving trucks on a Sunday is banned over most of Europe, on Bank Holidays too.
That gives you the opportunity to LOOK at places. Not just the services, industrial estate or truckstop.
Several parking areas have a swimming lake, an easy walk away, for example.
I’ve explored Milan, Pisa, Rome, Madrid, Basel, the list goes on and on.
I’ve been over The Gotthard, Mont Blanc, IP5 (Portugal), down to Taranto, up to Copenhagen. Another huge list.
It has been great, I’ve loved it. Still do really, but counting the months down now.

15

Edge of the seat 9:59 /15 let’s go :laughing: challenging definitely sheeting the lorry and trailer after skating machines in or out of buildings strapping it all on using the crane or taking the forklift with me .

16

I wouldnt want to go back to long hour tramping.I dont think its good for mental health not to hardly speak to anyone for 3 days,but if its more money then Id have to consider it though…

17

Thanks for the replies, I guess I already knew what the general consensus would be, just needed clarification!! Unfortunately every now’un again the rose tinted specs come out and I get the feeling I should be making use of my class 1 and would be better off but as said there’s so much more to life than driving.

18

djt1881:
Thanks for the replies, I guess I already knew what the general consensus would be, just needed clarification!! Unfortunately every now’un again the rose tinted specs come out and I get the feeling I should be making use of my class 1 and would be better off but as said there’s so much more to life than driving.

That’s the spirit! :smiley: Seriously mate, nobody ever laid on their deathbed saying “I wish I’d got a few more hours in”

19

ezydriver:
I’d take the easy, 6 hour, plodding along to an RDC option any day of the week. Twenty years ago however, I’d have been tramping all over
Europe given the chance.

My enthusiasm and energy for the job is completely lost now.

Exactly that. Twenty-five odd years ago I would be cheesed off if I “only” drove as far as Moscow or Istanbul, nowadays I get cheesed off if I get sent any further from Rugby than Asda at Magna Park.

My enthusiasm has completely gone. I still do the job as well as I can, I work for a lovely firm and they do seem to hold me in fairly high regard but it’s just a means to an end now rather than something I get excited about. I go to work in the morning thinking “Just two more months of this and I can go away on my boat again”. :stuck_out_tongue:

20

djt1881:
Thanks for the replies, I guess I already knew what the general consensus would be, just needed clarification!! Unfortunately every now’un again the rose tinted specs come out and I get the feeling I should be making use of my class 1 and would be better off but as said there’s so much more to life than driving.

So you ain’t jacking and sending me the details then after all ? :cry:

Dammit. :smiling_imp: :grimacing:
:smiley:

Btw I also have little interest in the job these days compared to past times, it’s how it gets you the longer you do it.