ant i know what you mean, im starting to think the same, sell both units and buy myself a nice new one and keep my trailers, buy an old unit and my mate can shunt the loaded trailers for me and i just run in and out all week
One of the major problems here is that the owner drivers think that we all owe them a living and should be honoured to be working for them for the £300 per week plus night out money for 95 hours.
Those days are long gone and professional bloody good drivers are worth a lot more than £10 per hour. If you are not prepared to pay it along with overtime rates then you are in a dream world and about to go under.
I would gladly drive for an O/D but I know they can not pay what I charge whereas others are happy to pay my rates.
swampey that maybe the case for you, i myself have a vast experience in all manner of hgv driving and yes my cv says it all thats only because i wont be a yes man, and choose who i work for that dosnt mean i cant hold a job down it just means iv got experience in all sorts steel concrete mixers adr docks rdc"s stores shops the list goes on bud, it does me fine thankyou but each to their own stuff eh
Truckbling:
One of the major problems here is that the owner drivers think that we all owe them a living and should be honoured to be working for them for the £300 per week plus night out money for 95 hours.Those days are long gone and professional bloody good drivers are worth a lot more than £10 per hour. If you are not prepared to pay it along with overtime rates then you are in a dream world and about to go under.
I would gladly drive for an O/D but I know they can not pay what I charge whereas others are happy to pay my rates.
Well I was paying my drivers £26000 salary plus bonus and they were home every night which they wanted to be. Over a 3 month period they averaged 45 hours a week, this was due to low work schedule but like the minute I asked them to do anymore they would moan. The last straw was when one of them rang me at 10am after starting at 6am and said he was done for the day my reply to that was I don’t think so I have other work to cover. He kicks off ranting and raving etc so he now finds himself jobless well done.
I wouldn’t employ anyone again unless I was a large business, then I could put up with the moaning as it wouldn’t be as personal.
For the first time this year I went away for 2 weeks and actually relaxed, phone off, no damage caused whilst away everything still in 1 piece. happy days now.
burnley-si:
ant i know what you mean, im starting to think the same, sell both units and buy myself a nice new one and keep my trailers, buy an old unit and my mate can shunt the loaded trailers for me and i just run in and out all week
Good idea. Saves some bugger being used as slave labour.
I wouldn’t employ anybody, I’d sooner park the truck up if I wasn’t driving it (I’ll be doing exactly that for the next two weeks while I spend some time on my boat).
If I did employ anybody, I’d only be able to pay them the going rate for the area so why bother?
It would seem logical that if an OD is doing ok that they can just buy a second truck and duplicate their scenario as so many have found out this doesn’t always work out like that. I over the years have started, ran and sold 2 other businesses I have taken that experience and knowledge and applied that to this business.
I have chosen a specialist area of haulage which is difficult to grow though on the other side is fairly stable once established, as for employees well if you were to breakdown 40 hours worth of work in a week I would guess 36 hours are spent on employees.
Truckbling:
One of the major problems here is that the owner drivers think that we all owe them a living and should be honoured to be working for them for the £300 per week plus night out money for 95 hours.Those days are long gone and professional bloody good drivers are worth a lot more than £10 per hour. If you are not prepared to pay it along with overtime rates then you are in a dream world and about to go under.
I would gladly drive for an O/D but I know they can not pay what I charge whereas others are happy to pay my rates.
Pat:
I don’t think any driver is worth a grand a week unless he is hauling petrol, gold, frankincense or myrrh.
I tend to agree with a lot of your posts, Pat, but I couldn’t disagree more with this comment and it does show that you’re stuck in the dark ages somewhat. There’s no shortage of places paying double figures per hour now and it’s not hard to rack up figures heading towards to a grand a week if you put in the hours. If you’re running your own ltd company for driving services and VAT rgd as well then you can easily break a grand a week without even needing to get a sweat on or get your hands dirty, nor need to sleep in a tin box for most of the week. But, the point here is that any thick ■■■■ can do it, ie. the thick [zb]s that do a grands worth of damage per shift but are paid the same rate as those drivers who take care and pride in their work, never have any accidents and go the extra mile to make sure the job still gets done when some disaster strikes in order to keep the customer happy. The latter is what defines a good, professional driver and those are the ones that are worth paying good money to because they’ll save you a great deal more in money, time and hassle in the long run from simply being able to relax and know that they’ll get the job done for you using their own experience and initiative when the need arises, thus keeping both yourself and your customer(s) happy. 
ant2503:
I went up to running 3 trucks a while ago but gone back to the 1 to much headache listening to moaning drivers.I tried having self employed drivers and employees, I found that neither work or want to work for you just out for themselves. They seem to think because you have trucks you must be a multi millionaire or something. I used to pay them a salary but when they had weeks of doing 40-45 hours the minute I ask them to do extra work to make up for the quite periods they start kicking off putting the phone down, not answering it and kicking off at my customer!
Maybe I was to soft but I wanted to be a decent boss and wanted to make a profit then everyone benefits.
So got rid of the drivers and sold 2 trucks its been the best thing I done.
Never a truer word was said.
Truckbling:
One of the major problems here is that the owner drivers think that we all owe them a living and should be honoured to be working for them for the £300 per week plus night out money for 95 hours.Those days are long gone and professional bloody good drivers are worth a lot more than £10 per hour. If you are not prepared to pay it along with overtime rates then you are in a dream world and about to go under.
I would gladly drive for an O/D but I know they can not pay what I charge whereas others are happy to pay my rates.
That’s great mate, i’m glad you’re sorted.
burnley-si:
ant i know what you mean, im starting to think the same, sell both units and buy myself a nice new one and keep my trailers, buy an old unit and my mate can shunt the loaded trailers for me and i just run in and out all week
You’d look well in a jet black R730 
ant2503:
Truckbling:
One of the major problems here is that the owner drivers think that we all owe them a living and should be honoured to be working for them for the £300 per week plus night out money for 95 hours.Those days are long gone and professional bloody good drivers are worth a lot more than £10 per hour. If you are not prepared to pay it along with overtime rates then you are in a dream world and about to go under.
I would gladly drive for an O/D but I know they can not pay what I charge whereas others are happy to pay my rates.
Well I was paying my drivers £26000 salary plus bonus and they were home every night which they wanted to be. Over a 3 month period they averaged 45 hours a week, this was due to low work schedule but like the minute I asked them to do anymore they would moan. The last straw was when one of them rang me at 10am after starting at 6am and said he was done for the day my reply to that was I don’t think so I have other work to cover. He kicks off ranting and raving etc so he now finds himself jobless well done.
I wouldn’t employ anyone again unless I was a large business, then I could put up with the moaning as it wouldn’t be as personal.
For the first time this year I went away for 2 weeks and actually relaxed, phone off, no damage caused whilst away everything still in 1 piece. happy days now.
Blokes are out for number 1 which is fair enough but I think some of them are on a different planet with the thought processes, the saying give & take doesn’t compute.
I don’t want to pay a driver £52 grand per year, I don’t earn £52 grand per year. If you can get a firm to pay you £52 grand per year, I am over joyed for you & you are right in that I can’t afford & will not pay a driver £52 grand per year even if I could.
Silver_Surfer:
burnley-si:
ant i know what you mean, im starting to think the same, sell both units and buy myself a nice new one and keep my trailers, buy an old unit and my mate can shunt the loaded trailers for me and i just run in and out all weekYou’d look well in a jet black R730
found a nice white one 
