Weekended!!! I used to be weekended in euroland and in the uk quite a lot, part of the job, but there seems to be more and more reports of companies no longer paying drivers to be parked up for 24 hrs or longer, the company that i used to work for paid for everyday you where out, until recently, now they do not pay drivers if on a 24 or 45hrs rest , they only pay their night out allowences!! personally that would mean one of 2 senarios to me ,
1, refuse to be weekended without being paid
2, spend the rest period in a different place to the truck loaded or not , ie hotel, taking any valuable possessions with me
tommy t:
Weekended!!! I used to be weekended in euroland and in the uk quite a lot, part of the job, but there seems to be more and more reports of companies no longer paying drivers to be parked up for 24 hrs or longer, the company that i used to work for paid for everyday you where out, until recently, now they do not pay drivers if on a 24 or 45hrs rest , they only pay their night out allowences!! personally that would mean one of 2 senarios to me ,
1, refuse to be weekended without being paid
2, spend the rest period in a different place to the truck loaded or not , ie hotel, taking any valuable possessions with me
It depends on all sorts of things.
A company I used to work for paid on hours worked and night out money. But I also had a day at home for every weekend away on top of my weekend at home. So if I did 6 weeks away, I’d have seven days at home (2 day weekend plus 5 days, 1 for each weekend away), on basic pay. I only got overnight money for my weekends away though.
This arrangement seemed fair to me. I able to spend quality time with my family, rather than just a couple of days mainly spent recovering from the last few weeks. It was possible to get jobs done without having to rush and maybe take my family away for a couple of days.
Well the company i referred to don’t they pay a salary which consists of a daily rate , they never used to keep anyone out (parked up for 45hrs) when they did pay for everyday that you was out, but now they ain’t as bothered as they aren’t paying , the only advantage the driver has by not moaning about it,is being kept out working, as by insisting or needing to be home for the weekend tends to lead to them left at home(without pay) for a lot longer in that company if you don’t work you don’t get paid, apart from holiday pay at basic rate only
jessicas dad:
i dont really understand this mentality that you have to be weekened before you are a proper euro driver.I guess you might of got that idea from my post JD.
If that is the case, the reason I got irritated with my fellow brits who used to winge about “needing to be home” was that we were working for a Dutch Company based in Barneveld. Pretty daft to take on that kind of job if you didn’t think you might often be working away from home at the weekend.
As it happens the planners made quite an effort to arrange work or lifts home for the British lads. That would mean if somebody started bleating about going home just because they have run of clean socks another driver might lose out.
A lesson I learned much earlier on at Murfitts was never to discuss where I was going or if I would be weekended or not.
I mentioned to a ‘colleague’ in Bremen once (who had spent the afternoon telling me how much of a ‘euro’ man he was) that I was looking forward to getting home that weekend. He sloped off and rang his planner, thirty minutes later my works changed and I was off to Milan.
I enjoyed the trip but I was narked with that bloke and my lost trip home. I considered it a lesson well learnt.
I’m glad you’re enjoying your French work JD and believe me I would make every effort to get home as well. Regardless if that stopped me being a ‘Euro Trucker’ or not.
W
the problem i have with the thread alex is toby bringing it up again after already starting a thread called the same title before, i myself dont tell anyone in the yard what im doing and to be honest very rarely talk to them, ( a trick i learned after working at freightliner )
if i have to do the odd weekend out i will deal with that when the time comes but considering my dad worked here for 6 years and was weekened once i feel pretty safe. if i start to get weekened too often il move back to bedfords.
when at work i like to keep myself to myself.
Sounds like a plan JD.
One of the things that put me off the TOTAL at Zeebrugge was the loafing brits hanging about drinking that horrible coffee all weekend talking the same old shop everyone has heard a million times before. Especially if they could of made it home…
When I was on my travels I tried to avoid the usual British haunts if I could. Not out of any kind of snobbery (although being talked at all weekend does wear thin) but just to see how the locals do things and make the most of my time abroad.
Having a Dutch truck did help me keep myself to myself if I wanted to. I suppose these days, you would be able to do the same with a British truck…
Good luck on your travels,
W
Bike off down the country lanes,or have a work out with the cheap bar bells i used to have from Argos,was surprised how much you could see and do,once i had left the confines of a foreign motorway parking area,where there is a gate that the staff use to get in and out from.
at jefferies the majority of european drivers were back on a weekend, leave yard sunday, back friday. there was a couple who did 2 maybe 3 weeks away, but to be honest that was because they mostly wanted to.mantons used to tell all drivers who were after the euro work they cud be away for pretty much any length of time,(2-4 weeks was normal) so if you wanted the euro with them you knew wat you were letting yourself in for. for me id much rather do the european, but return on a weekly basis, with perhaps the odd weekend chucked in, whats the point of spending it alone, if you have a family at home?? but for a singleton …the mantons job WUD have been PURFIC!! 
I used to run to Switzerland most weeks and occasionally to eastern Germany. Most of the time we we got back on weekends. If we shipped out on a Sunday or Monday we’d be back in the yard and home Friday afternoon, if we shipped out Tuesday we would often be back on Saturday afternoon or be weekended, depending on the reload in Swiss and where it was going in the UK. It it was for the south we’d be weekended in Folkestone until Monday morning, if it was for the north we’d come home with it and deliver on Monday. Other times we shipped out on Wednesday and would then usually reload groupage out of Basel on Friday afternoon for Feltham near Heathrow airport with a couple of direct deliveries chucked in. In the three years that I did that I got weekended numerous times, but always in Folkestone.
robinhood_1984:
I used to run to Switzerland most weeks and occasionally to eastern Germany. Most of the time we we got back on weekends. If we shipped out on a Sunday or Monday we’d be back in the yard and home Friday afternoon, if we shipped out Tuesday we would often be back on Saturday afternoon or be weekended, depending on the reload in Swiss and where it was going in the UK. It it was for the south we’d be weekended in Folkestone until Monday morning, if it was for the north we’d come home with it and deliver on Monday. Other times we shipped out on Wednesday and would then usually reload groupage out of Basel on Friday afternoon for Feltham near Heathrow airport with a couple of direct deliveries chucked in. In the three years that I did that I got weekended numerous times, but always in Folkestone.
Many a weekend in a drunken haze spent down at Folkestone lol not a bad place got everything you need
taffytrucker:
Many a weekend in a drunken haze spent down at Folkestone lol not a bad place got everything you need
It never bothered me in the slightest to be weekended there. Like you say, you’ve got everything you need pretty much right outside the gate, and walking up that hill in to the town centre on a regular basis certainly kept me fit!
Years ago when you could park at Portsmouth or Dover dox old man Sheddick would allow us to leave trucks there Friday afternoon and sometimes there’d be 5 or 6 of us in one truck magnum getting a lift back to Newport, and reverse either Monday or Sunday the good olde days