Pat Hasler:
Most don’t give a toss about the truck they drive so why should they bother ? I have seen good agency drivers who hope one day to get a job with the company they are sent to and bad who just don’t care.
Yet another reason agencies should just be closed and if everyone refused to work for such places they would soon vanish.
I’ve seen company drivers with many years service who’d fit into either category. And a good few of them who don’t give a toss about their truck either.
Good idea you’ve got there; let’s shut all the agencies down and everyone will have a proper job.Why didn’t we think of that before?
Oh, and a note to the Mods; why is it not acceptable for members of this forum to use perjorative language to describe persons whose traits include stealing diesel and anything else they can lay their hands on, but apparently it’s OK to use adjectives like “filthy” and “stinking” as a sweeping generalisation for all agency drivers?
mike68:
Where do they come from? Filthy high viz coat beard and bobble hat.
Boots on the bunk and a talent for damage, smoking in the cab and strangers to soap and water.
Please go and get a job somewhere else.
That is ■■■■■■■ funny!!!
Honestly couldn’t stop laughing!
After reading all of this topic I realise one thing, there are messy ■■■■■■■■ on both sides, but the one thing most have in common is no one likes getting into a someone else’s stinking hole of a cab with crumbs, ■■■ ash, dirt on the floor and curry ■■■■■ in he seat!
gnasty gnome:
Oh, and a note to the Mods; why is it not acceptable for members of this forum to use perjorative language to describe persons whose traits include stealing diesel and anything else they can lay their hands on, but apparently it’s OK to use adjectives like “filthy” and “stinking” as a sweeping generalisation for all agency drivers?
to be fair, like with everything it only take a few to give the rest a bad name… I think its more drivers in general rather than agency vs employed.
At the same time if you don’t have responsibility for something, like for agency or sharing units then people tend to lose respect for it. Look at half the state of trailers on the road…
I have a “proper” job. i work for a number of companies in my area covering for holiday relief, sickness, peak periods etc. I am very well recieved when a company driver decides to have a day off, and call in 1 hour before his shift start. When a company driver complains because he might have to work overtime on a saturday or sunday, who is it that steps in to let them off? people like me .When i work for a company, i follow the rules they make, if the vehicles need washing, i wash it, if it is a muck hole when i get into it, i tell someone , not to “grass” someone up, but simply to prevent myself being branded as a filthy stinking agency driver. I have refused to drive vehicles where the regular driver has left the vehicle filthy and stinking with all his gear inside, I am not going to clean up after a flithy stinking company driver, nor should I be held responsible for his personal belongings. If something were to “go missing” Who will get the blame? the “filthy stinking agency driver” I suggest that any company driver takes some wet wipes with them and just run one around thier steering wheel, and over the gear stick and hand brake if they believe thier cab is spotless, and see what colour it is when you’ve finished.
Go to any RDC at a busy time, and just look around the waiting room and i am sure there will be as many company drivers who I will avoid sitting near, as there are agency drivers. I sympathise a little with any trampers, agency or company men, because the facilities in this country are mostly appalling, but a can of deodorant and some wet wipes don’t cost a fortune.
another thing I have noticed is how many companies get an agency driver in to do a “special” job, something that they normally don’t do, but needs someone with a brain, or someone who willl not show them up!
How can agency drivers improve thier image? well, we could all buy caravans and an old ford transit, live in hedges!
mike68:
Where do they come from? Filthy high viz coat beard and bobble hat.
Boots on the bunk and a talent for damage, smoking in the cab and strangers to soap and water.
Please go and get a job somewhere else.
It seems mike68 has a short memory
mike68 (An agency driver): I have been on the agency for over a year now with mainly one client although said client could take on 20+ drivers they don’t for the reasons already mentioned this is very dis-heartening when I started out 20 odd years ago the agency was a way for a potential employer to have a look at you and see if you were worth offering a job to. Now it seems that agency staff make up a high percentage of the workforce all year round and not just at busy periods. When I see a truck with with L plates on I think to myself you have no chance mate, if I can’t get a start after twenty years what hope have you got.
As I ended up being on the agency by accident in September '11. I have to say that I have a total different outlook on it now.
To sum up in words the difference of work…
I’m potentially earning £32000 per annum at the moment.
I don’t drive the same truck every day and every truck is in different conditon.
I defect the problems and the truck doesn’t go out whereas b4 I defected the problems and maybe they would be sorted on the next service.
I hear ‘the company’ drivers moaning or refusing to do something for pathetic reasons, the same driver that then moans an hour later that ‘the company’ only seems to have ‘bloody agency drivers’ in all the time. I wonder why.
I get to go into all manor of different vehicles of varying degrees of cleanliness, used by both company and agency drivers.
I CHOOSE when I want to work, I get paid a GOOD hourly rate and if I work overtime, bank hols or weekends then I’m paid a DECENT rate. I’m not salaried to work when they say I have to.
Most of all though, I have to say…IT’S ONLY THE COMPANY DRIVERS THAT HAVE TO MAKE A CRASS GENERALISATION, MAYBE BORN OUT OF ONE BAD EGG AMONGST MANY GOOD ONES (excuse the easter pun), SUCH AS THE COMPANY DRIVER WHO STARTED THIS TOPIC… AS PROVEN.
mike68:
Where do they come from? Filthy high viz coat beard and bobble hat.
Boots on the bunk and a talent for damage, smoking in the cab and strangers to soap and water.
Please go and get a job somewhere else.
It seems mike68 has a short memory
mike68 (An agency driver): I have been on the agency for over a year now with mainly one client although said client could take on 20+ drivers they don’t for the reasons already mentioned this is very dis-heartening when I started out 20 odd years ago the agency was a way for a potential employer to have a look at you and see if you were worth offering a job to. Now it seems that agency staff make up a high percentage of the workforce all year round and not just at busy periods. When I see a truck with with L plates on I think to myself you have no chance mate, if I can’t get a start after twenty years what hope have you got.
hahaha what the ■■■■ does having a beard have to do with how you present yourself?
i go to work clean every day i work on an agency because a, it pays more b, i pick when i want to work and where.
the worst people for smoking in cabs (bearing in mind its illegal in a company vehicle) are full time staff, and i leave the cab exactly as i find it if its clean i have polish and dusters and will make sure its left clean and tidy if its a tip i will inform the powers that be before leaving (thats if they wont give me another vehicle) and it will be left as it was found.
mike68:
Where do they come from? Filthy high viz coat beard and bobble hat.
Boots on the bunk and a talent for damage, smoking in the cab and strangers to soap and water.
Please go and get a job somewhere else.
what a pr*ck. Most agency drivers choose agency work because its flexible you get to say where n when you want to work and o yea no nights out. I have done both agency and company work and you get good and bad in both. I have refused to drive a unit because the regular comapny driver left it in such a state I wouldnt let a dog sleep in the cab let alone spend the shift in it. If a cab is clean and tidy when I use it i leave it the same way but refuse to clean someone else mess up.
