Hi all,
Just a quick update and a plea for reassurance.
I passed my Cat C in 2013 and did nothing with it. Passed my C&E last year and did nothing with it. I just recently did a few CPC courses and bought my Driver Card. I figured I’d have more chance of finding work if I’d held my licence for over a year (age not an issue, I’m in my late thirties).
I was just looking for the odd weekend shift, to work around my full time office job. I contacted some agencies. Some told me straight, they could not offer me work with no experience. Some were happy for me to sign up, promising great things, but then nothing came of it. I was all set to put Plan B into action and go knocking on doors when I got a call from a local agency and was offered a full 8hr paid assessment/induction with a well known bread company.
The assessment went well and I’ve since done a couple of shifts which I got through without damaging myself, the truck or the load! I’m well chuffed with many aspects of the deal…my first driving job, straight onto Class 1 in a DAF auto, delivering a great British brand to RDC’s, Huey Morgan playing a good selection in the early hours on Radio 2, great bunch of helpful folk back at base. It’s certainly a decent way of earning a few extra quid, which was the motivation behind this driving idea all along.
However, although I’m totally green, I am far from satisfied with how I handled reversing onto the bay. I think I cracked under the pressure when I suddenly realised it wasn’t going perfectly. Took me bloody ages to sort myself out. I figured I’d be way better on Day 2, knowing the lay of the land etc but I was just as bad if not worse!
You guys have always said the real learning starts after you’ve passed your test. You’re not kidding. I was so confident with the reverse in the test that I figured I was God’s Gift to going backwards. But really, the test exercise does not prepare you.
I’m not sure I can blame the dark morning but it didn’t help. I guess the place was fairly well lit but I felt like I was looking in my mirrors and not seeing much. I wanted to see cones and black and white poles in Peter Smythe’s yard, and Dave walking around with his e-cig looking all confident, but all I saw was my trailer heading in the wrong direction, as if driven by guy who doesn’t have a clue.
I’ve thought about it enough now to believe it may be 3rd time lucky, and next time I’ll do OK. Obviously I wouldn’t mind a few shunts, I just don’t want to be making a pig’s ear out of it. I think my mistakes were not setting the trailer up with a bit of an angle to begin with, then I made the mistake of losing sight of my trailer to my blind side and snaking about all over the shop, over-steering too. It’s amazing how quickly it can go from lined up to screwed up.
The tips I’m looking for are for the following scenario: If you are driving past the bay you want, how far past it should I go? You have to be at a right angle to it because there’s not enough room to pull up straight in front of it (God that would be lovely), so you’re going to have to get some serious lock on, but how much?
I can’t wait for the day I get this mastered because I know at that point I will love the job.
Cheers guys,
DAFMAN