SmashedCrabFace:
This post is pointless without pictures.
it’s a crappy one but I couldn’t find many on my phone where she actually has some clothes on 
adam1987:
Alrite Milton who have you been driving for I’m looking to do eastern euro n Asia
was working for a small estonian company and with the turks doing istanbul to western europe for less than €3k nowadays, good paying work is not there anymore
milodon:
was working for a small estonian company and with the turks doing istanbul to western europe for less than €3k nowadays, good paying work is not there anymore
Oh the irony 
Good luck to you though fella 
milodon:
SmashedCrabFace:
This post is pointless without pictures.it’s a crappy one but I couldn’t find many on my phone where she actually has some clothes on
adam1987:
Alrite Milton who have you been driving for I’m looking to do eastern euro n Asiawas working for a small estonian company and with the turks doing istanbul to western europe for less than €3k nowadays, good paying work is not there anymore
Not my cuppa but each to their own lol…
Hi Mike,
I’ll be positive towards you and wish you all the best in changing and hope it makes you happier. Happiness is the most important thing nowadays in what you do as you’ll be doing for a lot longer than our grandparents did and our parents will do! 
I’m coming the other way had enough of the professional career and it’s supposed trappings (I’ll let you into a secret there are none here either )
I’ve had a play on trucks since 2005 (and was first put in Dad’s cab at three weeks old, as that was only where I would sleep properly for my mum, what an annoying zb I must’ve been 
) and keep my hand in with the agencies since and I’ve got the bug and had the itch to come back for years but wouldn’t do it until after I got married and the missus was settled in her job.
Now it’s my turn coming up in the next 18 months. 
What Tarrman says is true I have a close friend who was a Sainsbury’s nightshift/warehouse manager until 2007 in the major restructure he left shelf stacking and the paperwork. He averaged 65 hours a week in retail only paid 40 hours a week other 25 expected for free otherwise they’d force you out! He’d done that since he was 16 and had been doing it 20 years by then. He managed to keep his old wages and works the forks at Basingstoke Sainsbury’s Depot to this day. Said it was the best thing ever as he only does 40 hours a week for the old wage.
Also met many Sainsbury’s warehousemen in my time with them, who were ex-HGV and loved the job in the warehouse and others who detested the warehouse but were stuck e.g. drink driving or some other stupid indiscretion. Each to their own!
After 5 years for myself I had to change. Seeing them same walls everyday and as Carryfast said
The problem is every hour in a factory or a warehouse seems like at least four of driving a truck for a living.You won’t believe how slowly a clock can move
Ironically I am going to have a lot of mortar rounds come in and have my tin hat on here for this but I agree with what has whole heartedly been said by (I can’t believe I am going to put these names together in one hit now) these following people as they all make sound sense:
Saaamon
SmashedCrabFace - So much truth spoken about alternative careers and their “supposed” benefits of being better than a HGV job! Can you tell what side I am on yet
Carryfast - Many a day spent trying to wish time away!
Mike-C
iDriver - This man has spoken the best advice I have seen anywhere for years and I wish I had got this before I took my current job role, as this truth hurts me a lot inside, as I am living a current vocation mistake/blunder! And it is so true, if you take one thing of this post it would be these two paragraphs!
eric the judge - Good advice on balancing
Muckaway - Good solutions
drummerkev - Good solutions
Silver_Surfer - Good solutions
switchlogic - Speaks a lot of truths on this posting about getting a balance.
leehellcat - Sums up my professional job as an Engineer (average weekly shift 70 hours for the same money as an artic driver) - last longest shift ever ironically last week 23 hours straight with 6 hours driving 3 either side of the shift, as we couldn’t afford a B&B on the project budget. My assistant couldn’t drive - no licence - I’ll get hit for this too but thank god for tachographs - Trust me non-driving jobs will exploit you big time as soon as they can, the tachograph is your friend in some ways!
I’ve done labouring, undertaking/pall bearing, warehouse work for Sainsbury’s stores and depots, construction in three types of disciplines and of course driving. So I too have seen a few different careers/jobs, a lot like others on here and that green grass has more problems with it than can be initially be seen. I’ll let you guess which one I enjoy coming back too and getting calls from the agency at 2am on a Saturday morning!
TTX boy -
I dont know of any other job where you dont get paid overtime after you’ve worked 40hrs !
Come join me in engineering for a week by Wednesday we are working for free as contract states you are paid for a 37 hour week - site hours will vary as required to complete a job as dictated by the company, no overtime payments unless a weekend (they never happen as the company has to pay out).
But we exempt of the Working Hours regulations if you don’t sign the form you don’t get the job - Good company hey! If you don’t like it quit we’ll have another person in your job tomorrow, which is the truth in my current game. Hang on this sounds like (HGV companies, supermarkets, bookmakers, solicitiors, management consultants, actually most jobs in the UK at the moment!)
All for £6.80 for the true hours or £13.00 contract hours only. Ashamedly most average Class 1 jobs pay more as do Class 2 jobs down my way! That salary is me being lucky compared to other engineers I work with as I have a degree and a chartership qualification.
As I want to get off the final soapbox now I’ll leave Smashedcrabface quote to remind us all about the proverb the grass is greener on the other side… yeah right 
+1
I wish all these moaning old [zb]s who have driven all their lives and never done a proper days work would just [zb] off and stack shelves in Tesco without preaching to the rest of us.
I’ve stacked shelves in Tesco. I’ve worked in a factory. I’ve worked in an office. I’ve worked on the road bullying old people into buying stuff they don’t need and can’t afford. I’ve shovelled [zb] and I’ve driven a taxi…and do you know what the easiest money I ever earnt was? I’ll tell ya. It’s the job I do now; driving an artic from A to B and back to A again.
If you can’t hack that, you sure as hell ain’t going to be able to hack a real job.
I hope this helps.
Never a truer word said in jest!
Back to the post I wish you the best of luck Mike in your future choices and I hope it goes well for you sincerely I mean that!
C
Opps before I forgot about the equivalent of DCPC and other changes in haulage happens in other games now.
I have to do my joke CSCS card every five years and they change the goal posts on the test every couple of years and the extra tickets you require to keep this card to do your job.
With regards to the chartership I have to do an extra 40 hours of CPC every five years recorded and can be tested on it too. All for free unless my company chooses to pay it.
Guess what in construction like haulage, hardly any company pays for it, so you get to pay for it and do it for free too (yep they won’t pay you for the time off too!)
I’d say the DCPC is a let off compared to a lot of other industries, you don’t have to do a test for starters, of which if you fail the test and your card is expired they won’t let you carry on working until you pass and get the nice shiny new card etc.
Unfortunately haulage is having to play catch up with the rest of the industries on this subject now. Don’t mean I agree with it, but we are one of the last industries where you don’t have to really prove “qualification and competence to the nth degree”!
Most other jobs have these “taxes thrust upon them too” drivers aren’t the only one’s being penalised for needing a card/certificate to do their own job, that over eight years ago wasn’t required either in their respective fields!
C
was working for a small estonian company and with the turks doing istanbul to western europe for less than €3k nowadays, good paying work is not there anymore
[/quote]
thanks for reply off to find some off these companies
switchlogic:
Boss & Driver:
switchlogic:
COOKiEEES!!:
this post should be stickied in the new/wannabes section.No it shouldn’t. If I’d listened to all the drivers when I was starting out I would probably never have done it and now be sat bored and depressed in an office because I never followed my dreams. As it happens I did follow my dreams and they all came true. The new drivers never knew how it ‘used to be’. This is their time and maybe 20 years down the line they’ll be moaning how its not like it used to be but there we go. Let people make their own decisions. With the right attitude and right outlook on life this can still be a great job if you make it. It just takes time and hard work to get where you want to be, just never give up.
What pish
Coming from the oracle of all knowlege. Shouldn’t you be busy writing your next load of drivel, sorry fiction?
Talk about leading the newbess up the garden path
■■■■ being a lorry driver why not just be an astronaut.
It just takes a little more time and hard work to get where you want to be, just never give up right!
Im sorry I have no idea what a ‘newbess’ is. Im sure I could guess but then you could stop being a Muppet and where would the fun in that be eh?
ste87:
The West is massively richer than it was 30 years ago! The reason you haven’t seen any of that, is because the Western rich have put it all in their own pockets whilst assaulting your pay and conditions!
the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer I would agree with you
But How can this contory be getting richer if nothing is being produced
what are you supposed to get rich on?
If the rich where getting richer then stuff would have to be produced and staff would be needed to do the work for them
ste87:
When did you last do anything to resist and fight the creeping imposition of the free market? The very markets that make the rich richer and the poor poorer?
It is not the free market that one need to protest it is the goverment for its lack in lets start growing again
You are talking about the biggest mob in the country
the only way you can protest them is with an army
but no one give a ■■■■ any more do they
what about the truck world CPC protest when all these’ yes count me in I’ll be there I want change’ people could never be bothered to show up
Yes protests like the fuel blockades worked coz people showed up when farmers and hauliers united
What this country needs is some one to
shut down the gas and electrical grid until
A. the government agree to build in exses of 10 (cost effective un subsidized) power stations or allow planing permission for private companies to do so
B. Build or allow private companies to fill the fells with wind turbines
C. Allow planning permission of prospective sites for open cast mining
shut down all oil refineries and supermarket RDC until
the government allows all fells and unused land to be fully grazed and to be used as full farm land
shut down all fishing ports until
A. The government brings back our fishing quarters
B. The common disregard policy is abolished
blockade all out city ring roads
Until the government aggress to build more roads in congested areas
And the list goes on
But non of this will ever happen coz no one give a ■■■■ any more
the replies to this post will say it all
switchlogic:
Im sorry I have no idea what a ‘newbess’ is. Im sure I could guess but then you could stop being a Muppet and where would the fun in that be eh?
I bit like the photo in your image LOL
That makes no sense either! I know your just someone on a wind up but it would be nice if the odd post was coherent sometimes.
Saaamon:
milodon:
SmashedCrabFace:
This post is pointless without pictures.it’s a crappy one but I couldn’t find many on my phone where she actually has some clothes on
adam1987:
Alrite Milton who have you been driving for I’m looking to do eastern euro n Asiawas working for a small estonian company and with the turks doing istanbul to western europe for less than €3k nowadays, good paying work is not there anymore
Not my cuppa but each to their own lol…
You make a lot of sense in what your saying and to add my own situation to the mix, I am 51 driven most of my adult life trucks,plant etc and have held a list of “other” jobs that would bore you to death I know it did me .
The past 4 years I have worked and still do in a power station,and for the first two years it was OK. The wife was happy that I was home on a night and to be honest I kind of settled into it. But after a while the the itchy feet syndrome started to kick in and and I am now looking to get back on the road and find myself counting the hours down until home time in my present job.
My observations in the time away are that not a lot has changed other than an influx of younger newer/drivers into the industry a lot of whom judging by some of the posts I have read think they have invented the wheel metaphorically speaking (no pun intended). In this game like any other job or walk of life there is good and bad fact ! its how we deal with either that makes our experiences good or bad.
The sooner we stop bad mouthing agency drivers,trolley drivers, foreign drivers etc etc etc and realize that we are all drivers,just some with more experience than others and some with different standards then we might stand a chance of gaining a bit more respect from others.
I am an old bugger now and my priorities are not the same as when I was younger I have no mortgage and the kids have buggered off so I intend to look for work that I enjoy doing rather than have to do. And if there is one thing I have learnt from jumping from one job to another and it is that life is what you make it,its all in the head.
keep on trucking
I wouldn’t leave a driving job for any factory/warehouse job, you think that your every move is watched now, I know at some places you actually have to ask permission to go to the toilet (especially on a factory line), at my place you have to ask permission to have a coffee, in winter 2 years back it was -18 on our loading dock, and if the gaffa said no, you just froze till break time (lucky I have a decent boss). Every hour feels like a day, if your on order picking or loading cages it can be a lot of heavy work, sometimes your expected to handball a 40ft container of say peaches onto pallets that has come from Italy.
Every movement is watched at my place pickers wear a headset which tells them where and what to pick next, they have to confirm each item with a code then onto the next, if they stand talking management can see down to the second how long you were at each pick slot, they can see how long you had for break they can see how long you it was before and after break you picked something. There are targets to hit that usually involve you breaking every H&S rule in the book just to get the job done.
Oh and to top it all off you’re boss will be some jumped up uni lad about 24 years old with no experience at the job and you will be on less money than your on now. We may get watched when out on the road but not like when in a warehouse or factory.
You never know tho you might get lucky like me 
billybigrig:
Oh the irony
if there is any, I can’t see it. Contrary to popular belief, the eastern european trucking industry is not collectively pulling trailers out of ramsgate etc, most of them are still doing work back and forth to their home country, as was I at the time.
Hi Mike. It’s definitely not just you.
I started driving in 1991. Took my class1 at 22yrs old and been driving ever since. I liked the job a lot when i first started. The last 8 years or so, with all the hassle that went with the job, i got that feeling of, “what the hell am i doing with my life”.
When i started out there were no cab phones, nobody had mobiles, no trackers and the good old analogue tacho. If you felt tired, you pulled over for a rest. You had your meals when you were hungry, not when the tacho told you too, or the boss looking at the tracker, wondering why the wheels aren’t turning.
I have tried numerous jobs in my time, trying to chase that dream job. I find that haulage bosses will promise the earth to get your backside in that driving seat, but the reality is often very different.
I do know one thing for sure, factory work for me, is like pulling teeth with no anesthetic. Don’t get me wrong, it’s horses for courses, some like the security of knowing what time they will start and finish, and working indoors. What changed the ill feeling for me was swapping from days to nights. For the last 8 or so years i have been working nights (trunking). I start at the same time every night, trunk a load, then home and finished at about the same time every morning. My total nights work is approx 9.5 hours. I don’t work weekends and i very rarely set an alarm clock to wake up. One of the best things is that i no longer get that Monday morning feeling.
What i am trying to say is that if you enjoy the driving, maybe try a few more different things before you give up.
You never know, factory work may be just for you.
Good luck with whatever you do.
Boss & Driver:
switchlogic:
Boss & Driver:
switchlogic:
COOKiEEES!!:
this post should be stickied in the new/wannabes section.No it shouldn’t. If I’d listened to all the drivers when I was starting out I would probably never have done it and now be sat bored and depressed in an office because I never followed my dreams. As it happens I did follow my dreams and they all came true. The new drivers never knew how it ‘used to be’. This is their time and maybe 20 years down the line they’ll be moaning how its not like it used to be but there we go. Let people make their own decisions. With the right attitude and right outlook on life this can still be a great job if you make it. It just takes time and hard work to get where you want to be, just never give up.
What pish
Coming from the oracle of all knowlege. Shouldn’t you be busy writing your next load of drivel, sorry fiction?
Talk about leading the newbess up the garden path
[zb] being a lorry driver why not just be an astronaut.
It just takes a little more time and hard work to get where you want to be, just never give up right!
Ah another one to add to the collection “newbess” 
Never did find out what a “bate cabin” was…