Lots of smaller hauliers in the Essex area running for pallet companies, ie palletforce, upn, pallex etc, they are always looking for Class 2 drivers, I know Canute has a sign up outside their yard at Grays looking for Class 2, then there is the usual such as Tesco, Co-op etc, both Tesco in Dagenham and Purfleet are looking so is the Co-op in Purfleet, may not be your cup of tea for a career but it gets you the experience.
wheelnutt:
Lots of smaller hauliers in the Essex area running for pallet companies, ie palletforce, upn, pallex etc, they are always looking for Class 2 drivers, I know Canute has a sign up outside their yard at Grays looking for Class 2, then there is the usual such as Tesco, Co-op etc, both Tesco in Dagenham and Purfleet are looking so is the Co-op in Purfleet, may not be your cup of tea for a career but it gets you the experience.
Do Tesco and Co-Op take on Class 2 drivers though? It has always been my understanding that they only employ Class 1 drivers (who can obviously drive the rigids as and when required).
I don’t work for the company, never have, so haven’t a clue what the score is normally and have no idea how good or bad the job is.
However there are similarities to my previous work, car transporters, the new driver turnover rate was and no doubt still is astonishingly high, once the reality of some hard work kicks in many drop out, the costs of training are very high so companies have to be as sure as they can be that the person applying is going to be worth the effort and expense.
Now i don’t know you from a bar of soap so don’t take offence, what you have to remember is the same goes for an employer, from some of the things you say in your OP you were only looking for some experience and this was only going to be a stop gap i get the feeling, whether that’s true or not it’s how you come across…maybe the chap at Brakes got the same feeling, so instead of wasting his companies money and your time on an interview/recruitment/training program with no guarantees of an employee at the end of 3 months, just maybe he offered you a day out to see if you might be suitable before going further, quite likely the chap who you were supposed to go out with is an assessor/trainer or at the very least a trusted employee whose opinion they value.
Lorry driving is a funny old game, there are no set rules, there are no set career paths to getting the better jobs and some never get them, some drivers thrive at one end of the industry but wouldn’t last 5 mins at the other, that goes for all of us cos we aint cloned, yet.
Did you do the right thing?, i don’t know to be honest and i’d have had to be a fly on the wall during all your communications with this chap to offer an opinion.
What i do know is that sometimes you have to grab a chance with both hands even if its not what you want to do to get that foot in the door, then get your feet under the table.
Three examples from my driving career, for want of a better term, that resulted in me ending up in seriously good well paid jobs.
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Came off the artics and went driving a van on nights in the 80’s, paid more, right time right place, inside about 18 months i’d got one of the highest paid artic night trunk jobs in the country there.
-
After the above job ended (nice payout
) i got the nod to drive car transporters, no transporter available to went trade plating for that company for a good while till one was available, then it was two weeks training on the transporters and at that time it was dead mans shoes, they had never before paid a single driver during the training period but i successfully negotiated a smallish pay packet and was the first driver to get paid for training there.
That job itself wasn’t great but in such a specialised and closed industry i was able to move onto much better prospects after proving myself over a good number of years. -
Present job, had to start on nights as the only shift available/offered, got me feet under the table and transferred onto the present shift pattern on days when it became available, this is by far the best job i’ve ever had.
You can only play the set of cards you’ve been dealt, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to, the end justifying the means.
Thanks people for taking the time to comment on this.
After thinking it over for a few days I feel that I did make the correct decision.
It’s always difficult to try and get across a situation like this in words. I personally feel the way I was treated was pretty poor. I was an inconvenience to them on the day so being sent away to return at 5am was just a way to get me out of their hair. As a few of you have said unless your there looking at the attitude of the staff etc it’s a hard one to try and put across.
After doing a fair bit of research I can find no other instance when this “experience shift” as been put in place. Even the lady who called offering me the interview explained it would be an interview and assessment drive.
I suppose you could start thinking that perhaps my attitude was such that they thought not sure of this guy is serious let’s send him out with an experienced driver and see what he thinks, but I didn’t even get the chance to speak in order to put that kind of attitude across. I was dressed smartly, big old smile on when I walked in and I mean come on I even had a shave.
But at the end of the day it gave me a chance to realise that I was not being very true to myself, multi drop was never the way I personally wanted to go. I have been doing multi drop in a van for a pretty long time and it’s wearing a little thin. I think I just saw the pretty good money they offer and went for it.
This is where Juddian comments come in. Juddian you were right in thinking that this job to me was going to be about experience behind the wheel not a life long career. It seems that unfortunately for Brakes they are seen as one of the companies that people say “brakes take on newbies, apply for them then move on after a few months”. They have clearly been bitten far to many times and are becoming a bit savvy to this.
In the end can I really blame them for what they asked me to do. No. If I was one of the management there I would probably be trying to implement the same thing. Just think I would go about it in a slightly better way.
But I didn’t give up and have now found myself a class 2 job that’s not multi drop. So I suppose it worked out better for both parties involved.
As I said cheers for the comments your input in much appreciated and helps with questions to ask myself in case this kind of thing happens again.
Mark1203:
Thanks people for taking the time to comment on this.But I didn’t give up and have now found myself a class 2 job that’s not multi drop. So I suppose it worked out better for both parties involved.
.
Well done mate for getting a job, who did you go with in the end? PM me if u want. You’ve definatly got the right attitude for this line of work. 
Congratulations on your new job, great stuff! I think you did right to turn down the Brakes job, if more people did we could all enjoy better behaved employers.
I’ve been looking for my first driving job Class 2 since beginning of August and only today it looks like I’m getting a break. It’s multi drop through an agency at Switch Logistics, and no not ideal but I’m grateful they’re willing to give me a chance. I’ve never done multi-drop and I don’t get an assessment either so my first day will prove if I can do it or not.
As you say you’ve been doing multi-drop could you give me advice on how to plan the route, I have no clue? I don’t have a truck Sat-nav just a car one and a truckers atlas.
Anyway good luck to you, let us know how it’s going.
Yoni … So as not to stray off the thread to much I have sent you a PM with a couple of tips. Chances are mate you are probably worrying far to much. Things are never as bad as you think they will be.
Yoni:
Congratulations on your new job, great stuff! I think you did right to turn down the Brakes job, if more people did we could all enjoy better behaved employers.
I’ve been looking for my first driving job Class 2 since beginning of August and only today it looks like I’m getting a break. It’s multi drop through an agency at Switch Logistics, and no not ideal but I’m grateful they’re willing to give me a chance. I’ve never done multi-drop and I don’t get an assessment either so my first day will prove if I can do it or not.
As you say you’ve been doing multi-drop could you give me advice on how to plan the route, I have no clue? I don’t have a truck Sat-nav just a car one and a truckers atlas.
Anyway good luck to you, let us know how it’s going.
Well done mate! is that in andover as I know someone already works there on the forums, its not really multidrop like 15 drops max a day mate pm me if you like .
Mark well done on getting the job may I ask what it will be doing, likewise if you don’t want to put on forums drop me a pm mate happy to chat, funnily enough brakes offered me an interview tonight phhhhhhh not going there, I applied for them 3 months ago when desperate and they emails me at 8pm tonight, for a telephone interview in the morning lol!
I totally get why the guy you met at Brakes wanted you to go out and experience what the job is like first.
I’d put money on the fact that he’s interviewed many, many ppl for the job previously and put them with another driver for a week only for them to quit once they see what it’s like out on their own. It’s far easier for him to send ppl out now to get a flavour for the job and then say well do you fancy it or not and if they do they have an interview afterwards.
I also get the fact that some people don’t want to do a days work for free but you would have been with another driver so the work would have been halved. I see a lot of newbies on here who expect to walk in to a job paying £30k the day after they get their licence and also want a brand new truck. As a newbie any driver should expect to start at the bottom and prove themselves first. I saw a post last week from a guy who wanted to work 9.00-5.00 and just do a couple of drops a day with no wkend work 
Roymondo:
wheelnutt:
Lots of smaller hauliers in the Essex area running for pallet companies, ie palletforce, upn, pallex etc, they are always looking for Class 2 drivers, I know Canute has a sign up outside their yard at Grays looking for Class 2, then there is the usual such as Tesco, Co-op etc, both Tesco in Dagenham and Purfleet are looking so is the Co-op in Purfleet, may not be your cup of tea for a career but it gets you the experience.Do Tesco and Co-Op take on Class 2 drivers though? It has always been my understanding that they only employ Class 1 drivers (who can obviously drive the rigids as and when required).
I was chatting to a tescos driver the other day - (actually he was through an agency tsg or something like that) and asked him the same question. He told me they do just take class two - he was operating out of dagenham.
Having said that he spent the next 20 minutes telling me how he took home 40K so how much of it you believe is up to you.
Yoni:
Congratulations on your new job, great stuff! I think you did right to turn down the Brakes job, if more people did we could all enjoy better behaved employers.
I’ve been looking for my first driving job Class 2 since beginning of August and only today it looks like I’m getting a break. It’s multi drop through an agency at Switch Logistics, and no not ideal but I’m grateful they’re willing to give me a chance. I’ve never done multi-drop and I don’t get an assessment either so my first day will prove if I can do it or not.
As you say you’ve been doing multi-drop could you give me advice on how to plan the route, I have no clue? I don’t have a truck Sat-nav just a car one and a truckers atlas.
Anyway good luck to you, let us know how it’s going.
Normally your truck will be loaded with the first drop at the back. Not knowing what sort of work it is, I’ll give you general advice. When you arrive, start strapping the stuff down if its not already strapped. This is also a good time to see where you are going because they normally write the town or city of where-ever the pallet is supposed to go sometime on the shrinkwrap. Next when you look at your papers, have a scan through for any with timed delivery slots. Some places require stuff to be delivered during the AM because their goods in guy only works the morning before returning to the factory line or whatever. Next you’ll want to put the address into google maps and have a gander at the street view. This can save your bacon because it will show you where the place is located and will give you chance to plan your entry and or exit. I’d personally get a truck nav because it will route you around bridges and weight limits but will also give you truck friendly routes i.e. no sharp turns but thats not always the case, nothing beats the ol’ Mrk1 eyeball and Common Sense 2.0!
Radar19:
Yoni:
Congratulations on your new job, great stuff! I think you did right to turn down the Brakes job, if more people did we could all enjoy better behaved employers.
I’ve been looking for my first driving job Class 2 since beginning of August and only today it looks like I’m getting a break. It’s multi drop through an agency at Switch Logistics, and no not ideal but I’m grateful they’re willing to give me a chance. I’ve never done multi-drop and I don’t get an assessment either so my first day will prove if I can do it or not.
As you say you’ve been doing multi-drop could you give me advice on how to plan the route, I have no clue? I don’t have a truck Sat-nav just a car one and a truckers atlas.
Anyway good luck to you, let us know how it’s going.Normally your truck will be loaded with the first drop at the back. Not knowing what sort of work it is, I’ll give you general advice. When you arrive, start strapping the stuff down if its not already strapped. This is also a good time to see where you are going because they normally write the town or city of where-ever the pallet is supposed to go sometime on the shrinkwrap. Next when you look at your papers, have a scan through for any with timed delivery slots. Some places require stuff to be delivered during the AM because their goods in guy only works the morning before returning to the factory line or whatever. Next you’ll want to put the address into google maps and have a gander at the street view. This can save your bacon because it will show you where the place is located and will give you chance to plan your entry and or exit. I’d personally get a truck nav because it will route you around bridges and weight limits but will also give you truck friendly routes i.e. no sharp turns but thats not always the case, nothing beats the ol’ Mrk1 eyeball and Common Sense 2.0!
Thanks Radar, yes I think it’s probably a wise move getting a truck Sat-nav as others have also advised me.
I’ll look up the articles on here about which one is good. They’re so bloody expensive though and I’m still broke from failing my test twice [emoji15].
Yoni have a look I did a post on truck satnav I have and it really good cant fault it yet. 
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=128456
ash 001:
Yoni have a look I did a post on truck satnav I have and it really good cant fault it yet.
viewtopic.php?f=5&t=128456
Hi Ash, thanks for that but I’ve already parted with my money and got a TomTom 5250 after reading another thread. Now I’ll have to work and get my money out of it, maybe I’m a fool getting an expensive one [emoji15] but hopefully it will assist me for years to come. [emoji4]
Tomtom 5250? I may have got my wires well & truly crossed here, but I think that one is only supported by TomTom if you have a webfleet subscription? Have you actually tried updating it online?
jonnyboat:
Roymondo:
wheelnutt:
Lots of smaller hauliers in the Essex area running for pallet companies, ie palletforce, upn, pallex etc, they are always looking for Class 2 drivers, I know Canute has a sign up outside their yard at Grays looking for Class 2, then there is the usual such as Tesco, Co-op etc, both Tesco in Dagenham and Purfleet are looking so is the Co-op in Purfleet, may not be your cup of tea for a career but it gets you the experience.Do Tesco and Co-Op take on Class 2 drivers though? It has always been my understanding that they only employ Class 1 drivers (who can obviously drive the rigids as and when required).
I was chatting to a tescos driver the other day - (actually he was through an agency tsg or something like that) and asked him the same question. He told me they do just take class two - he was operating out of dagenham.
Having said that he spent the next 20 minutes telling me how he took home 40K so how much of it you believe is up to you.
Tesco at Avonmouth take class two only drivers through agency. As the other driver when i did my assesment was there as class two only.
Roymondo:
Tomtom 5250? I may have got my wires well & truly crossed here, but I think that one is only supported by TomTom if you have a webfleet subscription? Have you actually tried updating it online?
I don’t know mate, it works for me today so I’m sure it’s fine.[emoji1]
M cheapy ones amazing and a bargain and that, cant fault it yet!
I would’ve said OK, but on the agreement that if I stay with the company for let’s say, a month, that day is paid back in wages.