Interview with bidvest

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
61

rearaxle:
So then Rat what happened to the vital pets job then ?

:smiley: it had to end, before it ended me, their version of drivers hours and Vosaā€™s seemed to differ quite a bit too.

62

Rat67:

Muckaway:

Rat67:

Muckaway:
Unload by carrying it off the wagon and carrying it, stacking it neatly, all date rotated and sweating your arse off.
Or for the same money, turn up at a customers, push a lever and dump the lot on the floor.

Sod that for a laugh, break down the pallet, onto the sack truck and dump it next to the freezer. If they want it date rotated & stacked, they can do it themselves. :smiley:

Sack trucks donā€™t go up or down stairs too well though.

No youā€™re right there Muckaway, so neither does the load. ā€œalright here for you pal? no?? Toughā€ :smiley:

That makes the job a bit more bearable I suppose. Going upstairs with stuff is a ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  do these chefs/bakers put their food shopping in their wardrobes, and bring it back down to cook it?

63

SuperMultiBlue:
All you ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  crying about a bit of handball :smiley:

Be bored out of my skull just driving all day :confused:

Bet the people who own or manage Bidvest never lift anything heavier than a golf club or a coffee cup. :open_mouth:

64

LIBERTY_GUY:
Reading this thread, I think Iā€™ll stick with tippers and industrial deliveriesā€¦ :open_mouth: Yep I get muddy, wade through mud, lash down awkward loads in pouring rain, manouvre in dangerous places, but I truly wouldnā€™t entertain some of the things Iā€™ve read on this thread.

Bet your bosses do none of the above either :smiley:

65

ckm1981:

LIBERTY_GUY:
Reading this thread, I think Iā€™ll stick with tippers and industrial deliveriesā€¦ :open_mouth: Yep I get muddy, wade through mud, lash down awkward loads in pouring rain, manouvre in dangerous places, but I truly wouldnā€™t entertain some of the things Iā€™ve read on this thread.

Bet your bosses do none of the above either :smiley:

Donā€™t have bosses, as not directly employed by those companiesā€¦ am too detached to be at that level againā€¦ :wink:

66

LIBERTY_GUY:

ckm1981:

LIBERTY_GUY:
Reading this thread, I think Iā€™ll stick with tippers and industrial deliveriesā€¦ :open_mouth: Yep I get muddy, wade through mud, lash down awkward loads in pouring rain, manouvre in dangerous places, but I truly wouldnā€™t entertain some of the things Iā€™ve read on this thread.

Bet your bosses do none of the above either :smiley:

Donā€™t have bosses, as not directly employed by those companiesā€¦ am too detached to be at that level againā€¦ :wink:

My boss does, and does more manual work than me. Any jobs involving handling stuff like timber, or moving someonesā€™ garden ornaments with our puddle jumper as he did last week, he does. He greases the plant and as I drove my car out of the yard on Friday, he was washing my motor for me. :grimacing:
He is allergic to refueling the wagons though, and Iā€™m more of a clean cab man than he is. :open_mouth:

67

Learn to be an obedient monkey donā€™t mention health and Safety and practise putting shopping in ppls cupboards whilst they watch you

68

Big player .

69

Afraid to say I had to politely tell them what they could do with the job this morning :smiley: One too many pallets trying to push me off the ridiculously small tail-lift and planners who seem to think Iā€™m driving the frigging Starship Enterprise. All that and half of Manchester city centre blocked off by roadworks and events was more than enough, told the traffic office I quit and he says ā€œyouā€™re not getting paid thenā€ :smiley: think he was a bit ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  off when I laughed and said no worries pal. New job starts next week so allā€™s well

70

Rat67:
Afraid to say I had to politely tell them what they could do with the job this morning :smiley: One too many pallets trying to push me off the ridiculously small tail-lift and planners who seem to think Iā€™m driving the frigging Starship Enterprise. All that and half of Manchester city centre blocked off by roadworks and events was more than enough, told the traffic office I quit and he says ā€œyouā€™re not getting paid thenā€ :smiley: think he was a bit ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  off when I laughed and said no worries pal. New job starts next week so allā€™s well

Good, good. Thatā€™s what I like to see. Shining example of what happens when these pricks take the ā– ā– ā– ā– .

71

Rat67:
Afraid to say I had to politely tell them what they could do with the job this morning :smiley: One too many pallets trying to push me off the ridiculously small tail-lift and planners who seem to think Iā€™m driving the frigging Starship Enterprise. All that and half of Manchester city centre blocked off by roadworks and events was more than enough, told the traffic office I quit and he says ā€œyouā€™re not getting paid thenā€ :smiley: think he was a bit ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  off when I laughed and said no worries pal. New job starts next week so allā€™s well

If ever that happens, just take them to the small claims court, then theyā€™ll have to pay your wages and the court costs. See how popular the traffic office plonker is when he has to explain to his employers why they have a court case against them.

72

Rat67:
Afraid to say I had to politely tell them what they could do with the job this morning :smiley: One too many pallets trying to push me off the ridiculously small tail-lift and planners who seem to think Iā€™m driving the frigging Starship Enterprise. All that and half of Manchester city centre blocked off by roadworks and events was more than enough, told the traffic office I quit and he says ā€œyouā€™re not getting paid thenā€ :smiley: think he was a bit ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  off when I laughed and said no worries pal. New job starts next week so allā€™s well

Lost many of pallets of frozen chips and peas off the tail lift when I was doing somerfields/Kwik save, sometimes by accident, sometimes on purpose! Well, mostly on purpose to be honest. Store manager usually sent out some extra bodies to pick the boxes up off the ground before they melted if the ā€˜fellā€™ off the tail lift. There was no was I was killing myself trying to get a pallet of chips off the truck.[emoji3]

73

LIBERTY_GUY:

Rat67:
Afraid to say I had to politely tell them what they could do with the job this morning :smiley: One too many pallets trying to push me off the ridiculously small tail-lift and planners who seem to think Iā€™m driving the frigging Starship Enterprise. All that and half of Manchester city centre blocked off by roadworks and events was more than enough, told the traffic office I quit and he says ā€œyouā€™re not getting paid thenā€ :smiley: think he was a bit ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  off when I laughed and said no worries pal. New job starts next week so allā€™s well

If ever that happens, just take them to the small claims court, then theyā€™ll have to pay your wages and the court costs. See how popular the traffic office plonker is when he has to explain to his employers why they have a court case against them.

Agreed, but itā€™s never good to jack a job there on the spot and leave an employer in the crap, as any new perspective employer will be thinking you may do the same to them. So while jacking on the spot may be initially satisfying, it can kick you in the backside a little laterā€¦

So glad you have another better job lined up Rat, and these crap mickey taking jobs will only change their ways when they have to. So when there isnā€™t enough drivers to do the work, then they might consider changing the terms and expectations of doing the job.
But I wonā€™t be holding my breathā€¦ Best of luck pal! :smiley:

74

I was there up until last friday week, its a ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā– ā–  The work is hard but if you have no stairs its better, dragging a sacktruck up 2 flights of stairs is no fun when you are breaking down 2 pallets of frozen. V little help from customers too, you just get looked at funny. The 2 things that annoyed me most is the old waggons they have. Scania 18 & 26t rigids with 900k on. They are ā– ā– ā– ā– . And annualised hours. I never knew what it was till i started but i thought id give it a go. Ill try to explain.

Contracted to 51 hrs pw.

The runs you get might only equal 49. So now you owe them 3 hours. Over 4 weeks you owe them a shift. Not good.

If you stretch your day out and your total hours exceed the hours the run should take your timesheet is adjusted. They dont work your clock card its your timesheet they use. Very crafty. Every established driver i spoke to has something negative to say about the place, anyone who stays is there for the money which is good tbh.

I just cant cope with being shafted over my hours.

75

As I say when I worked there for agency I did not meet one happy driver, they were all treated like like ā– ā– ā– ā–  and very stressed. Did me a big favour though I finally jacked in with my agency and suffered 3 weeks unemployment but ended up with this job that I am very happy with. :sunglasses:

76

antogoof:
And annualised hours. I never knew what it was till i started but i thought id give it a go. Ill try to explain.

Contracted to 51 hrs pw.

The runs you get might only equal 49. So now you owe them 3 hours. Over 4 weeks you owe them a shift. Not good.

I take it this is for Logistics?
We, on Foodservice, are salaried for 48 hours, which is averaged over the 26 week period for the working time regs.
At this time of year which is peak season we are normally way over that, nearer 60, so we gets days off at quieter times to get our averages down.
And it is calculated from the tachos on the figures Optac send back.

Despite being the same company there do seem to be significant differences in the way the two parts are run.

77

Yes mate thats logistics at royton. Id say i got used to the job fairly quick so i was around about right with my run times. One day tho i got a bit lost and i was about 1.15 hours over on an 11 hour route. Got paid for 10ā€¦ Ok i got a bit lost but dont take the ā– ā– ā– ā– ! If im working i want paying!

78

And double trips. Local deliverys taking a 26t out full in the morning and unloading it then coming back in the afternoon and taking a full 18t out and doing the same. So thats 20+ t of gear and all handballed in. And some of the more established drivers dont get double trips. Overall i think i could have stayed but if you are reading this and thinking ill give it a go, dont bother!

79

Even I have heard from some drivers that these companies - Bidvest, P&H, etc are starting to play with hours and cheating - cutting hours/pay.
The only reason why someone did that job was higher pay due to longer hours.
If they will take the last bit off that keeps someone working there, people should start to keep away from them even more than beforeā€¦
So drivers have to sort out their industry themselvesā€¦ no point to moan if some just sit it out tough it outā€¦ only way to sort industry is by saying NO to companies not by one or two drivers, it will only get better if many many many drivers wil say no to jobs that cheat like theseā€¦ :smiley:

If in the beginning of 2015 they were offering 10.50 on PAYE to new drivers and even new drivers donā€™t want to do that anymore and on the top of that older drivers are starting to leave due to cheating on hours the tipping point must be closing inā€¦ :smiley:

80

It looks good on paper because whatever hours you do you get your 51 plus a Ā£58 ish att bonus p/w in short i was clearing +Ā£460. But its just a glorified labouring job. The missus put it best tbh. ā€œYou didnt spend Ā£2.5k passing your test to be misrableā€