Is being a Lorry Driver showing a lack of ambition?

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

commonrail:
so what does ambition get you :question: bigger house :question: bigger car :question: bigger holiday :question:
its all about oneupmanship if you ask me....and i dont buy it.
i was once reading about the pros and cons of being a lorry driver and one of the cons was “low social status”…who to exactly :question: anyone that considers themselves better than me just because of the job i do is irrelivant as far as im concerned because they wont be part of my life…end of.
perhaps im a simpleton...i dont know,easily contented perhaps,i`m just not interested in materialistic stuff.

I was once told that American truckers are treated like ‘Road gods’ compared to UK ones. On the other hand, IT specialists are ten a penny in the states apparently, and are considered on a par with “Realtors” (Estate Agents) which I can’t remember if it’s one above or one below p!key…? :question:

Are there any truckers with US experience to confirm or deny that? :confused:

62

alamcculloch:
I would not ever want to work under the same roof everyday. I go here and there every day and if I dont like it ,IM gone in 20 minutes.We are in charge of many £1000 s worth of kit of course we should be paid more ,but that wont happen any time soon.I am quite happy on my way to work,I would not have said that when I worked in a bakery.

Was this a thread response, or to gearjammer74’s reference to an Xbox and maybe the unmentioned flat screen TV too? :confused:

63

Santa:

Dave77erf:
A lot of good coments been put on here but I think it’s sad that we are not recognised as a proffesion I’ve had somebody say to me in the past don’t you wish you had learnt a trade when you left school which really gets me rattled driving is all I ever wanted to do since being a small lad going on trips with my dad it’s been said many of times with out us this country would come to a standstill but at the end off the day I do this job because it makes me happy

It’s fine that you are happy in what you do, but don’t kid yourself that lorry driving is in any way a ‘profession’. To be a professional takes years of study and training - your doctor is a professional as is the architect who designed your house. A job that takes two weeks to learn is just not in the same league.

I would argue that being a doctor is a “discipline”. The biggest hurdle to jump is having the infrastructure in your life to be in a position to go to medical college to learn that discipline. :exclamation:
You have the choice as a trained doctor to either work for a employer or go into business for yourself. The job won’t come out and find you. This is pretty much the same as being a professional driver, which I would rate as “semi-skilled” in that 2 weeks to learn is obviously less difficult that many years. It is still a discipline to get a LGV licence nonetheless, and therefore a profession too. Here’s one for you… Is a unemployed trucker better than an unemployed doctor?
I don’t think we can make “leagues” out of anything beyond a person’s self-established lifestyle. When I was at school, I wanted to be a doctor. By the time I left, I realised that I liked being out and about, and didn’t really want to work 80 hours a week and play golf on saturday afternoons or whatever. More importantly, I was expected to pay for it all myself, which I was in no position to do. 6 years of beggar income AND paying for my own medical degree FFS! :cry:
I tried IT, and didn’t get on with the crap money everyone gets who’s not at the top, and finally ended up doing driving - because for the first time I found myself being paid the same as the next person doing the same job! Being enough to pay the bills, I saw no need to look further, and stuck with it. :slight_smile:

64

Don’t tell people you’re a lorry driver. Tell them you’re a Field Based Logistics Officer :grimacing:

Or tell them to mind their own, most relationships based on material attractions such as wealth probably fail anyway when they realise the money ain’t all that. I know a woman who, to the outside world, has everything. 3 quarter mill mansion in a posh area, cars, etc etc. Yet she has affairs cos her husband doesn’t make her happy. Probably too busy earning all that money they don’t really need.

And no, it’s not a lack of ambition. I left a well paying job in Aerospace to become a driver and yes, most think I’m mad but the relentless boredom of looking at the same 4 walls every night just isn’t worth the money to me. I’d rather take a pay cut and do a job I like. If you can pay the bills, buy your food and take a decent holiday every year what else do you need ?

65

Must admit when somebody you have just met asks you what you do and you say “lorry driver”, it does tend to result in a slightly awkward reaction. Probably because im fairly young, not fat, generally not the stereotypical truck driver. They just don’t expect it. More often than not though they come round to the opinion that its actually a pretty good gig.

I must admit I got into driving because I liked the idea of having a fairly straight forward relaxed job as well as my ambition to drive a truck, call that unambitious if you like but thats just my perogative. I’ll leave a career of being stressed out, rushed off your feet and bringing work home with you for other people thanks.

66

As far as I am concerned we manage without bankers, high fliers and the like at night, weekends and bank holidays, but we cant manage without lorries at these times. So who are the most important people? We are of course, but then we already knew that.

Find yourself someone who likes you for who and what you are, not what they think you should be.

Good luck, she is out there somewhere, just keep looking.

67

Is being a Lorry Driver showing a lack of ambition?

It depends on the starting point I think.

It might be for some people but not for others. The problem here is simply that this woman sees it that way. So what?

You dont say what her job is. Which is important in this context. Of course a highly paid lawyer married to a lorry driver is a bit incongruous, surely noboby would disagree there. You could meet another girl and after a couple of weeks she may decide she doesnt like the way you laugh, or your table manners or the way you dress or the way you part your hair. Same on your part. Its about getting to know each other.

Move on. As for lorry driving, were all in it for different reasons. I did other things and have returned to it. Im 57 and my ambition is to keep doing my average 3 days a week until I retire at 65! Most people would see that as zero ambition. But I don`t.

Having said that, if Id just driven lorries all my life, Id be a bit disappointed in myself.

Good luck.

68

WildGoose:
‘…Is being a Lorry Driver showing a lack of ambition…?’

No.

What’s wrong with continuing to enjoy an honourable job and doing it well :question:

I’m guessing that lorrying isn’t a norm for a Grey Couple with inevitably judgemental attitudes, and the bint of which you’ve inadvertently - and no doubt ‘safely’ for her - met on-line.

What job doesn’t involve pushing marbles uphill with a pitch-fork?

A useful adage? ‘…Ditch-the-■■■■■…’* :wink:

  • Recalled from my mate, Clive, circa 1997
69

commonrail:
i love monster trucks,and people pay me to drive around in them,how cool is that :question:

It’s cool on a council estate but not on a private estate. :wink:

Two very different Scottish cities.

Glasgow lorry driver a highflyer.

Edinburgh lorry driver low of the low.
:laughing:

70

Winseer:

Santa:

Dave77erf:
A lot of good coments been put on here but I think it’s sad that we are not recognised as a proffesion I’ve had somebody say to me in the past don’t you wish you had learnt a trade when you left school which really gets me rattled driving is all I ever wanted to do since being a small lad going on trips with my dad it’s been said many of times with out us this country would come to a standstill but at the end off the day I do this job because it makes me happy

It’s fine that you are happy in what you do, but don’t kid yourself that lorry driving is in any way a ‘profession’. To be a professional takes years of study and training - your doctor is a professional as is the architect who designed your house. A job that takes two weeks to learn is just not in the same league.

I would argue that being a doctor is a “discipline”. The biggest hurdle to jump is having the infrastructure in your life to be in a position to go to medical college to learn that discipline. :exclamation:

No it isn’t. It’s having the brains to study for up to ten years then spend a qualifying period of several more in a hospital learning the ropes.

You have the choice as a trained doctor to either work for a employer or go into business for yourself. The job won’t come out and find you. This is pretty much the same as being a professional driver, which I would rate as “semi-skilled” in that 2 weeks to learn is obviously less difficult that many years. It is still a discipline to get a LGV licence nonetheless, and therefore a profession too. Here’s one for you… Is a unemployed trucker better than an unemployed doctor?

Erm,how many unemployed doctors have you ever come across at the job centre…? There may be a few, but there are far more truck drivers unemployed. You cannot compare a doctor or surgeon’s skills with those of driving a tautliner up and down the country…it’s ludicrous… :laughing:

I don’t think we can make “leagues” out of anything beyond a person’s self-established lifestyle. When I was at school, I wanted to be a doctor. By the time I left, I realised that I liked being out and about, and didn’t really want to work 80 hours a week and play golf on saturday afternoons or whatever. More importantly, I was expected to pay for it all myself, which I was in no position to do. 6 years of beggar income AND paying for my own medical degree FFS! :cry:

Nothing to do with having to study your arse off for the next 10 years then…■■

I tried IT, and didn’t get on with the crap money everyone gets who’s not at the top, and finally ended up doing driving - because for the first time I found myself being paid the same as the next person doing the same job! Yes, crap money like I.T.! Being enough to pay the bills, I saw no need to look further, and stuck with it. :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to be a doctor. Or for wanting to be a driver. Either is great. But to believe that being a driver is on a professional par with being a doctor suggests an unrealistic look on life really. At least in the eyes of the general public…You will never get them to admit the bloke that delivers the toilet rolls to Tescos is as good as the surgeon that saved their mum’s life after a heart attack…Even though, in a bizarre way, life would stink without toilet rolls… :laughing:

71

Truckulent:

Winseer:

Santa:

Dave77erf:
A lot of good coments been put on here but I think it’s sad that we are not recognised as a proffesion I’ve had somebody say to me in the past don’t you wish you had learnt a trade when you left school which really gets me rattled driving is all I ever wanted to do since being a small lad going on trips with my dad it’s been said many of times with out us this country would come to a standstill but at the end off the day I do this job because it makes me happy

It’s fine that you are happy in what you do, but don’t kid yourself that lorry driving is in any way a ‘profession’. To be a professional takes years of study and training - your doctor is a professional as is the architect who designed your house. A job that takes two weeks to learn is just not in the same league.

I would argue that being a doctor is a “discipline”. The biggest hurdle to jump is having the infrastructure in your life to be in a position to go to medical college to learn that discipline. :exclamation:

No it isn’t. It’s having the brains to study for up to ten years then spend a qualifying period of several more in a hospital learning the ropes.

You have the choice as a trained doctor to either work for a employer or go into business for yourself. The job won’t come out and find you. This is pretty much the same as being a professional driver, which I would rate as “semi-skilled” in that 2 weeks to learn is obviously less difficult that many years. It is still a discipline to get a LGV licence nonetheless, and therefore a profession too. Here’s one for you… Is a unemployed trucker better than an unemployed doctor?

Erm,how many unemployed doctors have you ever come across at the job centre…? There may be a few, but there are far more truck drivers unemployed. You cannot compare a doctor or surgeon’s skills with those of driving a tautliner up and down the country…it’s ludicrous… :laughing:

I don’t think we can make “leagues” out of anything beyond a person’s self-established lifestyle. When I was at school, I wanted to be a doctor. By the time I left, I realised that I liked being out and about, and didn’t really want to work 80 hours a week and play golf on saturday afternoons or whatever. More importantly, I was expected to pay for it all myself, which I was in no position to do. 6 years of beggar income AND paying for my own medical degree FFS! :cry:

Nothing to do with having to study your arse off for the next 10 years then…■■

I tried IT, and didn’t get on with the crap money everyone gets who’s not at the top, and finally ended up doing driving - because for the first time I found myself being paid the same as the next person doing the same job! Yes, crap money like I.T.! Being enough to pay the bills, I saw no need to look further, and stuck with it. :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to be a doctor. Or for wanting to be a driver. Either is great. But to believe that being a driver is on a professional par with being a doctor suggests an unrealistic look on life really. At least in the eyes of the general public…You will never get them to admit the bloke that delivers the toilet rolls to Tescos is as good as the surgeon that saved their mum’s life after a heart attack…Even though, in a bizarre way, life would stink without toilet rolls… :laughing:

You’ve clearly made assumptions here, such as “I didn’t have the brains” when I was trying to draw attention to “not wanting to be poor all my life” instead. I’ve had relatives die because they were neglected in hospitals, so there never WAS a surgeon I can say I’m grateful for the efforts of. An unemployed doctor gets a job how exactly? Yep, nothing in the job center. Cold call a few hospitals? - Sorry bud, we’re not recruiting. Join an agency? - Which one would that be exactly? I’ve met agency nurses but never an agency doctor in the same sense that we think of! The closest thing might be locum cover & out of hours cover, and in that area, there doesn’t seem to be many youngish doctors, at least in this neighbourhood. I know 3 out of work doctors, two of them over £100k in debt with no light at the end of the tunnel, and the other went bankrupt last year when his high-earning wife divorced him. All money troubles, no chance to get that high earning job, and a situation I would not want to trade places with for a minute. I blame the situations of all 3 down to running up debts because they went for the discipline without figuring how to pay for it up front. I chucked my hand away before I’d even started if you recall my earlier mention of the subject. :exclamation:

I consider earning £40k as a driver a better life than earning £60k as a doctor, since the former is a good level of pay for the industry, whereas the latter is naff pay for what you do and have done. :neutral_face: In a new world where people on £40k are going to be made worse off, the professional shoots for the alternative income that is easiest to achieve in order to get by. How many however would moan, and waste money & energy trying to maintain the status quo when it is dying before their eyes? :open_mouth:

One’s non-reliance upon debt and ‘who one knows’ counts for a lot more than any qualification or experience that one might have, otherwise we would not keep reading of apparently successful people topping themselves all the time. If there’s something worse than being hard-up and out of work, it’s being what everyone thinks is well-off and out of work! A doctor can’t afford to take a poorly paid job in the general world, because the pay won’t service the debt it seems. To people with high earnings expectations (an out of work architect or banker would be the same) they cannot scale down from the heights of former high pay unless they have savings and little debt. (Many don’t!) I blame the inability to downsize one’s life for a lot of today’s troubles. As for me, I’ll just go where the money is. If I wanted to throw thousands of pounds of borrowed money at a pipe-dream career that better suited my IQ, then I’m sure I’d only find myself in the same position as those people higher than me on the social scale who are totally in the crapper financially, and with their marriages and family to boot. :frowning:

Anyone who can keep themselves afloat no matter what disasters ensue can call themselves “a professional” I reckon. I am proud of my long-held spotless licence, and I don’t regret folding the chances I’ve had to train for a more highly esteemed vocation, which I just did not have the right background to afford. It is better to be at the top of something perhaps seen as second-rate than a non-entity in something high profile. We’re all dead in 100 years after all, and it’s not worth wasting too much of one’s life pretending to be more than we really are. :wink:

72

A good post from Winseer, so much trouble and strife comes from wanting what we cant have. Mark Twain said income $100 per annumm outgoings$99.=happiness if the outgoings increase then misery.The woman needs to take a reality check.

73

Winseer:

commonrail:
so what does ambition get you :question: bigger house :question: bigger car :question: bigger holiday :question:
its all about oneupmanship if you ask me....and i dont buy it.
i was once reading about the pros and cons of being a lorry driver and one of the cons was “low social status”…who to exactly :question: anyone that considers themselves better than me just because of the job i do is irrelivant as far as im concerned because they wont be part of my life…end of.
perhaps im a simpleton...i dont know,easily contented perhaps,i`m just not interested in materialistic stuff.

I was once told that American truckers are treated like ‘Road gods’ compared to UK ones. On the other hand, IT specialists are ten a penny in the states apparently, and are considered on a par with “Realtors” (Estate Agents) which I can’t remember if it’s one above or one below p!key…? :question:

Are there any truckers with US experience to confirm or deny that? :confused:

US truckers get treated a little better, no HSE ■■■■■■■■ to speak of, more facilities etc, but they get treated like dogs by the majority of employers, I run down there 90% of the time, but I’m glad I do it for a Canadian Firm :wink:

74

Winseer:

Truckulent:

Winseer:

Santa:

Dave77erf:
A lot of good coments been put on here but I think it’s sad that we are not recognised as a proffesion I’ve had somebody say to me in the past don’t you wish you had learnt a trade when you left school which really gets me rattled driving is all I ever wanted to do since being a small lad going on trips with my dad it’s been said many of times with out us this country would come to a standstill but at the end off the day I do this job because it makes me happy

It’s fine that you are happy in what you do, but don’t kid yourself that lorry driving is in any way a ‘profession’. To be a professional takes years of study and training - your doctor is a professional as is the architect who designed your house. A job that takes two weeks to learn is just not in the same league.

I would argue that being a doctor is a “discipline”. The biggest hurdle to jump is having the infrastructure in your life to be in a position to go to medical college to learn that discipline. :exclamation:

No it isn’t. It’s having the brains to study for up to ten years then spend a qualifying period of several more in a hospital learning the ropes.

You have the choice as a trained doctor to either work for a employer or go into business for yourself. The job won’t come out and find you. This is pretty much the same as being a professional driver, which I would rate as “semi-skilled” in that 2 weeks to learn is obviously less difficult that many years. It is still a discipline to get a LGV licence nonetheless, and therefore a profession too. Here’s one for you… Is a unemployed trucker better than an unemployed doctor?

Erm,how many unemployed doctors have you ever come across at the job centre…? There may be a few, but there are far more truck drivers unemployed. You cannot compare a doctor or surgeon’s skills with those of driving a tautliner up and down the country…it’s ludicrous… :laughing:

I don’t think we can make “leagues” out of anything beyond a person’s self-established lifestyle. When I was at school, I wanted to be a doctor. By the time I left, I realised that I liked being out and about, and didn’t really want to work 80 hours a week and play golf on saturday afternoons or whatever. More importantly, I was expected to pay for it all myself, which I was in no position to do. 6 years of beggar income AND paying for my own medical degree FFS! :cry:

Nothing to do with having to study your arse off for the next 10 years then…■■

I tried IT, and didn’t get on with the crap money everyone gets who’s not at the top, and finally ended up doing driving - because for the first time I found myself being paid the same as the next person doing the same job! Yes, crap money like I.T.! Being enough to pay the bills, I saw no need to look further, and stuck with it. :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to be a doctor. Or for wanting to be a driver. Either is great. But to believe that being a driver is on a professional par with being a doctor suggests an unrealistic look on life really. At least in the eyes of the general public…You will never get them to admit the bloke that delivers the toilet rolls to Tescos is as good as the surgeon that saved their mum’s life after a heart attack…Even though, in a bizarre way, life would stink without toilet rolls… :laughing:

You’ve clearly made assumptions here, such as “I didn’t have the brains” when I was trying to draw attention to “not wanting to be poor all my life” instead. I’ve had relatives die because they were neglected in hospitals, so there never WAS a surgeon I can say I’m grateful for the efforts of. An unemployed doctor gets a job how exactly? Yep, nothing in the job center. Cold call a few hospitals? - Sorry bud, we’re not recruiting. Join an agency? - Which one would that be exactly? I’ve met agency nurses but never an agency doctor in the same sense that we think of! The closest thing might be locum cover & out of hours cover, and in that area, there doesn’t seem to be many youngish doctors, at least in this neighbourhood. I know 3 out of work doctors, two of them over £100k in debt with no light at the end of the tunnel, and the other went bankrupt last year when his high-earning wife divorced him. All money troubles, no chance to get that high earning job, and a situation I would not want to trade places with for a minute. I blame the situations of all 3 down to running up debts because they went for the discipline without figuring how to pay for it up front. I chucked my hand away before I’d even started if you recall my earlier mention of the subject. :exclamation:

I consider earning £40k as a driver a better life than earning £60k as a doctor, since the former is a good level of pay for the industry, whereas the latter is naff pay for what you do and have done. :neutral_face: In a new world where people on £40k are going to be made worse off, the professional shoots for the alternative income that is easiest to achieve in order to get by. How many however would moan, and waste money & energy trying to maintain the status quo when it is dying before their eyes? :open_mouth:

One’s non-reliance upon debt and ‘who one knows’ counts for a lot more than any qualification or experience that one might have, otherwise we would not keep reading of apparently successful people topping themselves all the time. If there’s something worse than being hard-up and out of work, it’s being what everyone thinks is well-off and out of work! A doctor can’t afford to take a poorly paid job in the general world, because the pay won’t service the debt it seems. To people with high earnings expectations (an out of work architect or banker would be the same) they cannot scale down from the heights of former high pay unless they have savings and little debt. (Many don’t!) I blame the inability to downsize one’s life for a lot of today’s troubles. As for me, I’ll just go where the money is. If I wanted to throw thousands of pounds of borrowed money at a pipe-dream career that better suited my IQ, then I’m sure I’d only find myself in the same position as those people higher than me on the social scale who are totally in the crapper financially, and with their marriages and family to boot. :frowning:

Anyone who can keep themselves afloat no matter what disasters ensue can call themselves “a professional” I reckon. I am proud of my long-held spotless licence, and I don’t regret folding the chances I’ve had to train for a more highly esteemed vocation, which I just did not have the right background to afford. It is better to be at the top of something perhaps seen as second-rate than a non-entity in something high profile. We’re all dead in 100 years after all, and it’s not worth wasting too much of one’s life pretending to be more than we really are. :wink:

If you can point us all to the 40k a year driving jobs we’d all be very grateful I’m sure… :smiley: Perhaps you could advise some of the poor sods from Eddie’s that need work where all the 40k jobs are matey!!!

I didn’t assume you weren’t bright enough to be a doctor…I said that you may have decided not to because of 10 years of hard study which is not the same thing…If you are successful a s a doctor then you are not a non-entity. If all students took your view (and you are perfectly entitled to it, I know) where would you go when you were ill? Or needed a lawyer? Or a Plumber? Or a Builder? Driving has to be one of the easiest things to qualify in these days.

You state that you are a professional if you can ‘keep yourself afloat’ Hmmmmm. You may be right you may not. I think not personally - you can keep yourself afloat by begging on the street but it’s not a profession is it? I doubt very much whether the general public consider HGV drivers to be ‘professionals’ Most of the people I know that aren’t drivers consider HGV drivers to be ‘lunatics on the road’. I am not saying this is the case, merely what they think. Maybe this says more about them than us. But it still reflects what at least some of the population think about us…and professional is not a word I’ve yet heard in the public’s description of us.

Your points about bankers/doctors/solicitors is true…except as i said - there are very few out of work compared to other industries. If you reach the top - not everyone falls by the wayside. Plenty of folk love the high flying lifestyle, just because it’s not for you doesn’t mean it’s not for everyone.

Being a driver is without a doubt a lack of ambition. But that is not necessarily wrong or a bad thing. If you are happy working a lot of hours for not much money then good luck to you…Just don’t expect the public to view you than anything other than an expendable commodity doing a semi skilled job. That’s what drivers are, and sadly with the society we have today, it’s highly unlikely to change anytime soon. :smiley:

75

Truckulent:

Winseer:

Truckulent:

Winseer:

Santa:

Dave77erf:
A lot of good coments been put on here but I think it’s sad that we are not recognised as a proffesion I’ve had somebody say to me in the past don’t you wish you had learnt a trade when you left school which really gets me rattled driving is all I ever wanted to do since being a small lad going on trips with my dad it’s been said many of times with out us this country would come to a standstill but at the end off the day I do this job because it makes me happy

It’s fine that you are happy in what you do, but don’t kid yourself that lorry driving is in any way a ‘profession’. To be a professional takes years of study and training - your doctor is a professional as is the architect who designed your house. A job that takes two weeks to learn is just not in the same league.

I would argue that being a doctor is a “discipline”. The biggest hurdle to jump is having the infrastructure in your life to be in a position to go to medical college to learn that discipline. :exclamation:

No it isn’t. It’s having the brains to study for up to ten years then spend a qualifying period of several more in a hospital learning the ropes.

You have the choice as a trained doctor to either work for a employer or go into business for yourself. The job won’t come out and find you. This is pretty much the same as being a professional driver, which I would rate as “semi-skilled” in that 2 weeks to learn is obviously less difficult that many years. It is still a discipline to get a LGV licence nonetheless, and therefore a profession too. Here’s one for you… Is a unemployed trucker better than an unemployed doctor?

Erm,how many unemployed doctors have you ever come across at the job centre…? There may be a few, but there are far more truck drivers unemployed. You cannot compare a doctor or surgeon’s skills with those of driving a tautliner up and down the country…it’s ludicrous… :laughing:

I don’t think we can make “leagues” out of anything beyond a person’s self-established lifestyle. When I was at school, I wanted to be a doctor. By the time I left, I realised that I liked being out and about, and didn’t really want to work 80 hours a week and play golf on saturday afternoons or whatever. More importantly, I was expected to pay for it all myself, which I was in no position to do. 6 years of beggar income AND paying for my own medical degree FFS! :cry:

Nothing to do with having to study your arse off for the next 10 years then…■■

I tried IT, and didn’t get on with the crap money everyone gets who’s not at the top, and finally ended up doing driving - because for the first time I found myself being paid the same as the next person doing the same job! Yes, crap money like I.T.! Being enough to pay the bills, I saw no need to look further, and stuck with it. :slight_smile:

I wouldn’t blame anyone for not wanting to be a doctor. Or for wanting to be a driver. Either is great. But to believe that being a driver is on a professional par with being a doctor suggests an unrealistic look on life really. At least in the eyes of the general public…You will never get them to admit the bloke that delivers the toilet rolls to Tescos is as good as the surgeon that saved their mum’s life after a heart attack…Even though, in a bizarre way, life would stink without toilet rolls… :laughing:

You’ve clearly made assumptions here, such as “I didn’t have the brains” when I was trying to draw attention to “not wanting to be poor all my life” instead. I’ve had relatives die because they were neglected in hospitals, so there never WAS a surgeon I can say I’m grateful for the efforts of. An unemployed doctor gets a job how exactly? Yep, nothing in the job center. Cold call a few hospitals? - Sorry bud, we’re not recruiting. Join an agency? - Which one would that be exactly? I’ve met agency nurses but never an agency doctor in the same sense that we think of! The closest thing might be locum cover & out of hours cover, and in that area, there doesn’t seem to be many youngish doctors, at least in this neighbourhood. I know 3 out of work doctors, two of them over £100k in debt with no light at the end of the tunnel, and the other went bankrupt last year when his high-earning wife divorced him. All money troubles, no chance to get that high earning job, and a situation I would not want to trade places with for a minute. I blame the situations of all 3 down to running up debts because they went for the discipline without figuring how to pay for it up front. I chucked my hand away before I’d even started if you recall my earlier mention of the subject. :exclamation:

I consider earning £40k as a driver a better life than earning £60k as a doctor, since the former is a good level of pay for the industry, whereas the latter is naff pay for what you do and have done. :neutral_face: In a new world where people on £40k are going to be made worse off, the professional shoots for the alternative income that is easiest to achieve in order to get by. How many however would moan, and waste money & energy trying to maintain the status quo when it is dying before their eyes? :open_mouth:

One’s non-reliance upon debt and ‘who one knows’ counts for a lot more than any qualification or experience that one might have, otherwise we would not keep reading of apparently successful people topping themselves all the time. If there’s something worse than being hard-up and out of work, it’s being what everyone thinks is well-off and out of work! A doctor can’t afford to take a poorly paid job in the general world, because the pay won’t service the debt it seems. To people with high earnings expectations (an out of work architect or banker would be the same) they cannot scale down from the heights of former high pay unless they have savings and little debt. (Many don’t!) I blame the inability to downsize one’s life for a lot of today’s troubles. As for me, I’ll just go where the money is. If I wanted to throw thousands of pounds of borrowed money at a pipe-dream career that better suited my IQ, then I’m sure I’d only find myself in the same position as those people higher than me on the social scale who are totally in the crapper financially, and with their marriages and family to boot. :frowning:

Anyone who can keep themselves afloat no matter what disasters ensue can call themselves “a professional” I reckon. I am proud of my long-held spotless licence, and I don’t regret folding the chances I’ve had to train for a more highly esteemed vocation, which I just did not have the right background to afford. It is better to be at the top of something perhaps seen as second-rate than a non-entity in something high profile. We’re all dead in 100 years after all, and it’s not worth wasting too much of one’s life pretending to be more than we really are. :wink:

If you can point us all to the 40k a year driving jobs we’d all be very grateful I’m sure… :smiley: Perhaps you could advise some of the poor sods from Eddie’s that need work where all the 40k jobs are matey!!!

I didn’t assume you weren’t bright enough to be a doctor…I said that you may have decided not to because of 10 years of hard study which is not the same thing…If you are successful a s a doctor then you are not a non-entity. If all students took your view (and you are perfectly entitled to it, I know) where would you go when you were ill? Or needed a lawyer? Or a Plumber? Or a Builder? Driving has to be one of the easiest things to qualify in these days.

You state that you are a professional if you can ‘keep yourself afloat’ Hmmmmm. You may be right you may not. I think not personally - you can keep yourself afloat by begging on the street but it’s not a profession is it? I doubt very much whether the general public consider HGV drivers to be ‘professionals’ Most of the people I know that aren’t drivers consider HGV drivers to be ‘lunatics on the road’. I am not saying this is the case, merely what they think. Maybe this says more about them than us. But it still reflects what at least some of the population think about us…and professional is not a word I’ve yet heard in the public’s description of us.

Your points about bankers/doctors/solicitors is true…except as i said - there are very few out of work compared to other industries. If you reach the top - not everyone falls by the wayside. Plenty of folk love the high flying lifestyle, just because it’s not for you doesn’t mean it’s not for everyone.

Being a driver is without a doubt a lack of ambition. But that is not necessarily wrong or a bad thing. If you are happy working a lot of hours for not much money then good luck to you…Just don’t expect the public to view you than anything other than an expendable commodity doing a semi skilled job. That’s what drivers are, and sadly with the society we have today, it’s highly unlikely to change anytime soon. :smiley:

Hey Carryfast, oops sorry, Truckulent, here’s the definition of professional

A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee.

HTH :wink:

76

Agreed…BUT

Sadly there is nothing specialised in a task that most of the population can do. We just do it with bigger vehicles which throws up a few problems but nothing you can’t learn in a few lessons with an instructor.

The public perceive us as doing something that they can do as well. The assumption (rightly or wrongly) is therefore there is no particular skill in it beyond adapting to the vehicle’s size.

And sadly, that’s probably a fair assessment. :wink:

77

i agree,its hardly rocket science,is it? i think a few of us get all high and mighty when were in our trucks,all big and hard like…well ive got news for you..everyone else thinks were plebs…so deel with it :unamused:

78

Truckulent;

There is a danger that if this back and forth continues, one of us might say something beyond the pale, even if it is true in the process. A career ends up being a lifestyle choice, and not all choices have to be about obtaining the highest-flying job that one has the brains for. I was made redundant at the end of 2010, and yes, that’s the year I did better than £40k - But for what? I was working 6/5/6/5 - ie maxed out hours to get that. I’m pushing 50 now, and having given up the full time joke as it is now, I find myself working an average 2 shifts a week and taking home slightly less than the basic I would be on if I’d not left my former employ. The full time ship was sinking, and I jumped before I found myself pushed. I could have stayed, but with a huge pay cut. Instead, I took the ‘Carol Vordermann’ option if you like. If I tried to get full time employment at the rates I hold out for, I’d be sadly disappointed. HMRC run-on means I don’t crash and burn during this quiet time of the year for agencies - a huge advantage of PAYE as I’ve pointed out in previous posts.

I take home enough to pay the bills, but it’s not going to make me rich.

One could even go as far to say the only job worth having these days is “Professional Money Management”, as it is disturbing how so many around (high and low background) seems to be in debt. The well-heeled moan a lot, but lie low behind the internet whilst they expect buy-to-let and interest on money sitting doing nothing to give them a living. Moaning about employment and returns on savings are both lost causes in this new age in which we find ourselves. I’d rather learn to live with it than be destroyed by it, but it is amazing how many concrete minds out there cannot get around the flexible thinking required for such a huge change in the pipeline for all of us over this next decade.

Good wages for truckers are on the long-term decline. :frowning:
I’ve found myself only getting odds days of supermarket work so far this year, but at least the hourly rate is still into double digits. I could get a lot more work if I were prepared to drop below that, but I’m not interested, as it is the slippery slope! :angry:

Work for professionals at all levels is no better if one isn’t doing that plum job right now!
Since wages cannot really be maxed in an efficient manner anymore, the better option is to reduce hours, and keep the hourly rate high. Use the opportunity to go on interest and tax strike, and always pay the mortgage. Don’t get divorced, as it’ll probably cost more than bankruptcy in the long run - and that’s just the financial side of it. :open_mouth:

I don’t think it’s an “opinion I’m entitled to” to be sensible about today’s world, and the only regrets I’ve had is that it would have been nice if I could go for longer periods in my life without fielding off “life’s disasters” all the time.
I don’t ask to be ‘lucky’, just ‘unlucky a whole lot less’! :imp:
(Recent disasters include a parcel van smacking my car, my 18 month old TV blowing up, and nothing ever doing “what it says on the tin”! - I could do without it, as I imagine most people could. :neutral_face:

79

Is being a lorry driver showing lack of ambition?

Is it bollox, I’ve done the factory jobs from sweeper upper to lead programmer, even got some certificates and a wee trip in germany, training on & speccing multi million £ CNC machines, I’ve even had my own I.T business, but all I ever wanted to do is be on the move. I had a hard childhood and met some wonderful foster parents, both proper professionals with high flying jobs, neither of them are materialistic, they just like the finer things in life, they have always backed me in what I wanted to do and have pointed me in the right direction when I have gone astray. When I told them what I raelly wanted to do neither of them turned up their nose nor tried to steer me away, we totally agree that it’s a dead end job but in my later years I should have a skill set to adjust to anything that’ll affect my license.

Working all the hours god sends so she has bragging rights and access to y/our joint account doesn’t necessarily make for a happy relationship, I found out the hard way. The late hours I was working she was at bingo, or more like the bingo manager was shouting BINGO.

I now earn less than half what I did when I was married, every month is a struggle and we get by, but by god, our gorgeous lass (gorgeous inside and out) who works for the local shop, our little council house, our 10 year old car, the camping on a budget holidays, the 4 kids, the tesco value ham in my snap box, I’d never give any of them up for some shallow, high flying, keep up with the Ponsonby-Smythes’ next door, my overdraft is bigger than yours, gotta fake it to impress the MIL lifestyle.

80

MADBAZ:

Is being a lorry driver showing lack of ambition?

Is it bollox, I’ve done the factory jobs from sweeper upper to lead programmer, even got some certificates and a wee trip in germany, training on & speccing multi million £ CNC machines, I’ve even had my own I.T business, but all I ever wanted to do is be on the move. I had a hard childhood and met some wonderful foster parents, both proper professionals with high flying jobs, neither of them are materialistic, they just like the finer things in life, they have always backed me in what I wanted to do and have pointed me in the right direction when I have gone astray. When I told them what I raelly wanted to do neither of them turned up their nose nor tried to steer me away, we totally agree that it’s a dead end job but in my later years I should have a skill set to adjust to anything that’ll affect my license.

Working all the hours god sends so she has bragging rights and access to y/our joint account doesn’t necessarily make for a happy relationship, I found out the hard way. The late hours I was working she was at bingo, or more like the bingo manager was shouting BINGO.

I now earn less than half what I did when I was married, every month is a struggle and we get by, but by god, our gorgeous lass (gorgeous inside and out) who works for the local shop, our little council house, our 10 year old car, the camping on a budget holidays, the 4 kids, the tesco value ham in my snap box, I’d never give any of them up for some shallow, high flying, keep up with the Ponsonby-Smythes’ next door, my overdraft is bigger than yours, gotta fake it to impress the MIL lifestyle.

In one!
The ability to see through the bull and actually live a life worth living :sunglasses: :sunglasses: It doesn`t get any better :sunglasses: