Hi guys, looking for a bit of advice as a newbie in the industry from the more experienced boys on here… now before I start I completely get that only I can make the decision and it’s all personal decisions/preferences.
I had my driving assessment in Bellshill you might remember the forum I did about that on what to expect - the assessment drive went well but they did acknowledge the fact I am a complete novice but still did a good confident drive.
They don’t feel comfortable with me running into Europe from Bellshill at the moment which is understandable but they want me to work in Ireland and gain experience with a view of being brought back to Bellshill once I gain more experience.
I’ve been told that I will be out for the week sometimes a fortnight and I will be earning £650 a week after tax.
Now I am in a comfy job the now earning £459 after tax and I’m only doing about 35 hours a week driving buses. I do have an itch to go on the lorries and eventually get into Europe which has been my goal as a young driver at 23.
Where the dilemma comes in… the job I currently do is what’s regarded to some as ‘dead mans shoes’ therefore it’s a big Decision.
I feel like if I don’t take this job then I’ll never really move on something I’ve always fancied doing but the same token I do have a solid job the now which I don’t mind and pays v. Decent.
I presume you will be maxing out your hours for the £650 per week and if that includes n/o money, i would stay on the buses but at the end of the day , its your choice.
Good luck either way.
You’re taking home £459 for a 35 hour week driving a bus?
Bloody stop where you are mate, if you leave and tell the lads here where it is for goodness sake keep out of the way of the stampede to your bosses door 20 minutes later.
CPCxx:
I feel like if I don’t take this job then I’ll never really move on something I’ve always fancied
Away all week which translates as working 5 / 6 days a week and potentially stuck in your cab for a whole weekend in some god foresaken truckstop (if they pay parking).
Working max hours with likely stupid start times and getting 9 hours off (not sleep).
Working for 650 after tax. As they can tell you that, then its either salary or max hours and lots of rushing. Bet this includes night out and parking money as mentioned.
Oh and btw, never believe promises from a traffic office. I would be very surprised if they sent you into Europe without quite a few years experience these days. Too many from eastern Europe with experience to make it worthwhile for them.
Say your working 70 hours, that works out at £9.20 per hour!
Your choice, but I make over £11 hour with £13 overtime (nights) home every day, average 50 hours, and that’s one of the crapiest rates around as its pallet trunking so dead easy.
Juddian:
You’re taking home £459 for a 35 hour week driving a bus?
Bloody stop where you are mate, if you leave and tell the lads here where it is for goodness sake keep out of the way of the stampede to your bosses door 20 minutes later.
£459 take home for 35 hours makes it £16.39/hr assuming 20% tax and NI. That seems like a lot for driving a bus. Most bus driving work I’ve seen pays about the same as class 2 work, ie. around £9/hr.
Juddian:
You’re taking home £459 for a 35 hour week driving a bus?
Bloody stop where you are mate, if you leave and tell the lads here where it is for goodness sake keep out of the way of the stampede to your bosses door 20 minutes later.
£459 take home for 35 hours makes it £16.39/hr assuming 20% tax and NI. That seems like a lot for driving a bus. Most bus driving work I’ve seen pays about the same as class 2 work, ie. around £9/hr.
I do a 20 hour per week school contract which is council funded which pays £240 for 20 hours.
I have a college contract which is council funded which is £100 for 5 hours.
I also look after the fleet which is kept near my house which I get an extra £140 a week for which involves jumping them if required, water/oil refills, going round with a black bag for the litter so for that £140 could take 30 mins of my week to do or sometimes 5 hours depending on the mess/weather etc.
Plus we can keep a percentage of fares which usually equates to an additional 30/40 pound coins a week
So it ain’t to much an hourly rate we get paid it’s per contract which I have a few ones running.
Thanks for the advice guys, if anyone else would like to chip in it would be good to hear!
CPCxx:
I feel like if I don’t take this job then I’ll never really move on something I’ve always fancied
Away all week which translates as working 5 / 6 days a week and potentially stuck in your cab for a whole weekend in some god foresaken truckstop (if they pay parking).
Working max hours with likely stupid start times and getting 9 hours off (not sleep).
Working for 650 after tax. As they can tell you that, then its either salary or max hours and lots of rushing. Bet this includes night out and parking money as mentioned.
Oh and btw, never believe promises from a traffic office. I would be very surprised if they sent you into Europe without quite a few years experience these days. Too many from eastern Europe with experience to make it worthwhile for them.
Say your working 70 hours, that works out at £9.20 per hour!
Your choice, but I make over £11 hour with £13 overtime (nights) home every day, average 50 hours, and that’s one of the crapiest rates around as its pallet trunking so dead easy.
Yep. Knock 5x £25 night out money off and add your 20% tax and NI and it comes out at a tenner an hour for a 65 hour week.
Juddian:
You’re taking home £459 for a 35 hour week driving a bus?
Bloody stop where you are mate, if you leave and tell the lads here where it is for goodness sake keep out of the way of the stampede to your bosses door 20 minutes later.
£459 take home for 35 hours makes it £16.39/hr assuming 20% tax and NI. That seems like a lot for driving a bus. Most bus driving work I’ve seen pays about the same as class 2 work, ie. around £9/hr.
I do a 20 hour per week school contract which is council funded which pays £240 for 20 hours.
I have a college contract which is council funded which is £100 for 5 hours.
I also look after the fleet which is kept near my house which I get an extra £140 a week for which involves jumping them if required, water/oil refills, going round with a black bag for the litter so for that £140 could take 30 mins of my week to do or sometimes 5 hours depending on the mess/weather etc.
Plus we can keep a percentage of fares which usually equates to an additional 30/40 pound coins a week
Thanks for the advice guys, if anyone else would like to chip in it would be good to hear!
I’m not sure if this is just a bragging thread about where all the money from our annual council tax increases are going, or whether he actually wants “advice”. I think I’ll bow out.
With Irish firms , you may be asked to make the ferry, this was the first question I was asked over a phone interview, making the ferry means breaking tachograph rules to get them out of a false promise to their customer but you get in to trouble with the police abroad with a court deposit of 20,000 euros or they can confiscate the truck .Try making the ferry in the Basque or Catalan areas of Spain and see what happens .
Or without sounding like a drama queen, and if you are over hours and someone is killed , that is porridge time with a room with no view .
Juddian:
You’re taking home £459 for a 35 hour week driving a bus?
Bloody stop where you are mate, if you leave and tell the lads here where it is for goodness sake keep out of the way of the stampede to your bosses door 20 minutes later.
£459 take home for 35 hours makes it £16.39/hr assuming 20% tax and NI. That seems like a lot for driving a bus. Most bus driving work I’ve seen pays about the same as class 2 work, ie. around £9/hr.
I do a 20 hour per week school contract which is council funded which pays £240 for 20 hours.
I have a college contract which is council funded which is £100 for 5 hours.
I also look after the fleet which is kept near my house which I get an extra £140 a week for which involves jumping them if required, water/oil refills, going round with a black bag for the litter so for that £140 could take 30 mins of my week to do or sometimes 5 hours depending on the mess/weather etc.
Plus we can keep a percentage of fares which usually equates to an additional 30/40 pound coins a week
Thanks for the advice guys, if anyone else would like to chip in it would be good to hear!
I’m not sure if this is just a bragging thread about where all the money from our annual council tax increases are going, or whether he actually wants “advice”. I think I’ll bow out.
Fail to see where this is bragging, at a point in my life where it’s quite a big decision for me, and want to give the more experienced guys a bigger picture of what I’m on vs what I’m expecting to get!
Yeah I’m thinking that but I’m coming to the realisation for as long as I have that gig on the buses I might never get my crack on the big rigs - but as boys have said I don’t think I can really leave where I am.
I’m not wanting to leave just because I have the itch because trust me I have the itch but I’ve had itches in the past and it’s not worked out. Therefore I need to make sure I make the right one here because that job won’t be there for me once I leave.
Yeah I’m thinking that but I’m coming to the realisation for as long as I have that gig on the buses I might never get my crack on the big rigs - but as boys have said I don’t think I can really leave where I am.
I’m not wanting to leave just because I have the itch because trust me I have the itch but I’ve had itches in the past and it’s not worked out. Therefore I need to make sure I make the right one here because that job won’t be there for me once I leave.
Wait until the itch is irresistible.
If you jump now it may work out well. Good.
But if it doesnt then you will kick yourself. Wait until you have no choice and you then know you have taken the only possible course. Maybe when jobs are more plentiful and you stand a chance of getting another good un it`ll be different.
The general rule, in happier times, is that we regret the moves we didn`t make rather than the ones we did make, but these are not normal times.
Back on the cars i had regular deliveries/collection, used to speak often with and got on well with a bloke probably 20 years older than me so late 50’s early 60’s at the time, him not me
He was driving a 3 car transporter, not a bad job at all where he was either but had he not made the mother of all bad choices previously he would have been retiring any time about then on a real pension, he was talked out of a proper job by some talking gob to go continental lorry driving, something he spent the next 30 years kicking himself for, what was the job he gave up?
Esso fuel tankers on the original contract.
CPCxx:
What kind of money would you be looking for take home for this kind of work? 1 week or 2 out in Ireland? Maybe £750/800 more respectable?
Money quoted means the square root of bugger all unless you know how long and how hard you actually have to work to get it.
My pay doesn’t sound great these days until you perform the only arithmetic that matters, divide the top line by the number of hours required to earn it, that gives you a mean average hourly rate, factor in weekend/night/bank hol working plus the graft involved and defnately do not include subsistence or expense payments in your figures, the number you are left with is the only one when comparing one job against another.
Knowing that you’re intending to move from a ‘dead man’s shoes’ job to break into international work and then telling you they ‘aren’t comfortable’ with sending you around Europe will Ireland do instead, until you’ve supposedly got ‘experience’, isn’t understandable at all.It’s an oxymoron.
One way or another sooner or later you’re going to have to take a truck across Europe for the first time ( if that’s what they’ve promised you ).
Sooner is better than later if you want to test the offer as being the real deal and they obviously need to test you.
If ‘they’ can’t handle that from day 1 tell em to do one.
Using Euro work as a carrot to lumber ‘less experienced’ drivers with the work that the ‘more experienced’ drivers don’t want is nothing new.
The MO goes along bait and switch lines of promising the right job then saying sorry the deal is off will you take UK type dross instead.Hoping that you’ll swallow it.Trying the old you’ll need to do UK work first to get ‘experience’ is just a variation of the theme.
That scam is more difficult for them when their international type work base is different from their UK type work base because they have to tell you about the different base before you turn up for work.
Been there seen/done that.Told them to shove their ‘offer’ and luckily hadn’t handed in my notice before the call telling me that the deal had changed.I’d be running out of Northampton on UK work not Dover on the International work start that I’d been promised.
My guess is that the guvnor who’d offered me the job at Dover had probably acted in good faith but was overruled from above and then let me know about it in time.
The plan was obviously to fill a job for trampers on their UK side and hope that I’d hand in my notice based on a false offer of International work like a mug.
