I’m a 25 year old new driver. Just finished my first month on class 2 multidrop. Will I want to spend the rest of my working life trucking? maybe not, but so far it seems a hell of alot better than working in a dank warehouse or factory doing 10 - 12 hour shifts for £8.50 an hour. Not to mention being surronded by the dregs of society that are attracted to that type of work.
Now I’m out on the open road and get to see some lovely parts of the country and everyday is different. I think alot of the older boys in the industry are a little too jaded and forgot what its really like to work a crap job.
It may not be the best career choice for a younger lad to pursue but its far from the worst option if your stuck in a unskilled job.
I’ve gone from earning £350 a week for 50 hours of hard constant physical labour in all weather.s To £550 a week for sitting on my backside opening a curtain a few times a day.
I think there’s a perception from older generation that there’s a world of milk and honey outside of driving. I’m sure much like the driving industry there are good jobs but a lot depends on what you’ve come from.
I followed my dad and got my class two whilst working at Royal Mail but got laid off after transferring from delivery office to transport but I went into another class two job with Toyota then class one with them (self funded).
I did that for a bit then got bored, got my bus licence and went driving coaches around the UK and then Europe before progressing into management and training. And this is where I should be in the land of milk and honey with a 35k salary working weekday office hours, right?
Except as I’m sure Albion and others will confirm you’re actually not limited to office hours and instead you’re on call 24/7, have holidays interrupted, spend evenings doing work at home, attending serious incidents and so on. It never ended. It was hell.
So I gave up those much sought after “working hours” and came back driving. I now do less hours when all equalled out (I mean including my unpaid managerial time) bit I actually take home more money just because I get paid for what I do now.
I’m fortunate in that because I followed my dad around I learned everything old school but can use new tricks with it. Because of my old man I’ve carved a niche where I feel valued, get treated well and get paid accordingly. It also helps that i can talk to people in a correct manner, unlike some of the sour faced mouth breathers that sit behind a wheel.
And having tried other strings on the bow I can honestly say that in myself I’m far happier and far more chilled than I’ve been for a long time.
It’s the truth and it’s a fact
If you want to do 2 weeks work in 1 week for 250 a week then this is the job for you 2 for the price of 1
If you want to be treated like a person who is never welcome in most places you go to then this is the job for you
At times you will even find it hard to meet people who speak English if you don’t mind, this is the job for you
At other times you will meet the dreamers who lived another life in another world all on their own
Then you have the sado who complains about everything
Then there’s the regs and it can be a minefield if you don’t have common sense
kevmac47:
My grandson had two grandads plus his father and mother as lorry drivers, he wouldn’t dream of joining the industry! He has accepted an apprenticeship as a maintenance engineer, his starting wage is £8 ph, whilst he is at college for the next year!! Being paid to gain his qualification. Regards Kev.
Well Kev my Grandson has just had his 29th Birthday, He loved wagons as a boy he used to come with me on weekends ,He allways fancied being in the haulage game but he did 7 years in the RAF & did very well, He is now in work in the engineering sector & earning 36 grand a year, So I agree with him getting a good job with a lot less crappy hassle that drivers have to put up with, Regards Larry.
By the sounds of it here what trade people earn hes studying to earn buttons
Just look at the above reply
Not singling this post out but it is perfect to use as my example:
I worked in factories and warehouses for [zb] money under conditions that were ridiculous and had the chance eventually to gain my Class 2, probably got lucky that I got a chance shortly after working in a class 2 job doing banked hours which are averaged at 42 over a 26 week period and I earn £33k a year doing that at 4 on 4 off with 20 days holidays too.
And this ties into the points I make. The same themes come up - a background in factories and warehouses, a “chance” to get a licence (which I assume means you were subject to advantageous circumstance in some way, rather than simply choosing to sit the course one day or responding to the industry’s inducements), a sense that there has been “luck” involved in getting a job with reasonably acceptable pay and conditions.
But making explicit what you merely imply, this industry still offers little guarantee of a decent job in your impression, that getting a licence still involves some sort of hurdle that is not purely in your own gift to jump, and that for whatever you appeared to have little alternative besides warehouse work.
from my experience it is the best thing I ever did, got out of dead end work
Certainly, exceeding £33k a year for a 42 hour average week, working 4 on 4 off, sounds pretty good to me.
But that is £160 (or even £180) a day, or £15 an hour, depending on how I estimate the calculation, and for a secure, PAYE job.
That does not remotely represent the normal pay and conditions at which employers are recruiting for day work - much less again for new passes in their teens or 20s!
Juddian:
Its possible a high number of the youngsters out have unrealistic ideas of what they should be earning and what sort of work they should be doing 2 weeks after passing their tests.
I wonder whether they aren’t being given those unrealistic expectations by an industry desperate to recruit new fools.
toby1234abc:
Maybe the youth of today prefer not to sleep in a tin box in the heat of the summer and freeze in the winter with a broken night heater .
Another reason , they see brain dead overworked , overweight drivers wearing a stupid hiviz while driving .
With two weeks of meals on his wife beater string vest .
The lack of decent facilities while overnighting , with food you wouldn’t feed your dog .
Then the anti lorry brigade who hate lorries , and are clueless on how what they buy is moved around.
No prospects of doing European work unless you’re a flip flop and reduced the rate to nothing and free just to get a reload 700 miles away . They have read all of Carryfasts posts and think is that what happens to you driving a van for the council after the war then become an expert on variables of wagon and drag or A frame weight distribution formulas . Lets chuck in centre of gravity variables .
And that’s before we get started on Margret Thatcher.
All these posts stating that “young people don’t want to sleep in a tin box, spend all this time away from family and friends, for crap money” etc etc.
I think that a lot of older drivers forget, that in their young days, not all young 'uns wanted to drive a wagon. Or spend 6 days a week away. Or wanted to handball 20tons of bricks on and off the wagon. Or wanted to climbe on top of a load to roll out the sheets, in a gale force with horizontal rain. Drive a tin can on steel springs with no heating. Sleep in a flea ridden hostel (sorry, digs) in a still warm bed.
The job was just as crap then as it is now. You make of it what you want. I love it, still (mostly). Not because of the money. Not because of the adoration. But because I get to sit on my arse all day, looking out of the window. And get paid a lot more than I get on the dole.
newo:
Im only 20 years old. Probably in the top 3 for youngest HGV drivers on here.
I passed class 2 and class 1 at the age of 19. Started my first job 2 weeks after passing C+E.
I think it was a nice achievement for such a young age.
In what way.
The test is not hard.
The only real barrier is the cost.
Ye I’m cynical but I passed my test when I was in my early twenties so I feel I can be.
I get you view Adam, I passed when I was 21 and for me it was easy, was a shunter for a year before taking my tests and I was working 70hrs+ a week on nights unloading/loading cages from lorries. It meant I had plenty of money but little social life (Yeah I realise we don’t normally get an abundance of that driving lorries) so I did my tests just for the sake of it. Stopped me being stuck in warehouse jobs after dropping out of uni
Well I say well done to newo.
How many times do you get new passes saying they cant get a job, how many times do we hear youngsters dithering about what to do and this young lad gets off his backside, takes his test and finds a job.
Good luck newo and I suspect you’ll land on your feet at one of the better firms unless you are there already.
Thanks, i appreciate it! What i mean by “achievement” is that ive managed to land a job within weeks of passing first time (at the time i was 19!) and its a job i wanted to do. No need for me to go on agencies or any random firm which takes on new passes for rubbish money. Its because so many people are negative saying “you wont get work” “you wont get insured” etc etc, hard work and no moaning was the way to go.
newo:
Thanks, i appreciate it! What i mean by “achievement” is that ive managed to land a job within weeks of passing first time (at the time i was 19!) and its a job i wanted to do. No need for me to go on agencies or any random firm which takes on new passes for rubbish money. Its because so many people are negative saying “you wont get work” “you wont get insured” etc etc, hard work and no moaning was the way to go.
This is good news. However, most of us are aware of innumerable examples of young people not getting work, not getting insured, being offered crap work for crap money, etc., and it’s on that wider observational basis that these claims are usually made.
Driving was considered so difficult to enter at one point that the advice one sometimes heard was to get your licence and stick it under the bed for 10 years.
It may be that you have worked hard at getting your licence, and have not moaned. But how likely that any other person worked less hard at getting their licence? How likely that they moaned within weeks of getting it?
toby1234abc:
Maybe the youth of today prefer not to sleep in a tin box in the heat of the summer and freeze in the winter with a broken night heater .
Another reason , they see brain dead overworked , overweight drivers wearing a stupid hiviz while driving .
With two weeks of meals on his wife beater string vest .
The lack of decent facilities while overnighting , with food you wouldn’t feed your dog .
Then the anti lorry brigade who hate lorries , and are clueless on how what they buy is moved around.
No prospects of doing European work unless you’re a flip flop and reduced the rate to nothing and free just to get a reload 700 miles away . They have read all of Carryfasts posts and think is that what happens to you driving a van for the council after the war then become an expert on variables of wagon and drag or A frame weight distribution formulas . Lets chuck in centre of gravity variables .
And that’s before we get started on Margret Thatcher. [emoji38] [emoji38] [emoji38]
Well…
Just so long as no one goes off topic and drags politics into it?
Eh?
albion:
Newo, I think we have the definition of your parade being rained on Just ignore the moaners, you’ve done well.
+1
Well done mate for passing to Class 1 level.
I remember being well chuffed when I passed mine and got my first job…wide eyed and keen as mustard I was.
However…
To go back to ‘‘moaner mode’’
Enjoy it while you are at that phase, because reality will soon set in, and you will eventually see the industry for what it really is…a crock of ■■■■…
albion:
Newo, I think we have the definition of your parade being rained on Just ignore the moaners, you’ve done well.
+1
Well done mate for passing to Class 1 level.
I remember being well chuffed when I passed mine and got my first job…wide eyed and keen as mustard I was.
However…
To go back to ‘‘moaner mode’’
Enjoy it while you are at that phase, because reality will soon set in, and you will eventually see the industry for what it really is…a crock of [zb]…
albion:
Newo, I think we have the definition of your parade being rained on Just ignore the moaners, you’ve done well.
+1
Well done mate for passing to Class 1 level.
I remember being well chuffed when I passed mine and got my first job…wide eyed and keen as mustard I was.
However…
To go back to ‘‘moaner mode’’
Enjoy it while you are at that phase, because reality will soon set in, and you will eventually see the industry for what it really is…a crock of [zb]…
I giveth, and I taketh away.
Thanks a lot!
My aim is to get onto driving around europe but around my area and with my age I doubt that’s going to happen for a while. Oh well atleast I got a start!
albion:
Newo, I think we have the definition of your parade being rained on Just ignore the moaners, you’ve done well.
+1
Well done mate for passing to Class 1 level.
I remember being well chuffed when I passed mine and got my first job…wide eyed and keen as mustard I was.
However…
To go back to ‘‘moaner mode’’
Enjoy it while you are at that phase, because reality will soon set in, and you will eventually see the industry for what it really is…a crock of [zb]…
I giveth, and I taketh away. [emoji38] [emoji38]
Thanks a lot!
My aim is to get onto driving around europe but around my area and with my age I doubt that’s going to happen for a while. Oh well atleast I got a start!
What is your area then? Someone may put you in the right direction. And as is often said if you’re off on a two week trip, you shouldn’t limit yourself to a ten minute commute.
albion:
Newo, I think we have the definition of your parade being rained on Just ignore the moaners, you’ve done well.
+1
Well done mate for passing to Class 1 level.
I remember being well chuffed when I passed mine and got my first job…wide eyed and keen as mustard I was.
However…
To go back to ‘‘moaner mode’’
Enjoy it while you are at that phase, because reality will soon set in, and you will eventually see the industry for what it really is…a crock of [zb]…
I giveth, and I taketh away.
But that happens pretty much in any job, though.
Hmmm, but to be fair I reckon the haulage industry must be in the top 3 or so for ridiculous hours to low pay ratio, the general t.s and c.s in the job, and all the crap involved in a chronic shortage of proper facilities to enable you to do the job.
I can not see the attraction at all for a young lad today, and even less so for a young girl.
I trained up after leaving national express as was dead set on a career driving lorries.
Then got a call to do a train drivers assessment and been on the trains ever since.
I was 27 then, 36 now. I miss driving a lot but it will never match what I’m on now. 60k+, 35 hour average week, 4 day week, sundays extra.
Never going to get that driving a lorry.
