Do many drivers on here actually like their job? Not just the pay, but the actual time you spend at work.
I actually like driving a truck, looking down at all the pleb car drivers
In your own space, listening to your own tunes or the radio…
The pay, and perks and other stuff are a bonus!
4 hours a day watching tv/playing games is also a bonus.
My wife is an NHS nurse on her feet for 8 hour shifts and she thinks i have the life of Riley! I told her the other day I felt a bit tired so rather than watch tv i had a nap on the bunk! she was incredulous!!
EDIT
she also finds it crazy that my work gear involves a pillow, charged tablet and phone, bluetooth headphones…and this is to go to work!!
No, I used to back in the day when you could drive all over Europe (unless you were Carryfast) but I’ve been doing the job for 35 years and the novelty has well and truly worn off now and I just do it as a means to an end.
If I was 25 years younger, yes, “living the dream” and all that. Now that I’m older, wiser and jaded? Not really. The novelty has long since worn off and it’s simply a means to an end now. I don’t dislike it but I could stop doing it tomorrow and not have any regrets. There was a time when I’d tootle around at max 50 and take my sweet time, “paid by the hour, who cares” etc, but now I’m only interested in getting the job done as quickly as possible so I can be back home to do other stuff.
I love my job at the moment. Landed on my feet with my first class 1 gig.
Great people to work for, brand new Scania. Dead easy job.
Don’t mind the tramping either.
Horses for courses, not everyone’s cup of tea, but I really enjoy it.
Yes love my job,
Decent pay , good people to work for.
Not multidrop. Decent truck .
Long distance varied work .
1 night out possibly 2 a week at most .
Very happy.
Couldnt handle that pallet network malarkey 10-15 drops and plenty of collections
Wouldn’t be happy then
Retired18mths ago, but I did used to enjoy my job. Went all over the country, mostly farms and building sites. All self offload so no hanging around waiting, and when I parked up in the evening it was out on the bike sightseeing. Spent quite a lot of evenings on the beach! Pay was good, and was left alone to get on with it by the office.
I had several driving jobs in 50 years of working and enjoyed most of them most of the time.
I am happy on my own and spending hours with only the radio for company suited me down to the ground. I guess that I was fortunate in my employers and immediate bosses in that I was mostly given a task and left to get on with it. I always felt that my biggest asset was reliability.
I think that I would have more problems today with some of the employers we read about on here - constant phone calls, CCTV monitoring, OTT form filling would knock any pleasure there was to be had right down.
Totally enjoy it, came back to driving a year ago after being out for 8 years and fully the best move I made.
I looked outside my area and found a decent medium size family firm just under an hour away. Mon-Fri tramping with Sat/Sun if you want it, not the cleanest of jobs at times but very easy work. No timed deliveries and if you can’t make it that day tip it the next. Very little interaction with the office, all work supplied on a phone app and left to get on with it including you deciding when to start and finish. Kit is top knotch, not all singing and dancing top of the range stuff but very well spec’d and looked after. Decent wages and parking paid (although being an anti social bugger I generally use my own little hiding places). Being a family firm they also value that you have a family and get you back if needed, to the point that on induction your told that if you have a family emergency when out, just head back and let someone know as your enroute (know from seeing this happen 1st hand that it is true and they sort it).
At present, I can’t see myself leaving for a good while, but you never know. Its a place where you either last a few months or stick it for a decent length of time, more down to the type of work (recycling and refuse on walking floors) than the attitude of the firm.
Swordsy:
Do many drivers on here actually like their job? Not just the pay, but the actual time you spend at work.
Love where I’m at, think I’ll be here until retirement unless there’s something that prevents that even if that’s still on agency to the day I hang the keys up.
A lot of drivers say they don’t like working for large companies etc but Im happy getting a run sheet, my keys and being left to get on with it, if the truck breaks down picking up the phone instead of being expected to McGyver a bush hack to keep the wheels going. Yeah there’s a lot of health and safety and they want things doing their way but that’s because they actually give a toss about not sending drivers home broken at the end of the week.
Santa:
I think that I would have more problems today with some of the employers we read about on here - constant phone calls, CCTV monitoring, OTT form filling would knock any pleasure there was to be had right down.
That doesn’t exist, it’s a meme that lives rent free in the heads of some who try to justify their crap working conditions and crap pay. If they’re constantly on the phone it’s because you’re crap at your job. Drivers think that trucks fitted with cameras have staff in the office who do nothing but spend all day watching the footage to try to catch them out when the truth is it’ll only ever get viewed if there’s been an incident. Same applied to form filling…it’s only if there’s been an incident. Hell even where I’m at which is a market sector’s leading manufacturer with the kind of H&S and modern management you’d expect from a £2Bn company it’s only once in a blue flood and usually following something going wrong. Sometimes something will happen, there’ll be an investigation and they figure out ways to do things better, they’ll produce an information sheet they give to all the drivers and you just sign to say you’ve had it.
Is that really the end of the world especially as the outcome is that it means it won’t happen to you? Here’s one thing that happened just over a year ago. We used to do changeovers at Lockerbie truckstop. The part we did it in was badly lit and the area we did it in was a rutted potholed area that looked like the surface of the moon. In a very short period one driver tore a ligament in his knee tripping over a lump of stone sticking out of it, one driver carrying some ratchets from one truck to another tripped over a lump of concrete falling just in front of a lorry that was getting ready to set off, neither of which you could see because it was almost pitch black. The company paid Lockerbie good money to do changeovers there and they’d been asked loads of times to sort that area out which they didn’t. Transport sent someone up to do a H&S assessment and the net result is they decided to look elsewhere so we ended up at Ecclefechan where Hayton Coulthard, SNC and quite a few others use where it’s a massive concrete yard that’s well lit with marked up bays and, apart from the fact the cafe isn’t 24hrs, infinitely better. No more risk of hurting yourself falling over something you can’t see, no more risk of being run over because you can’t be seen, no having to keep getting out when you’re reversing the trailer in trying to find a spot level enough that both landing legs end up at the same level when dropping the trailer. Everyone gets to go home.
Harry Monk:
No, I used to back in the day when you could drive all over Europe (unless you were Carryfast) but I’ve been doing the job for 35 years and the novelty has well and truly worn off now and I just do it as a means to an end.
Yes I still enjoy it for some strange reason and I’m glad I still enjoy it but I do have a pretty cushy number working 3 days a week for a well known supermarket which I know will fill some with dread but it’s easy street and at my age that’ll do and hopefully it’ll see me out. I can also tolerate today’s traffic ok which I’m pleased about as it makes my day less stressful.
Yep, superb job, respected and left alone to get on with it, use my own routes never a word said, quality equipment maintained properly, could earn more but not for the hours and days i do.
Swordsy:
Do many drivers on here actually like their job? Not just the pay, but the actual time you spend at work.
I actually like driving a truck, looking down at all the pleb car drivers
In your own space, listening to your own tunes or the radio…
The pay, and perks and other stuff are a bonus!
4 hours a day watching tv/playing games is also a bonus.
Would you do it for free? There’s your answer.
With that said I do sometimes find myself bored on the 2nd day of a weekend craving the sound of a truck engine under load…
Happy Trucker1:
Yes love my job,
Decent pay , good people to work for.
Not multidrop. Decent truck .
Long distance varied work .
1 night out possibly 2 a week at most .
Very happy.
Couldnt handle that pallet network malarkey 10-15 drops and plenty of collections
Wouldn’t be happy then
Long distance with 1 or 2 nights out a week
Sounds like a max hours job
The job in itself I don’t mind. Driving point yo point to deliver stuff or collect stuff sums up most jobs, no?
However it’s management that ruin my place. Lack of any leadership or clarity, training, cheapening of assets (trucks), we even had a pay rise effective this week but its not been communicated to us as yet so nobody knows what we’re actually working for. Farcical.
