We definitely don’t deserve Doctor rate of pay but we all deserve better than what is on offer and many offer professions do as well starting with nurses.
Try working at Malcoms never again they are up their on the list of bad employers
4aaaa4dd:
im like a mid wife ? I deliver things lol … the leeds triangle they used to call it before macfarlanes went bust ,BEDFORDS,LONGS AND MACFARLANE,S the same down beat drivers going around and around from one minimum wage employer to another tm on the phone asking where are you now a thousand times a day … park up with these manic depressives and by the end of the night you want to hang your selfs but see them two years later and they still working for the same firm moaning about how bad the job is and in ten years time he,ll still be there moaning … and on the subject of been a professional I get paid to do the job so im a professional plus I cant do delivering babies but I bet the doctor cant reverse a truck on the blind side in the rain at night into a supermarket loading bay ■■? I get paid to do a professional job and that’s what I do …
Yes the Leeds triangle did well and truly exsist but the amount of drivers that used to leave macfarlane for the so called big money many of them used to return for there job back.
I loved working there but I was young and had a mental streak going on in my head that lasted about 8 years 
All started going down hill for Macfarlanes when they moved to Cross Green
tet:
A very large company based near Edinburgh pays £7 ph and takes a hour a day of his drivers!
Same rate on a Saturday to I’ve been told! Disgusting!
Does it rhyme with ‘■■■■■■■■’? 
mds141:
tet:
A very large company based near Edinburgh pays £7 ph and takes a hour a day of his drivers!
Same rate on a Saturday to I’ve been told! Disgusting!Does it rhyme with ‘■■■■■■■■’?
Dipper_Dave:
stevieboy308:
dancompression:
There’s a lot of responsibility. It may only take a week to pass a test, but there’s definitely a benefit to gaining a few years experience. And, like a doctor, people’s lives are in our hands!having just watch a doctor pull my son out of my wifes stomach, we are not like doctors
one of the things i felt when the everything was going on, was just how [zb] i am!
My son was also born by caesarian as well after complications and boy how useless I felt at the time.
Still to this day feel the doctors quick thinking saved both my partner and my son.That said other road users may from time to time put their life in our hands with stupid manouvers but this is an occupational hazard, we expect it, we anticipate it and we carry on regardless because we are professional drivers and have seen it 100 times before.
I don’t even bother tooting now just count to 10 and have another cup of tea.
Edit: Oh and congratulations on your new arrival
cheers fella
Pimpdaddy:
mds141:
tet:
A very large company based near Edinburgh pays £7 ph and takes a hour a day of his drivers!
Same rate on a Saturday to I’ve been told! Disgusting!Does it rhyme with ‘■■■■■■■■’?
Colloquially known by some of its drivers as the, “Secret Service”!!
Last time I looked, “Professional” was **“any job performed for the majority of one’s income…”**Be it on £6.25ph or £20ph - if you actually live off your wages, then you must, by definition, be doing a professional’s job. 
Winseer:
Last time I looked, “Professional” was **“any job performed for the majority of one’s income…”**Be it on £6.25ph or £20ph - if you actually live off your wages, then you must, by definition, be doing a professional’s job.
…and yet, our licences are known as vocational licences. “a strong impulse or inclination to follow a particular activity or career!”
Hollo peeps
Been drawn to this forum because I was doing some background checks on Reed Boardall and TruckNet seems pretty much full of info - also mentioned in this thread. Have to say though, some of it’s a bit distorted.
I’ve been a HGV Class 1 driver for over 30 years and over that time have seen the spectrum from very good to the real bad.
I’m starting work with RB pretty soon and one of the reasons it looks good to me is the shift patterns on offer. I’ll be tramping days from Sat - Mon with Tues being an optional extra day - which they request I do every two weeks, although the chap who interviewed me said I can do as many Tuesday’s as I like and more days if I want it.
The rates aren’t that bad when you do the math. For starters they do paid breaks.
Saturday: £10.05 per hour
Sunday: £12.43 per hour
Mon - Friday is: £7.45 per hour for first 9 then £9.57
That means if I get my 15’s in over 4 days I’ll gross over £620 pw inc night out allowance: £155 per day. Or about £135 per day plus night out allowance. Averaging £9 per hour. Naturally, I’ll have my tax and insurance etc from that.
For me, it’s good because I want less hours than I’m used to, there’s flexibility and nowhere else offering a similar shift pattern.
I’ve been shown around the kit and there were a couple of 2011 Volvo 500’s but mostly 2012’s and quite of a lot of 13 plate units. Quite a few Mercs too, don’t know which - but they were nice big cabs.
All the trailers looked in good order, large garage, drive in truck wash and the people seemed happy enough.
It should do me for a while, will just have to see.
I guess if you want your own unit and higher wages - more days then it’s not for you.
I was looking on Stobies website and they seem to be offering reasonable rates for casuals, not sure how regular the work is.
Very very unlikely that you will get 15’s in over the weekend, you will be lucky to get 12’s and be prepared to be parked up for excessive times on a frequent basis especially if you get sent to Scotland. 22 hours parked is not uncommon especially at Peterhead. You will find yourself nighting out in the yard quite frequently and there isnt any night out money for that. If you keep your head down you wont be too bad but they can be very petty and officious and don’t ever think your extra day every other week is optional as they have tried to discipline people on many occasions for refusing to do it.
Thanks, all noted. The extra day issue isn’t a problem, I wanted a 4 day week, so they gave me a 3 day shift pattern with the 4th day as an extra every two weeks, but with the option to do it every week. Just didn’t explain myself very well.
I’ll see how it pans out, if I don’t get the hours I want, I’ll give them a chance to sort it, if they don’t, I’ll use the exit door left option.
Cheers
i did day work for longs a few years ago,they tended to do 2 runs a day from their yard in crossgates,easy enough but crap pay.
15’s over the weekend at those rates will do, and leave those weekday rates to the mugs. 
Always work for a “houly rate for the day”, rather than “an overtime rate one qualifies for after 40 hours”.
You won’t get ripped off that way with dropping two days during the week, and then finding your weekend work is all at flat rate, because it’s within the 40 hours… 
There are some firms of course that won’t let bods like me chip away at the weekend rates to the exclusion of weekdays altogether, but you only have to look at the sign-in board when you do go in at weekends to see VACANT in a number of “to be covered spots”. This suggests there are not enough bods like me making themselves available for weekends. It’s a weekend workers market in other words! 
Yeah but no weekends ever fridge man?
This weekend working lark is one secton where the system has shot itself in the foot, luckily its worked to our advantage but the constant push for more immigrants threatens all of us.
In times gone by a hard working man in this country could earn enough to keep his family in home food and normal (to people who realised they really were working class and not celebs) comforts by being the sole breadwinner, he often had to work weekends at OT to put the icing on the cake but if he at least (in the case of lorry drivers) came home several times a week some semblance of normal life could be maintained…
…so long as each partner in the relationship was onside and pulling together, and not as has happened to too many the grafter just been a convenient walking wage packet in an abusive relationship, and outed the moment a more lucrative product came along or the money stopped coming in when the poor sap flagged.
Now we’ve the situation for some years where companies have tried to bring weekend and shift working into the same pay rate as normal weekday hours rates, something i have always been against and i will not work for the same rate for weekends, nights, bank hols etc…unless the job is salaried correctly with differentials built in to take those out of normal hours into account.
At some places the salaries for those on shifts incl weekends and bank hols are higher with fewer days worked than those on weekday contracts, this is right and proper and works for both the company and the drivers concerned, everyone gets what they want out of it.
Fortunately supply and demand has stopped the complete loss of weekend premiums.
Modern families due to both pay rates and lifestyle choices can no longer afford one sole breadwinner in many cases, so where the usually female partner might work a 5 day week if full time, then weekends are the only time the family gets together, hence reluctance quite rightly from some drivers (male usually) to work weekends.
Sole breadwinners can afford to take advantage of this situation, they can take the weekend work and benefit from the premiums, others may have no choice by having to work 4 on 4 off patterns which rotate time off…this can lead to family pressure but luckily for 3 weeks out of 8 the pattern leaves families with Sats and Suns together.
All shifts and pay structurs have to be judged on theri merits, about the only way to compare like with like is to divide the pay by the total number of hours worked to arrive at an average hourly rate…all drivers should do this simple sum.
All we can do as drivers is to take the best options for us at any particular stage of our lives, have to read between the lines so carefully when job pay is being discussed at interview stages as they con is often there in plain view.
The scam Winseer notes of overtime being payable after so many hours is one such, overtime should be after so many agreed hours on a Daily basis, that way if you do a 15 Mon and Tues you should have 12ish hours OT already which they can’t take off you by cutting your hours later in the week, let along trying to get you to work Sat/Sun/Bank Hol at basic pay.
The other one is ‘‘any 5 from 7’’, you know damned well that its going to include at least one weekend shift every week and virtually every single bank holiday possible, so work out what the hourly rate is from the hours projected and factor in that 25% of those hours should be at premium rates, then make sure the shift pattern gives you 2 consecutive rest days off, far too many shift patterns split your rest days up to maximise your weekend and bank hol working…these patterns are in my view the most disruptive to family lifae as no one knows where they are.
All these things are OK if you agree to them and they suit you, but its a bugger if you don’t realise what you’re letting yourself in for and have just jumped from frying pan to fire.
As with all sales pitches (and recruitment is exactly that) its what they don’t say and whats in writing is what you should be looking for.
And for goodness sake ignore the lorries on offer, that bloody big nicely painted lorry with microwave and fridge won’t put a nice juicy roast joint and 4 different veg in your kids bellies of an evening nor keep the home’s heating going at full blast all winter long.
Its the money and what you have to do, for how many hours, and when, that counts, keep the unsocial hours and weekend diffentials alive.
Silver_Surfer:
Yeah but no weekends ever fridge man?
Not sure what you mean?
My shift pattern is explained above. That’s what we have agreed, I’ve seen plenty of RB trucks about all over the UK at weekends. Or did you mean something else?
Fridge Man:
Silver_Surfer:
Yeah but no weekends ever fridge man?Not sure what you mean?
My shift pattern is explained above. That’s what we have agreed, I’ve seen plenty of RB trucks about all over the UK at weekends. Or did you mean something else?
I meant that you won’t have any weekend off, ever.
Silver_Surfer:
Fridge Man:
Silver_Surfer:
Yeah but no weekends ever fridge man?Not sure what you mean?
My shift pattern is explained above. That’s what we have agreed, I’ve seen plenty of RB trucks about all over the UK at weekends. Or did you mean something else?
I meant that you won’t have any weekend off, ever.
but i think that’s what he wanted!
just don’t stack it fridge man did anything get mentioned about paying for damage?
yorkshire terrier:
4aaaa4dd:
im like a mid wife ? I deliver things lol … the leeds triangle they used to call it before macfarlanes went bust ,BEDFORDS,LONGS AND MACFARLANE,S the same down beat drivers going around and around from one minimum wage employer to another tm on the phone asking where are you now a thousand times a day … park up with these manic depressives and by the end of the night you want to hang your selfs but see them two years later and they still working for the same firm moaning about how bad the job is and in ten years time he,ll still be there moaning … and on the subject of been a professional I get paid to do the job so im a professional plus I cant do delivering babies but I bet the doctor cant reverse a truck on the blind side in the rain at night into a supermarket loading bay ■■? I get paid to do a professional job and that’s what I do …
Yes the Leeds triangle did well and truly exsist but the amount of drivers that used to leave macfarlane for the so called big money many of them used to return for there job back.
I loved working there but I was young and had a mental streak going on in my head that lasted about 8 years
[/quote]
I,ll proberbly know you then I was with macfarlanes when they were on the ring road next to the train tracks and with them both times they went bust at cross green ?