I recently applied for a job at the new Brakes depot in Harlow & was offered the job after a driving assessment & interview. Whilst I think it would be good to get some experience of a different kind of driving to what I currently do & the money is much better I have seen some horror stories online regarding working for the company. I was wondering whether anyone had any experience of working for Brakes & whether they would be willing to share these with me as I’m really on the fence regarding accepting this job. Many thanks.
The jobs not to everyone’s liking a bit like co-op much like marmite you like it or hate it only you can tell it’s the same as Tea and Coffee you love one but will put up with the other but until you do it you’ll never know and another persons thoughts on it is their own impression in other words
Give it a crack if you don’t like it you know for next time or as Forrest said “Mama always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”
I recently applied for a job at the new Brakes depot in Harlow & was offered the job after a driving assessment & interview. Whilst I think it would be good to get some experience of a different kind of driving to what I currently do & the money is much better I have seen some horror stories online regarding working for the company. I was wondering whether anyone had any experience of working for Brakes & whether they would be willing to share these with me as I’m really on the fence regarding accepting this job. Many thanks.
I did the day shift on agency ,it was doing services ,welcome break if I remember right ,would go out and do I.e buttonwood west ( closed now) ,East then go and do shard low west/East ( think that’s the name ,a50 nr notts ) ,you would do hotel ,Burger King ,forecourt etc at each drop ,never went up any stairs ,just took it into back of building ,I found when you got your bearings it was fine .
Also did night trucks and it was just a-b, reverse on bay and they’d tip you or I even changed rigids over a few times at depots .
I thought it was steady when you got in the swing of things to be honest ,I’m not really sure why I don’t work there as local depot is mins from where I live .
N.b my experiences are 10 + yrs ago so things may of changed
If its class 2 multidrop, Id avoid like the plague. Did it for 6 weeks. Hated it. The company are ok to work for tho and a good bunch of lads, just a ■■■■ job, especially in hot weather.
Swordsy:
If its class 1, its fine good money and trunking.
If its class 2 multidrop, Id avoid like the plague. Did it for 6 weeks. Hated it. The company are ok to work for tho and a good bunch of lads, just a [zb] job, especially in hot weather.
I worked at Bishops Stortford & few of my mates currently work at chelmsford, those depots run trucks on Frozen/ Chilled delivery & veg delivery so you can have 20/30 drops a day, when Harlow is up & running properly and that’s when Chelmsford & Stortford all merge with Harlow later this year they will then be putting everything onto one truck delivery, so frozen/chilled & veg together which means the number of drops will reduce on each truck, estimate is between 12/16 max per day!!
Plus the salery is around £29k, not bad for class 2
Done 3 years at brakes Tamworth like anything class 2 was hard graft 30 plus drops a day but once your used to the drops didn’t seem that bad.
Winter is worse getting soaked then in a hot kitchen then back in the truck with freezer at -35c country lanes but it’s driving experience at the end of the day and some of the places you have to get will test your reversing.
I recently applied for a job at the new Brakes depot in Harlow & was offered the job after a driving assessment & interview. Whilst I think it would be good to get some experience of a different kind of driving to what I currently do & the money is much better I have seen some horror stories online regarding working for the company. I was wondering whether anyone had any experience of working for Brakes & whether they would be willing to share these with me as I’m really on the fence regarding accepting this job. Many thanks.
Hi Sgd73uk
I worked for Brakes at Bishops Stortford till Oct last year. You will love it or hate it. The Bishops Stortford depot is now working out of Harlow and they Chelmsford depot is due to move over later this year. They are currently preparing to move over to a full multi temp operation but, at present most of they runs are either frozen/chill or grocery/chill. Not to put a downer on the job but quite a few of the ex Stortford drivers have or are leaving. There were a lot of operational issues at Stortford when I worked there and it doesn’t seem like they have been sorted as yet.
It’s not all doom and gloom though as the money is fair, the drivers are a great bunch and once you have mastered multi drop the Brakes way, you can do anything!!!
