Been doing nights for about 7 months now, and it’s the best HGV job i’ve had so far. Our company is part of a pallet network (as most small firms seem to be these days) so they need someone to haul the double decker to the hub each night and back in the morning. I used to work days for the same company, but the night driver retired so I volunteered myself. I start at 1845, and usually back between 0530 and 0630, it has been busier in the run up to christmas (and thus a later finish), and it’s salary paid, so you take the rough with the smooth. It’s not the job for someone to stress about every hour accounted for (as some of our day drivers love to do). I simply weigh up the relative stress of the day shift and it’s no contest, frankly.
It’s a 2 hour drive each way, and the hub requires about an hour of my time to unload, and another to load. Between this I usually get between 2200 and 0200 entirely to myself, so I can write (which I love), read, watch films or sleep. Work has very much become “me time” and it’s the first job i’ve had where there has been absolutely no sense of dread going in for each shift. I start after everyone has gone home, and I park the truck up and lock the gates again before anyone starts work. I can speak to nobody known as a “boss” all week if I wish.
I thought i’d get bored of doing the same route each night, but I don’t, there are a few options to mix it up if I wish. I enjoy the run, regardless. At 4am all you have to deal with is a fairly steady stream of double deckers/trunk lorries, all doing the same thing. The only weather that bothers me is high winds which can make it a real sod to open the curtains on a 16’ double decker (the hub is mostly outside), and the only mild annoyance is having to open and close the curtains when moving between sheds on site (nonsense company policy), but as this is the only thing we have to deal with I hardly feel justified complaining about it.
I’ve always been a night owl, so even when working days, I would be up until 3-4am most weekend nights regardless, so I guess it depends on what sort of person you are.
On nights I might finish at 5am Saturday, but i’m not back in until 7pm Monday, so I still get my entire weekend, it’s just staggered by maybe 12 hours. If I can get my head down for a couple of hours at work each night, then I usually only sleep for 6 hours or so when I get home, so I can be up for midday, and then have the whole day to do what I like. I can go to the shops/bank, run errands, go out to lunch with my friends and go running in the daylight, with plenty of time to spare. It does’t seem to matter how busy the day gets, because work gives me the time I need to relax, bizarre as that sounds. At the weekend I can easily be up at 11am, and live a normal life in tune with everyone else.
If you are a soppy type, then the nights also hold a certain magic, that you can barely quantify in words, but there is definitely something to be said for the things you see and feel that nobody else is experiencing. I particulary enjoy the drives into the sunset in late summer, and the rising of the sun heading home in (I guess) late Feb, early March. At the moment, the starry skies are a particular joy on a crisp clear night, and the other drivers probably think me a complete idiot as I stop whilst undoing the curtain to stare awestruck into the night sky. If you can live in the moment, even briefly, then the nightshift has something to offer you.
I left the girlfriend (of 6 years) around the same time that I started working nights, so whether that has anything to do with the general way I feel about life at the moment, I have no idea. But basically, I have never been happier, and for a glass half empty person that is something to say.
If nights work for you, then I doubt you would ever want to go back to days.
the job is so much easier when there are sod all car drivers on the road and the lorry drivers that want to stick to the limit are happy to let you pass.
