gingerfold:
It’s a catch 22 situation really. We’ve all ‘dropped one’ with something or other in our younger days so sometimes it’s better to persevere with a youngster and try and “educate” him. The problem these days is that very few drivers want flat trailer work and about 70% of our work is flats. They don’t want nights out and being away all week. What few new drivers there are coming into the industry are seduced by the Stobart’s programmes and image, they think it’s all clean uniforms and easy curtain sider work, starting at 8.00 am and being home for tea with their wife or partner and kids in an evening. The reality on flat trailer work is completely different and you have to be prepared to rough it sometimes and get your hands dirty, as most of you on here know.
Not having seen the Stobart series I wouldn’t know, but even without it a lot of the ‘glamour’ (if the job still has any) rubs off pretty quickly. It’s not all new, top of the range motors and 10 hour days and fat wage packets. Quite the opposite - I would have thought any newly minted driver would get allotted one of the yard dogs until he’s proved himself, and let’s face it anyone who isn’t prepared to get their hands dirty or do whatever it takes to keep the load in top order is in the wrong job, whether it’s on flats, curtainsiders, box vans or anything else. Driving always involved a fair bit of graft, and even nowadays with more electronic and mechanical systems that take some of the heave-ho out if it, it still does. In the end it comes down to taking a bit of pride in what you do, no matter how ordinary the money is or how knackered the wagon and TBH if I’d started last week and was put in a new 600bhp Volvo I’d feel a bit of a fraud.
From what I can gather nowadays the whole job is run by rules and regs,if the answer isn’t in “the book” it can’t be done,not even commom sense can prevail,how times have changed-----for the worse Cheers Bewick.
There’s one aspect you guys haven’t mentioned and that’s the driver was being a prat. I know a few drivers that being told they couldn’t unload till the next day would get all bloody minded and adopt a ’ i’ll screw with you then ’ attitude and leave the sheet off on purpose. Not very professional to say the least but these drivers want to make someone pay for inconvenienceing them.
Oh, just because i know these blokes doesn’t make me one
Park Royal,
Unfortunately, that seems to be the way things are, nowadays. From personal experience I can say that the brand new bling-machines are usually allotted to the younger drivers on the basis that there is less likely to go wrong with them. The old “yard nails” are usually kept on a reasonably local schedule with an older, more experienced chap who could probably manage to nurse the thing back to the yard, or at least possess the initiative to tie things back on in an emergency.
8LXBV8BRIAN:
I hope that trailer was going in the workshop before it went on it`s way
Eyes like a ■■■■ house rat “Bri” ,I did notice the nearside mud flap may be missing,but I assure you that if it was missing it wouldn’t leave the depot with only the one,(we’d remove the other one to even things up eh! ) It’s the S&R 'ing thingy we are discussing Cheers Dennis.
gingerfold:
It’s a catch 22 situation really. We’ve all ‘dropped one’ with something or other in our younger days so sometimes it’s better to persevere with a youngster and try and “educate” him. The problem these days is that very few drivers want flat trailer work and about 70% of our work is flats. They don’t want nights out and being away all week. What few new drivers there are coming into the industry are seduced by the Stobart’s programmes and image, they think it’s all clean uniforms and easy curtain sider work, starting at 8.00 am and being home for tea with their wife or partner and kids in an evening. The reality on flat trailer work is completely different and you have to be prepared to rough it sometimes and get your hands dirty, as most of you on here know.
I’d love a job with flats, having to R&S. a few overnights are not a problem either. The problem is I don’t yet have CE and I’m a few hundred miles away .
gingerfold:
It’s a catch 22 situation really. We’ve all ‘dropped one’ with something or other in our younger days so sometimes it’s better to persevere with a youngster and try and “educate” him.
If you want any kind of profesionalism out of new drivers would this not be the first point of call, to educate them? You old dogs were not born known…
gingerfold:
It’s a catch 22 situation really. We’ve all ‘dropped one’ with something or other in our younger days so sometimes it’s better to persevere with a youngster and try and “educate” him.
If you want any kind of profesionalism out of new drivers would this not be the first point of call, to educate them? You old dogs were not born known…
I would guess that the kind of job your looking for Danny are few and far between nowadays,unless you are extremely lucky to have such a Firm nearby to your home.However,from what I can see the S&R work of to-day is entirely different from that of days gone by,in those days every type of traffic(well almost) was hauled by flat platform motor as this was the norm and accepted nationwide.I can claim to have started my career in the transport industry when everything was as I’ve just described then I witnessed the total revolution from S&R to Curtainsiders (the best one being the Boalloy Tautliner IMHO)the transformation gathered pace in the later 80’s and by the nineties flat traffic had very much disappeared,certainly where palletised traffic was concerned,At Bewick Transport we still had a lot of Paper Mill traffic which required flats so I suppose our situation was a bit differen’t,our last batch of new flats joined the trailer fleet in 1990 but from then on we had to embark a major project whereby we started sending batches of our Task tri-axles into Boalloy to be converted to 41ft Tautliners,they came out of Congleton with a new body, chassis painted and were like new.Probably by the mid 90’s our trailer fleet was 75/80% Tautliner with the balance being flats.Best of look in your quest for an S&R job ! Cheers Bewick.
I don’t expect to find one to be honest, I’m of old blood, one that wants to earn their wage, not just steer a truck/lorry whatever you like to call it. I come from a manual labouring background. If i’m not breaking a sweat, I’m not earning. I just feel that a lot of the established drivers here give new drivers a hard time (not directly but in replys to other posts) as they don’t want to learn. I put this down to 2 factors:
1, most new drivers DON’T want to learn as society has allowed them to form the minamalist attatude that if I do enough, that’s enough. They never want to better themselves and to this I say more fool them.
2, everyone and their gran want’s every thing NOW and there is no time for training as the TM has someone up his ■■■ to get stuff moving and this is knocked on so thus you have to be delivering and there is no time for training.
I have taken another path while searching for that all important first job and I have turned my hand to most aspects of class 2 driving by volunteering at local skip hire, multidrop, tippers etc the list goes on. I am now a jack of most trades and a master of none but I’m willing to learn a new trick or 2.
i can never recall the fine days on r&s , only the days when it was lashing down and / or blowing a gale .i feel proud to have been there and done it and it looks a lot better nowadays from my chair by the fire . if i tried it now i would have blisters on my blisters .
rigsby:
i can never recall the fine days on r&s , only the days when it was lashing down and / or blowing a gale .i feel proud to have been there and done it and it looks a lot better nowadays from my chair by the fire . if i tried it now i would have blisters on my blisters .
I think the same when I see someone drill a house out for cavity wall insulation (this was my trade prior to a serious back injury) however I would still give my left one to be handed the keys to my POS eurocargo and a mikita right now. Like I said before I’m of old blood and not scared to graft.
Hiya just this morning helped a dvr rope some fence panels
on his wagon after he had del 4 to our house.I was not shocked
to see he had never been shown how to put a hitch in the rope.
He does now good deed for the day.
Take Care.
GUESTY44
And you probably trained him for free!!!
No wonder no one signed up for my overpriced Loading, Sheeting & Roping courses when they can get training for free.
ROF, Bewick, last Friday, M6 North, then M54, TWO Spanish reg DAF 105.460s, with two curtainsiders…except the loads projected around 950mm each side, and the curtains , as they now no longer fitted , were sort of hitched up like a ladies skirt on a very fast bicycle. In fact the rear doors on the one body were a good 100mm out of line. And the curtains hung like a cardigan on a rotund lady!!!
OK they had marker boards, in red and white, and beacons on each side, and they were going like the clappers, “Eribur” or some similar name, white, red, with silver curtains, and no reward vision whatsoever…where was VOSA…or that rare being the Policeman…or am I just getting old…(Yes).
In years gone by, those loads would have been considered “tidy” when loaded & secured properly on a platform trailer, wouldn’t they?
However, it’s a sad (?) fact that the curtainsiders would have to be used if there was to be any chance of a return load these days.
The onset of another bout of nostalgia necessitates the opening of another bottle of Banks’ Bitter!
I need four or five experienced flat men, or lads willing to learn, right now. We have suddenly got very busy with the start of a new construction project for one of my customers, pre-cast concrete sections not steel work. Stobart’s might have done us a favour in the long run by taking our other work. Certainly the next few months looks like it will be busy, just hope that it’s not come too late for us and I can find the drivers (and units).
gingerfold:
I need four or five experienced flat men, or lads willing to learn, right now. We have suddenly got very busy with the start of a new construction project for one of my customers, pre-cast concrete sections not steel work. Stobart’s might have done us a favour in the long run by taking our other work. Certainly the next few months looks like it will be busy, just hope that it’s not come too late for us and I can find the drivers (and units).
would love to help but no CE licence YET! (it will come) where are you based?
Retired Old ■■■■:
And you probably trained him for free!!!
No wonder no one signed up for my overpriced Loading, Sheeting & Roping courses when they can get training for free. [/qtote
Hiya there is no answer to that only that you just can’t" buyit"
Harry knows does he not.
GUESTY44
Cheers Bewick.
Cheers Dennis.
Cheers Bewick.