Hi All,
Seen a shunters job advertised near me, local big company.
Shunting with a Kalmar unit, it’s Mon- Friday and 6am - 6pm.
Salary 31k.
Anyone done this kind of work before? Is it more stress than it’s worth?
I presume the nuts and bolts of the job is shunting trailers around the yard all day?
I do it.
No amount of other people’s incompetence,affects what time I have my dinner.
RogerOut:
Anyone done this kind of work before? Is it more stress than it’s worth?
There is no stress. You’re not worrying about getting a flat tyre, you’re not worrying about roadworks, traffic jams, waiting to get tipped or loaded, worrying about finding parking before you hit your 4.5hrs, all of which mean you’re not going to get home when you expected and end up having to chase your backside to make it back before you run out of hours. You know what your finish time will be every day.
Boredom is the biggest problem with the job depending on how busy a site is.
Might involve other duties. When I did it for Stobarts at Tesco it also involved doing things like taking readings from the onsite fuel tanks (the ones the lorries fuelled up from, not the trucks), downloading tachographs and doing a yard check where you go round and list all the trailers and if they’re loaded/empty/VOR etc.
If you do do it don’t be like a lot of them are and if you see a defect on a trailer you’re moving or one in the park as you’re running around, ignore it and say nowt. Only takes 30 seconds to get on the radio to the office and say ■■■ trailer has a flat or curtain damage or whatever. The way most shunters are reluctant to bother you’d think they were expected to fix it themselves.
Hmmmmhh. £31k per year for a 60 hour week? That is about £10 per hour. If a new pass OP then you will get valuable experience at reversing / coupling. That will be worth quite a bit when you change jobs.
If you are an experienced (older) driver then you don’t need to be told this.
If you are a new pass then don’t rush. take everything at the speed you are comfortable with and anytime a pointy shoe tells you to “hurry up” get out of the cab, toss the keys to the Pointy Shoe and ask them (politely) to show you how to do it safely and quicker.
(Don’t try that tactic with an old schooler as a smack in the mouth often offends).
Conor:
chase your backside to make it back before you run out of hours.
If you do that you’re an idiot anyway and probably shouldn’t be in this kind of work
Also shunting can be very stressful in a busy yard especially the day shift
All depends on what sort of work it is,at Argos Magna Park when it was open,Shunters had a sheet with all the different stores to work off. Along with what bay specific loads where on and what type of trailer or length was required. Combined with putting trailers on and off goods in. Nothing moved until a bay door was dropped and a green light was showing. No particular stress as there was at least two shunters working. Occasionally there was a trailer to be shifted to and from the workshops.All shunt motors had radios fitted for inter dept communication. A doddle really.
RogerOut:
Hi All,Seen a shunters job advertised near me, local big company.
Shunting with a Kalmar unit, it’s Mon- Friday and 6am - 6pm.
Salary 31k.Anyone done this kind of work before? Is it more stress than it’s worth?
I presume the nuts and bolts of the job is shunting trailers around the yard all day?
The nuts of the job sums up shunters very well ,
I’d only do a shunting job if it was 8 hours.
They all seem to be 12 hours a day though.
CBA with that the only reason I’d get off the road is to reduce my hours not keep them the same or slightly more lol
dozy:
The nuts of the job sums up shunters very well ,
I think that I can confidently state without fear of contradiction that you would be a shunters nightmare! Any shunter would watch you wobble into the yard and instinctively know that you are an idiot as you blithely and blissfully unaware drive past every other neatly parked waiting outside lorry and proceed to abandon yours either slap bang in the middle of the yard or more likely right across five loading bays, whereupon you’ll totally ignore the clearly marked walkways and amble around the yard area like an untethered Catherine wheel.
When challenged you’ll inevitably ■■■■ and bleat that it’s your first time on site and “how am I supposed to know?” Once again in blissful ignorance that many, many others manage to work it out all by themselves on their very first visit.
ETS:
Conor:
chase your backside to make it back before you run out of hours.If you do that you’re an idiot anyway and probably shouldn’t be in this kind of work
Loads of drivers do it, motorways are rammed full of them, you can see them in RDCs and other places where they have to wait to get tipped. One reason I stay put is because I don’t have to.
Monday to Friday 12 hour days and it’s 31k.
No thanks that’s a ■■■■ take.
Dayshift Shunters at our place are doing 5x 8hr days, only doing max 4/5 moves an hour in a medium sized well laid out yard on 32k. Plus when you come off Tachomaster you can do 6x8hr days every week with the 6th being paid time and quarter.
Double
adam277:
I’d only do a shunting job if it was 8 hours.
They all seem to be 12 hours a day though.
CBA with that the only reason I’d get off the road is to reduce my hours not keep them the same or slightly more lol
Yeah that’s what i think. When they tried to get me shunting where i am now I said I’d only do it if it’s 8hr shifts with an hour’s snooze time in-between. They declined!
Used to do class 2 shunting in a recycling yard that was great, 9-5 officially but normally finished by 1500 which included 2 to 3 hours of lunch breaks