yourhavingalarf:
switchlogic:
If I could turn clock back id never take that bloody TM job.Ah but…
If you hadn’t left Virginia, you might not be doing all the stuff your doing now which you enjoy.
fate innit i spose
Thing is me handing my notice in was what prompted them to offer me the TM job, I was leaving Virginia as a driver anyway and sorely wish now I’d left as planned and kept friendly relations. I know what you mean though, sometimes bad can open the door to good
It’s sometimes difficult to see past the rose tinted specs as time goes on, but my first full time HGV driving job was for a small family run company, mostly on tilt work round the UK mixed in with a bit of agricultural work. On the face of it not the best job, not great pay, not great kit, basic and old and multi drops with a tilt was hard and dirty work. But we were left alone to sort our work out, work with a good bunch of ■■■■ takers including the boss, went back to work there several times between other jobs until he sold up.
Most the motor sport work have had their high points and their lows, but the jobs and teams come and go, last year I was doing a mixture of motorsport and covered car transport, mostly for one company, the boss was a bit old school, wasn’t into micro managing the job, as long as you got it done and the customer was happy and you didn’t damage the truck he was happy.
Changed again this year back to a race team, have regretted it a few times, bug wanted to get back on a team, them bloody rose tinted specs again, and they offered a good pay package, which helped make my mind up, turned up found all the vehicles neglected and the paperwork in the same state, been a struggle but think we’re getting there and the boss seems to be coming round to my way of thinking, so this might turn out to be a good job, although it still has the potential to go ■■■■ up, but at least I can go back to what I was doing last year.
CJ UPTON & SONS (now uptonsteel.com) for 15 years as an ‘own account’ driver from 1989 to 2004 doing long day runs 
Hi Lucy, best job i had was driving for the Evil Empire, the dreaded department store Wal Mart 
I can hear you now saying oh, another bloody trolly driver and that’s true but it was a great job, good pay, easy work (if you want to call winding the trailer legs up and down work?) and typical fleet wagons but well maintained. Everyone called by their first name and drivers by their cb names, mine was Sir Charles because my names Charles and i have British accent 
Oh, and i did mention i was related to the Royal family 
All we had to do was take a loaded trailer to a store, drop it and pick up the empty. One job i did was going around a set route every week to pick up the empty pallets at the stores, they used to load them, when the trailer was full i’d drop it at the store and pick up the empty and continue. I did this Mon to Fri and because i could only load between 0800 and 1600 i’d stay in a motel at night even though i had a sleeper tractor.
Money for old rope as they used to say but it came to an end as most good things do. 
Pat Hasler:
jakethesnake:
100% petrol tankers, brilliant conditions, new vehicles which we or I certainly took pride in looking after which in itself earned bonuses. The pay was excellent (well above average lorry drivers wage)
and there were some reall good perks to the job. Not only that the group of lads that I worked with were great and all with a similar attitude to myself. I think a lot of it was down to the company I worked for and still do on occasions. They look after their drivers and get respect for it. It works both ways something that seems to have gone a miss these days in my book.
Have done nearly everything in haulage apart from skip work and bin lorries but petrol tankers wins hands down. Almost at retiring time now though.Petrol tankers have always been good jobs, we have so many fuel tanker jobs around the NYC area but I don’t want one, I don’t want a hazmat licence, they have ridiculous laws here, such as stopping at every dam rail crossing for 10 seconds, no travelling through tunnels etc. I often see the guys standing on station forecourts freezing their nuts off in winter, that’s not for me, I drive a liquid sugar tanker and 90% of the deliveries are indoors. I also don’t want to work weekends which is required.
Don’t you leave on a Sunday? And do a lot of overnight runs? And on other platforms you have a little moan about your job from time to time?
I know what you do is a lot better than the Swift/Schneider/US Express etc jobs, I get that you’re happy there, most of the time, but there are many good jobs to be had, some with much better money and conditions than yours.
Take car transporters, most of those are on six figure wages, as said the fuel tankers are on top dollar, own account operations and small family firms can also pay very well.
My driver earns more than you, he keeps more of it too thanks to our healthcare system, he gets more paid holiday and gets a fat xmas bonus, works when he wants to as long as he does a reasonable amount each month and he also has a direct line to the company chairman [emoji1]
It’s good that you’re happy where you are, but please don’t think that you’re the only one with a decent job.
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Rob K:
You’re getting your mileage out of that one Vince, I’ll give you that. I don’t you don’t get out much these days and the highlight of your day is having a good moan with other boaters about getting stuck on those dastardly sand banks and how the authorities “do something about it” but how about some fresh jokes from the year 2018 instead of recycled ones from 2005?
You don’t get sand banks on canals Rob.
Not here on the European mainland anyway. 
These are great, thankyou once again lads. Any more for any more? 
Best job? 15 years of driving Road Trains out of Melbourne.
Out on the road for weeks at a time meeting some wonderful people (despite them being Ozzies ); having to get the RT into places you wouldn’t believe; hoping to [zb] that you didn’t either get stuck or break down because you really were often in the middle of no-where … and being left totally alone to just get on with the job.
Worst? Firm called JBT. Enough said!! 
My best job, contracted to Holsten Pils, delivering said product to breweries and wholesalers in England, Wales and N.Ireland and the odd trip to Germany. Worked with a great bunch of lads, even the office wallahs, all the breweries had excellent canteens and social clubs with cheap beer and most would let us park on site overnight for obvious security reasons. The wages were very good and the equipment was top notch.
Coming in a close second is my time at Solstor, early 90s when going over the water was still good fun, we worked hard and played even harder. It was said to be the best paying job doing continental from Britain, I don’t know for sure, but the money was extremely good and I worked alongside and learned from some highly experienced and knowledgeable drivers that I’m still in contact with today.
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I only drove for three companies, Tilcon, STB Transport (a Tilcon offshoot) and Gough Transport Ltd, all on tippers and each had their good and bad points but I would willingly work for anyone of them again in a heartbeat. Guess I was lucky with my employers, Tilcon paid the best at one time (though that changed of course) and Goughs gave me the greatest job satisfaction of the three as they let me find my own work and do my own maintenance a lot of the time which I enjoyed.
Pete.
Best job? = My current job… on a good day.
Worst job? = My current job… on a bad day.
Sorry if that’s not suitable fodder for the mag but it’s how it is and how it’s always been, I’ve enjoyed/loved - disliked/hated every job I’ve ever had dependant on many varying factors. 
SouthEastCashew:
Your boss should have listened to you 100% the roads around Oxenhope are just about designed for a car let alone a van/truck haha! & You are right I was always thought Bradford was a dump how wrong was I… I was gutted to find out the tour de Yorkshire was just starting as I was coming home!!
Yeah but what do us drivers know, we’re just paid to drive the vehicle 
I doubt many people have said this before, but I do miss (some) of the BD postcode 
Best job,best could be a quite flexible word.78/79 live crabs to Portugal,the French did it then using fridges with tanks inside just as it is done today,the
guy we,that’s Bart and myself,got ■■■■■■■ with did it with a 40ft flat with tanks secured to the trailer,a fridge unit attached to the front of the trailer to chill the water and a donkey engine slung underneath for the air supply, an absolute disaster but we did through great effort manage to reach Setubal in
Portugal on many occasions with the crabs still alive.All done with a Berliet 305 in which we left Plymouth Monday,Irun Tuesday morning,Badajos
Wednesday morning and deliveries around Setubal Wednesday night.The first drop was into the ground floor flat in a tenement close to the water,
it had to be, every room in the house had had the foundations dug out and each room was a vivier,storage tanks for crabs and lobsters.Thursday we
left Setubal,stayed in a hotel outside Madrid then Friday non stop to Roscoff to catch the ferry Saturday morning, all to begin again Monday,
best job certainly the most memorable or was it.
Did like yourself Lucy write for these magazines.Once a month for 13 months,600 words and you have my sympathy,damned hard work ,what the hell
could you write about,I usually chose 3 or 4 subjects,150 words each.Did it work,well sat on a ferry to Calais,this driver was sat reading CM and was
laughing his head off,annoyingly so,right up until I looked across and saw he was reading something I’d wrote,kept quiet.But I am a smoker and I do read on
this site it’s not a very popular habit for some,it wasn’t back in 78/79.I smoked Bart didn’t,I drove the day’s Bart drove the nights,I’d wake up in the
morning, grab for me ■■■■…gone,where’s me ■■■■ I’d ask Bart…Salamanca he’d reply.I’m retired now gladly, I think what you are all doing today is
damned hard work so watch yourselves.
Pat Hasler:
gazsa401:
I’ve had 2 fantastic jobs in the past 30
years
The first one was at Stirlands of Nottingham a large general haulage company who had some great customers Boots, Raleigh Bicycles, Imperial Tobacco,Pedigree Petfoods just to name a few
Not many people left there
There were a lot of long term drivers,fitters and warehouse staff who were 30 year plus people and at least 10 people with 40 years plus service
Nearly everybody had nicknames
Odd legs, the missing link, thousand [zb],blackadder the gargoyle and the pig man
Mine was “Boycie as from Only Fools and Horses as my laugh was the same
We had a social club where we’d have about 6 do,s a year plus day trips which included families coming
The pay and conditions were probably the best in the East Midlands
The fleet was well looked after i worked there for 17 years
I only left because I got offered a job as yard Shunter at Imperial Tobacco in Nottingham which was too good to refuse
This was a cracking job I was home every night I only worked 7 hours a day with great pay and conditions
I worked there until being made redundant after production of cigarettes ended and the factory closedWhen I first started with Fed Ex I had a night trunk from Crick to Exeter and ran down the M5 every night with a Stirlands driver, we became good mates but for the life of me I am not sure if his name was ‘Dave’ ? I do know his CB handle was ‘Double S’ we had some fun times. I even called in at his house one afternoon when I was doing a delivery with a rigid a few years later.
Hello Pat I’ve been racking the old grey matter
There were 5 drivers at Stirlands named Dave
Dave Cotterill
Dave Hancock
Dave Marshall
Dave Norman and finally Dave Tebbut (RIP) all were long serving trunk drivers on the Boots contract
Cheers Gary
Carryfast:
Has to be the Parceline day bulk job on agency.Every day was like a day trip to the country or the coast with more driving and parking up enjoying the country or coast views than drops or collections.Nearest thing I ever did to a job that was as good as a holiday.
cor blimey i worked for parceline at park royal depot it was a easy job most days i might have met carryfast dont tell anyone
The best job I had in transport was the most recent one working for an international fridge operator and forwarder in Plymouth. It must have been good as I was there 11 years which beat my previous length of employment by 8 years.
It was, and probably still is, a place where the drivers were treated as proper professional drivers by the office staff and owner. There was always a decent amount of communication and respect between the owner and the drivers and he would always listen to the drivers ideas if they thought a job could be done in a better or more efficient way.
The pay was very good at the time (no idea now), it was salaried so there was no problems with ‘getting enough hours in’. I kept very accurate records of my hours and worked out that I very rarely exceeded the 45 hours wtd and never the 60 hours, and that was being completely honest about breaks and other work settings on the tacho (I never used poa, and unless I was on a break of my choosing, then the tacho was on other work).
The time spent away in Europe was normally 3 weeks at a go, occasionally longer, and that was what did for me in the end, I’d spent the last 30 years tramping in the UK and Europe and I just wanted to spend more time at home, unfortunaltly that didn’t work out quite as plannned, but such is life.
Being fridge work often meant some really odd and unsociable hours while doing market deliveries, but the job was always kept legal. On the other hand there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you load somewhere and know it’ll be 2 or 3 days driving before you need to open the back doors again.
I know that this particular company has often been described as the proverbial ‘dead man’s boots’ type job, but I got a job there so it can’t have been that difficult, I think it’s more a question of approach them in the right way and don’t act like a muppet if they invite you in for a chat.
If by some miracle I could get back into driving again then they would be my first port of call.
The best ive had in 37yrs driving was with a local concrete company in my wee village (on the prairies) 5mins from the door wae a bar in the way on the way home on a Friday. Did 6yrs driving Mon-frid 5.30 --6 15 ish in a btrain rear end dump,front side dump, 3 rounders a day 900km a day …was left to get on with it only saw boss if I " used the facilities in the yard " when unloading or was asked to help drive a mixer when they needed a hand. Wage was by the hr OT after 42hrs ,everything was done legal .tires etc any problems were dealt with on the spot . Made the job stress free… DOT stopped me one day took them 2hrs to find something ,a tire fitted an hr earlier was 20lb light. Now not a perfect job I ran some big loads ,they paid any and all fines (not on my licence). Only ended when they sold the tippers to my now boss (next door yrd ) as he took over the agg hauling ,lol still drive my old truck now cut down to a rigid. tipper.
Tgtrucker:
On the other hand there’s nothing quite like the feeling you get when you load somewhere and know it’ll be 2 or 3 days driving before you need to open the back doors again.
This! Pure driving days are the best