I feel your pain, sometimes hourly rate doesnt quite match quality time or even drinking time potential. Our place dont tend to be this ■■■■ poor but if a driver starts to get too excitable they chuck in the old “your not paid to think” mantra, which backfires on em regularly.
In the end your just a fluffer for the truck, by all means do the job as best as you can for personal satisfaction but never lose sight of being just a number and the truck is far more important than we are.
Wanna try containers, ive had 6 hours off today, sure ive only been at work 5…
m1cks:
I think the point is that it was his last day before the weekend and he was having to go home later than necessary.
If I read the OP correct, he got tipped early and was hoping for an early finish.
Alas his employer decided that he was down to do a full shift, so they sent him somewhere in the hope of maximising his employers income.
As every driver knows, never expect to get home on time, you get there, when you get there.
This is not what you want to have happen when you are on 8 hours job & knock.
Some firms can’t imagine letting a driver go home after 3-4 hours of a “guaranteed 8 paid” shift, so they’ll have you sitting there starting at the wall for the balance of the hours. losecantsledge springs to mind as the main culprit in my own experience of this…
As a newbie I was shocked at the waste and inefficiency in the industry. After a while I realised it was normal practice to have a driver sat doing nothing.
Surely, after fuel, wages are the greatest cost to an employer, a cost which is passed on to the customer (whose yard the driver is sat in!)
All kinds of stuff can happen to cause these problems. A customer says that they have five loads, so you plan five trailers, but then it turns out to be four. A regular customer usually need an extra trailer on a Saturday so you keep one on standby. The warehouse tell you that they are picking a load but when they run into a problem, they are too busy solving that to let the planner know.
In most organisation, not having a truck in the right place is a much bigger crime than having one that is not needed - planners err on the side of caution. They also forget where they have drivers parked up, lose trailers and create impossible schedules.
m1cks:
I think the point is that it was his last day before the weekend and he was having to go home later than necessary.
If I read the OP correct, he got tipped early and was hoping for an early finish.
Alas his employer decided that he was down to do a full shift, so they sent him somewhere in the hope of maximising his employers income.
As every driver knows, never expect to get home on time, you get there, when you get there.
Golden rules. Never think “that’s it for the day”. Never phone the good lady and say “should be home by…”
That sounds like a typical day working out of a supermarket RDC. Only time to worry about it is when you are not being paid for sitting there. Yes it’s boring, boring, boring so I can recommend taking a good book to work.
Bit like yesterday went in for 5am told not ready sat there for 7 hours by 8am there was 26 drivers sat around waiting,no units trailers or not picked or loaded,when runs were done drivers giving them back no time for that been here 5 hours already lol.
It’s not even Christmas yet god help us then lol.but paid by the hour so 7 yesterday and 6 hours Saturday sat waiting happy days.
^^^ it must REALLY get on people’s ■■■■ then when they are 14hr30 into a shift, 10 minutes out from base, and you can’t reliably say “I’ll be home within the hour”…
There’s a huge queue of trucks waiting to get back into your home yard. Halfway up the service road, you run out of hours, and have to overnight there.
Sure, you can get the missus to come pick you up, but it takes nearly 2 hours to make the arrangements with chalk etc. for leaving the wagon unattended.
The firm would rather you “stay with it for security” you see…
Has anyone been helped out in a situation like this by that nifty bit of management innovation The Jump Jockey (no, not ■■■■ jockey…)
A couple of years ago, I picked up a load of scrap printers and PC bits from an office in Colchester, and took them to a recycling place in Preston. My back load was a load of scrap printers and PC bits, collected from Warrington and taken to a recycling place in Braintree. Not complaining, I enjoyed the drive and the company earned decent dosh from it, but seemed a bit on the pointless side…
Nice post, shame about the thicks that think have to work 12 to 15 hours a day for buttons just to drive a truck to pay the the bills,
Fact if you work for the worst employer in uk for the hours that a truck driver works you would better off, and you would have more respect for yourself
nightline:
Nice post, shame about the thicks that think have to work 12 to 15 hours a day for buttons just to drive a truck to pay the the bills,
Fact if you work for the worst employer in uk for the hours that a truck driver works you would better off, and you would have more respect for yourself
No, and no.
Take you didn’t post in the “I love my job” thread?!
)
