I was just sitting on the couch eating my Weetabix and remembered my days on Federal Express / Matchbox toys contract in the early 90’s, we had one on the best driving jobs in the UK, we got paid top money and the vehicles were spotless, we were treated like gods by Fed Ex and Matchbox alike.
Anyway, we were only outdone by the Weetabix drivers when it came to unloading priority, sometimes we would wait at Tesco or Woolworths distribution centres all day but Weetabix would come in and be unloaded right away, they had the monopoly on a product every store wanted, they would only wait 30 minutes and were instructed to leave if not unloaded, the big chains knew this and made sure they got their Weetabix. It was also very well paid as most own account drivers were.
If you notice in the photo above, we had chrome wheel trims all round, even on the trailers, Matchbox wanted the vehicles to stand out and on many occasions we would go to a café and come out to find the trailer trims stolen, we were send straight to a dealer to have them replaced.
m.a.n rules:
all due respect pat but if i was a god i would have insisted on something better than that sk merc. .
It was 1992 and we were paid so much money I wouldn’t have given a toss in it was a Sentinal steam lorry, unlike some, I put wages and benefits above a flashy lorry. In 1993 they replaced it with a Volvo F10.
That job paid me so much money for doing less than most do, I sometimes drove from Rugby to Glasgow with a single carton in a trailer and returned empty, the company paid money into a pension that I never contributed a penny into, I was only with them for 6 years and a few years ago I remembered the pension and contacted them to ask if it was still there ? They sent me $29,000.00 so that was a bonus wasn’t it LOL.
Federal Express was then the worlds best employers.
m.a.n rules:
all due respect pat but if i was a god i would have insisted on something better than that sk merc. .
It was 1992 and we were paid so much money I wouldn’t have given a toss in it was a Sentinal steam lorry, unlike some, I put wages and benefits above a flashy lorry. In 1993 they replaced it with a Volvo F10.
yep fair comment mate.but every time i see a sk it brings back memories of 84/85 and a regular back load out of dagenham storage 18 ton of corned beef up to ossett yorks in a 1625.horrible bloody thing.
m.a.n rules:
all due respect pat but if i was a god i would have insisted on something better than that sk merc. .
It was 1992 and we were paid so much money I wouldn’t have given a toss in it was a Sentinal steam lorry, unlike some, I put wages and benefits above a flashy lorry. In 1993 they replaced it with a Volvo F10.
yep fair comment mate.but every time i see a sk it brings back memories of 84/85 and a regular back load out of dagenham storage 18 ton of corned beef up to ossett yorks in a 1625.horrible bloody thing.
Each time I saw one I thought about a butchers byproduct company in Northampton who’s trucks and drivers stunk like s**t LOL
Not as bad as it used to be, cant smell it from my house anymore. We used to get a combination of chettles and weetabix. My uncle used to be on there for chick crossley , daf skip rigid.
m.a.n rules:
all due respect pat but if i was a god i would have insisted on something better than that sk merc. .
It was 1992 and we were paid so much money I wouldn’t have given a toss in it was a Sentinal steam lorry, unlike some, I put wages and benefits above a flashy lorry. In 1993 they replaced it with a Volvo F10.
It could have been worse… All I got was a Leyland Roadtrain to drive about in 1992, and that was invarably full of ■■■ ash blowing out of the over-full ash trays, and it was a day cab too of course…
Pat Hasler:
That job paid me so much money for doing less than most do, I sometimes drove from Rugby to Glasgow with a single carton in a trailer and returned empty, the company paid money into a pension that I never contributed a penny into, I was only with them for 6 years and a few years ago I remembered the pension and contacted them to ask if it was still there ? They sent me $29,000.00 so that was a bonus wasn’t it LOL.
Federal Express was then the worlds best employers.
When I hear stories like this pat I wonder how the industry has got in to the state it has where drivers ■■■■ up crap and allow themselves to be treated like idiots and accept low wages and work like dogs for it…
Good firms are hard to come by now and anyone on own account work is lucky…
I used to work on own account work night trunking,a real good job on top money,then they contracted out all the trunking to save on cost but after 6 months brought it back in house as the service just wasn’t as reliable…
Isn’t weetabix run by Norbert now or xpo or whatever it’s called these days■■?
Pat Hasler:
That job paid me so much money for doing less than most do, I sometimes drove from Rugby to Glasgow with a single carton in a trailer and returned empty, the company paid money into a pension that I never contributed a penny into, I was only with them for 6 years and a few years ago I remembered the pension and contacted them to ask if it was still there ? They sent me $29,000.00 so that was a bonus wasn’t it LOL.
Federal Express was then the worlds best employers.
When I hear stories like this pat I wonder how the industry has got in to the state it has where drivers ■■■■ up crap and allow themselves to be treated like idiots and accept low wages and work like dogs for it…
Good firms are hard to come by now and anyone on own account work is lucky…
I used to work on own account work night trunking,a real good job on top money,then they contracted out all the trunking to save on cost but after 6 months brought it back in house as the service just wasn’t as reliable…
Isn’t weetabix run by Norbert now or xpo or whatever it’s called these days■■?
It’s quite simple. Cheap labour from the EU. Tossco, for example, were a major player in the importing of cheap EU staff.
Pat Hasler:
That job paid me so much money for doing less than most do, I sometimes drove from Rugby to Glasgow with a single carton in a trailer and returned empty, the company paid money into a pension that I never contributed a penny into, I was only with them for 6 years and a few years ago I remembered the pension and contacted them to ask if it was still there ? They sent me $29,000.00 so that was a bonus wasn’t it LOL.
Federal Express was then the worlds best employers.
When I hear stories like this pat I wonder how the industry has got in to the state it has where drivers ■■■■ up crap and allow themselves to be treated like idiots and accept low wages and work like dogs for it…
Good firms are hard to come by now and anyone on own account work is lucky…
I used to work on own account work night trunking,a real good job on top money,then they contracted out all the trunking to save on cost but after 6 months brought it back in house as the service just wasn’t as reliable…
Isn’t weetabix run by Norbert now or xpo or whatever it’s called these days■■?
It’s quite simple. Cheap labour from the EU. Tossco, for example, were a major player in the importing of cheap EU staff.
Even Tossco though have to pay minimum wage and that wage is open to the UK indigenous. If there are no takers can the likes of Tossco et al be blamed for employing Kryzfztof and his mates?
Pat Hasler:
That job paid me so much money for doing less than most do, I sometimes drove from Rugby to Glasgow with a single carton in a trailer and returned empty, the company paid money into a pension that I never contributed a penny into, I was only with them for 6 years and a few years ago I remembered the pension and contacted them to ask if it was still there ? They sent me $29,000.00 so that was a bonus wasn’t it LOL.
Federal Express was then the worlds best employers.
When I hear stories like this pat I wonder how the industry has got in to the state it has where drivers ■■■■ up crap and allow themselves to be treated like idiots and accept low wages and work like dogs for it…
Good firms are hard to come by now and anyone on own account work is lucky…
I used to work on own account work night trunking,a real good job on top money,then they contracted out all the trunking to save on cost but after 6 months brought it back in house as the service just wasn’t as reliable…
Isn’t weetabix run by Norbert now or xpo or whatever it’s called these days■■?
It’s quite simple. Cheap labour from the EU. Tossco, for example, were a major player in the importing of cheap EU staff.
Even Tossco though have to pay minimum wage and that wage is open to the UK indigenous. If there are no takers can the likes of Tossco et al be blamed for employing Kryzfztof and his mates?
You couldn’t get a job as a driver on Weetabix back in the day, it wasn’t even a dead mans shoes situation, you got taken on internally, and those lucky buggers who had been with them for a long time walked away with up to £100k redundancy payouts plus their pensions when the company was sold and transport outsourced.
There were two major changes that heralded the end of the good days of transport in the UK.
One was the day they removed the gearlever and put a switch in its stead, whether you personally prefer autos or not makes not one jot of difference, the old boxes and more hands on driving skill requirements of those generations of vehicle kept the worse of the numpty class from the ability to, or wanting to do, the job.
Since then dumbing down has accelerated at an alarming rate, yet those in charge cannot see the wood for the trees, if anything they pour petrol on the fire by training down to the lowest common denominator instead of uptraining to the level of the better staff, this method infests almost every operator of any size now.
Second was the opening of the borders to the former eastern europe, and no i don’t blame the many who came over who were able to treble or quadruple their earnings, we would have done the same given the same circs, the irony of this though if you speak to many younger eastern european chaps (i do) is that many are going home in short order and certainly before they start a family, and if you ask them why the truthful answer is not able to be spoken or written in public or the old bill will be kicking the door in for hate speech/thought, lets just say they want to live in a safe country.
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