I have class 2 licence and in november I will have 2 years driving experience. My current basic take home pay is £285 a week! On top of that I get night out money of £25 (parking, food etc not paid extra) and also a pallet rate for collection and delivery.
The hours are very long and the money is very short.
Now I’ve (almost) got my two years experience, can I expect better from agency work or is the money still crap and the hours long?
Do you get regular enough work all year round with only class 2?
Can’t carry on with my current lot much more or I will chuck it all in and stack shelves.
FWIW,I would stay where you are,save up and go for your Class 1,it will give you more chance of work with any agency.
There’s no guarantee work with agencies,some will promise the earth but not deliver.
The last thing I want is a full time job,so I " use " agencies as I work when I want to and the agencies I’ve worked for play by my rules.
Where are you based ?
Most agencies have a simple principle, if their mouth is moving you can be all but certain they are spewing out BS.
The most common one, “Come across and register, I can have you working tomorrow no problem, sure ongoing, I can keep you busy”
You then end up with a couple of days that week (if your lucky) and then find from there on work is as sporadic as any other agency.
I can’t begin to count the wasted miles of travelling to register at agencies and wasted hours filling out crappy registration form for virtually no work in return.
On top of all that some don’t seem to employ people who can add up properly, no other explanation for wages being incorrect ■■
There is thankfully a few decent ones still in business, they are few and far between, personally I tend to trust the ones who tell you how it is rather than what they think you want to hear.
10-08:
You can expect to be lied to. That’s my only experience with agencies sorry.
+1.
Though the 3 that I have used to get work have been pretty good, usual lies about hours, amount of drops (best one was citylink, agency told me ‘oh its only 40 drops’, get to citylink depot, ‘heres your keys, scanner and picking list’. 85 drops in the end ).
Current agency im with is great (never thought i’d say that), they only do tourism and airport related jobs so they know what the jobs they give you involve, if anything they make them sound harder than they actually are. Always paid on time, get a decent amount of holiday pay and no problems with that getting paid. Plus they don’t call me during the day when im asleep, just email or text and if its important then I can call them any time, though 2am Monday morning isnt the best idea. Only downside is the pay rate varies per job but you sty on the same job for months at a time because of the hassles involved in getting an airside pass.
Bite your tongue like I did and wright a CV and send it to all the Main haulage firms within 30 miles or so. Or even better take holiday and call in on them.
This what I did and then I got away from the crap of agencies after only 18 months of having my class 2. Now in a proper job and happy
Agencies were doing my head in just couldn’t live like that
Agencies can be good but only once you’ve got the thick end of a year in with them, taken all the crap as well as the good and shown you’re a good driver who doesn’t wreck motors, doesn’t wallop fuel and has companies asking for you by name when making a booking. At that point then you’ll pretty much get all year round work if you’re prepared to accept whatever is on offer when its quiet.
You have to stand out from the other agency drivers. Wear drivers jacket/trousers, have a wash, have a shave. When going into clients for the first time, ask things like do they have phone numbers if you have a blowout/breakdown etc. USE YOUR BRAIN and try to resolve problems when you’re out on the road before ringing the office - for example if you can’t get tipped at point A for a couple of hours and you’ve another drop at point B half a mile up the road, do drop B then come back to drop A. And as mentioned, ringing in with delays etc . Its the little things.
Doesn’t take a lot to stand out as an agency driver - most of it is common sense.
What Charlie and Conor said, though how you blame an agency for passing on what the client no doubt told them is beyond me. WTF are they supposed to do, go over to Citylink and count the drops before ringing the driver?
Don’t bother. You’ve got a permanent job, or as permanent as it gets these days. Temporary work is what it says. Any agency worth its salt will do its best to keep good drivers permanently busy, because that’s how you keep them. Getting to that stage is hit and miss though. They’ve got to be sure of you as well, and despite what some might tell you, drivers are by no means perfect when it comes to telling the truth. Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had to take a car-less driver in to a client, only to find one of our other so-called regular drivers doing a shift for another agency (probably for an extra 50p an hour) after they’d rung me to say they couldn’t go there because the cat had flu or some bulldust.
keebs26uk:
Bite your tongue like I did and wright a CV and send it to all the Main haulage firms within 30 miles or so. Or even better take holiday and call in on them.
This what I did and then I got away from the crap of agencies after only 18 months of having my class 2. Now in a proper job and happy
Agencies were doing my head in just couldn’t live like that
+1 ^ get on yer bike dress smart and go and sell yourself in person, make up a C.V print off a load of copies and hand them out.
I have made my opinions clear on agencies, you won’t see any work after Christmas unless you are out of Work steer well clear (excuse the pun).
Conor:
for example if you can’t get tipped at point A for a couple of hours and you’ve another drop at point B half a mile up the road, do drop B then come back to drop A.
It really depends on the type of work. As some of the big companies take a dim view of drivers doing drops out of order without seeking permission from the traffic office 1st.
One new agency driver (an old boy) recently took it upon himself to do the 4 drops he had onboard out of sequence of his run sheet, and ultimately missing the booking window at his last drop. This nearly cost the agency the contract. As I said … its better to ask before using your initative
There’s another school of thought to consider as well…
Full time job offer “Is at such low wages, because we’re offering you a full time permenent post”… That is, until 2 years hence when we’ll get rid of you. Thanks a lot for helping out the firm by taking such low wages, thinking that’ll be a job for life!"
Take a full time job if it’s a good job. If it’s a joke, it’s just not worth selling your soul for. Remember 48 hours at crappy hourly rate or a low salary merely compounds low take-home pay. Then there’s the risk of the firm fiddling the taxman (giving your some of taxman’s money to make up your pay, rather than their own!) which will leave you in deep stuck come tax year end as well. Beware full timer’s pay that seems to be made up of 101 different “allowances”, thus hiding the ■■■■-poor base rate wages. You can’t claim mileage on a full time job for example, even if you’re self-employed, once you’ve spent more than 40% of the tax year at the same firm. You’re considered “full time” for having that allowance taken away, along with all wages “add-ons” made that tax year by the firm up to that point. Ouch!
I have yet to see a good job offered full time this year. There’s no such thing as “permanent” anymore, so don’t believe that word in job ads any more than you’d believe “plenty of hours all year around” from agencies. You’ll still be playing snowballs with your kids in January, 'cos you’re laid up…
Concentrate on what it says on the tin. Once the economy finally comes out of recession proper, the good payers in the transport industry will already have the plum drivers working for them, whereas the poor payers will try at that point to offer more “job security” (they might offer you a 5-10 year contract wow wee!) in order to nail you down to the same old low pay for yonks, whilst everyone else starts getting the steep pay rises that go with a true sharp upturn in the economy.
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