My old guvnor forgot to take a hire truck off his dart charge and congestion charge lists. Oh dear.
And he put a van into a bodyshop, who kept saying they were waiting for parts. Came back with 2000 miles extra on the clock, so he checked the tracker, and the bill he charged them for van hire was about 3 times what it cost to get the van fixed plus the cost of the van he’d had to hire while that one was off the road.
Worked for a lad in the past who used to always ask how I was getting on, usual reply was the truth. Nothing to hide doing my job, if I was having my dinner in the cafe and the one time he moaned I replied"well you have your dinner too" but I used to do my work and have jobs on time as an when possible, as for my current job, I even ask the boss if he’s going the cafe too he’s a good lad and not very often am struggling for time so can go at my own Lesuire aslong as jobs are delivered or collected on time the rest of my da is my own
midlifetrucker:
These threads make me laugh. If you get harassed or not paid enough CHANGE BLOODY JOB.
Agree with you if you aren’ t getting paid enough, yeh.
As for being harassed, better still to stay in the same job, and make it better for yourself (on day 1) by telling them you won’t be harassed, …as I keep saying, but evidently not getting across.
It does work, trust me, and shows employers that you are not a yes man and take no crap, , however you also have to prove yourself as a good driver to make it work.
I think too many drivers start too bulshy. In the old days you passed your test and normally started on a crap lorry doing the crapiest job somewhere. You proved your worth and then got a better lorry as people moved on and your experience increased. You might change job for more money or a better job but you nearly always started at the bottom end until you had proved your stripes.
If I start with a new company I keep my head down and do a professional job. I suss them out they suss me out. If it doesn’t feel right I won’t work for them. Not rocket science.
midlifetrucker:
I think too many drivers start too bulshy. In the old days you passed your test and normally started on a crap lorry doing the crapiest job somewhere. You proved your worth and then got a better lorry as people moved on and your experience increased. You might change job for more money or a better job but you nearly always started at the bottom end until you had proved your stripes.
If I start with a new company I keep my head down and do a professional job. I suss them out they suss me out. If it doesn’t feel right I won’t work for them. Not rocket science.
I wasn’t advocating for drivers to be bolshy.
I also keep my head down in a new job, and expect to start at the bottom with an old motor and relatively crap work… no problem with that at all, it’s how it works.
However, it has to be a two way thing, mutual respect.
If you think you are being put on, pushed, taken for a ■■■■, or a combination of all 3 ( they all try you out) you either let them, or tell them in a civil and polite manner, not bolshy, that you won’t be.
Or you go with it and get ■■■■ ed on a regular basis.
It’s like a new girlfriend, every bloke knows that every woman tries to change a man, it’s just how much you allow them to do so, and how far you go along with it, to determine a happy relationship. That is why you get a range of blokes in relationships from wimpy doormat… to the boss in a relationship, and different grades in between…or am I reading too much into this.
Thing a lot of us don’t realise, is that a lot of planners have customers on their backs all day wanting answers. 'Wheres our load?" “How long is it going to be?” “We have another load, can you do the job?”. In order to give them accurate answers, keep things on track, the customer happy and off their backs, they need reliable updates from drivers.
Trackers might give them your location (although i’ve been shown on the M1 whilst in the yard in Manchester), but don’t tell them how much of wait you have at your delivery point etc. or as accurate ETA’s as a driver can give.
It’s quite simple… when i arrive at a job I phone up, when i leave a job I phone up & give eta for next, if theres a delay I phone up. We are talking 10-20 second phone calls & it keeps them quiet and off your back.
Our motors don’t have phones in… so I never have to deal with this.
However, once when I was working for a subbie on TNT night trunking, a little see you next Tuesday rang me up asking me when I would be leaving and why I’d been stood around for 5 minutes ‘chopsing’. The ‘chopsing’ was me getting directions and a hand drawn map off a poor bloke with a really bad stutter - it was taking him ages to explain it. What got me was how the caller knew I’d been standing around for a few minutes talking with this driver. Somebody must have made a call somewhere, and I felt it was petty point scoring.
Apart from that one incident I can’t recall ever receiving any other calls chasing me up. I’ve always been left to get on with it. Although 95% of the work I’ve ever done has been night trunking, so that’s probably why.
However, road closures… now there’s a topic I can tell a lot of stories about.
midlifetrucker:
I think too many drivers start too bulshy. In the old days you passed your test and normally started on a crap lorry doing the crapiest job somewhere. You proved your worth and then got a better lorry as people moved on and your experience increased. You might change job for more money or a better job but you nearly always started at the bottom end until you had proved your stripes.
If I start with a new company I keep my head down and do a professional job. I suss them out they suss me out. If it doesn’t feel right I won’t work for them. Not rocket science.
This is right. Like RobRoy, I’ve never started bolshy or found the need to become that way. Particularly in the late sixties when I started. I had more jobs than I can remember, not necessarily because I was taken for a ride, but I was easily bored.
ezydriver:
However, once when I was working for a subbie on TNT night trunking, a little see you next Tuesday rang me up asking me when I would be leaving and why I’d been stood around for 5 minutes ‘chopsing’. The ‘chopsing’ was me getting directions and a hand drawn map off a poor bloke with a really bad stutter - it was taking him ages to explain it. .
Now that WOULD tip me over the edge.
If that little ■■■■ is watching drivers to that degree he has ■■■■ all to do.
That would be one occasion when he should be told to go and ■■■■ himself in no uncertain terms, and then have a quiet word back at base.
(What could he achieve anyway, the 5mins were well gone, all he was doing was trying to assert authority).
That is not being bolshy, it’s fighting fire with fire, he obviously thinks it’s ok to take YOU for a ■■■■, so reciprocation is well justified.
Trackers, although I hate the ■■■■■■ things, were designed to track vehicles to estimate delivery times and eta.s etc, not to harrass the life out of a driver and put him under pressure and duress. A pressurised driver is a potential accident cause.
Does anybody on here actually work for that sort of firm under such condtions and pressure, if so how (and why ) do you put up with it?
I brought once every Week a Request for 100.- Austrian Schilling Coffee Money.
You get Expenses,the Boss said.
Yes,i replied,but your Job needs extra Steroid to do it,or would you want that i ran out of Energy and need for a Weeks Work 8 Day?
I got da Money from the one.
Da other did not. He not only needed an Agency Worker,but also a Hire Unit.
Its a different if i do my Work,or if i do them hard to sort out the Mess from Office as well.
My mate the biggest yes man I know takes all the crap thrown at him from office staff.
He goes without food or eats while driving and if I say to him why don’t you pull over and have your dinner he replys with the load is more important.
Goes non stop all day tips on break eats McDonald’s all the time as he says he can’t stop for proper food and weighs 24 stone.
Iv told him it’s going to kill him but he thinks if he doesn’t do as the office say he will get sacked
Thing is everywhere he works he is like this,even turns a steady job in to a stressful one…
Even gets himself more work than planned because he tips jobs early so they find him somthing else .
You just can’t tell him to go a bit more steady
yorkshire terrier:
My mate the biggest yes man I know takes all the crap thrown at him from office staff.
He goes without food or eats while driving and if I say to him why don’t you pull over and have your dinner he replys with the load is more important.
Goes non stop all day tips on break eats McDonald’s all the time as he says he can’t stop for proper food and weighs 24 stone.
Iv told him it’s going to kill him but he thinks if he doesn’t do as the office say he will get sacked
Thing is everywhere he works he is like this,even turns a steady job in to a stressful one…
Even gets himself more work than planned because he tips jobs early so they find him somthing else .
You just can’t tell him to go a bit more steady
Next time you see him, give him a big collective slap from all us here at Trucknet.
yorkshire terrier:
My mate the biggest yes man I know takes all the crap thrown at him from office staff.
He goes without food or eats while driving and if I say to him why don’t you pull over and have your dinner he replys with the load is more important.
Goes non stop all day tips on break eats McDonald’s all the time as he says he can’t stop for proper food and weighs 24 stone.
Iv told him it’s going to kill him but he thinks if he doesn’t do as the office say he will get sacked
Thing is everywhere he works he is like this,even turns a steady job in to a stressful one…
Even gets himself more work than planned because he tips jobs early so they find him somthing else .
You just can’t tell him to go a bit more steady
We have them also, but maybe not as bad as he sounds.He sounds like a complete ■■■■■.
The problem is though these guys tend to spoil it for the other drivers if you let them. They set a pace and the guvnor asks ‘Well if ■■■■ can do it there and back in x hours, why can’t you’ and if the driver is daft enough to listen and to try and compete that is when the rot sets in, and before you know it the job is totally ■■■■ ed.
Give him a slap from me.
he’s a good lad and not very often am struggling for time so can go at my own Lesuire aslong as jobs are delivered or collected on time the rest of my da is my own
) do you put up with it?