This time last year I was flat out right upto Christmas eve with full week’s worth of shifts with overtime built in.
This year, not only have I not yet been booked in for anything parcel trunking nights wise, but I’m not even getting any odd-shift supermarket work all of a sudden?
WTF?
I was expecting January to be like this - not frigging December! Has anyone else based in the southeast having this problem?
Either there’s widespread “no work”, or a false rumour has started that I’m Savile’s after-hours entertainments manager or something?!
I haven’t noticed any big Christmas rush this year either. Usually our mob have an extra unit and trailer and 2 or 3 extra 18 tonners on hire, along with agency drivers to cope with the extra work. This year we’ve only got 1 extra 18t and to be honest, most days it probably isn’t really required.
I expected this years lack of pre-Xmas rush, and there was a similar lull last year too. Maybe not as noticeable, but it was there. I don’t expect the post Xmas period to be great either, but that’s why I stash away a proportion of my income over the year to cover such eventualities & all being well I shall be heading to warmer places to relax on a beach and drink a few beers. Now all I gotta do is find a willing female volunteer to assist me with this difficult post Xmas task
Yes, I’ve taken the trouble to stack up some holiday pot as well, to see me through the lean periods ahead. I was hoping to spend it on an ADR course instead, but I don’t reckon I’ll get enough work as not to have taken the entire pot before the end of january at this rate…
I don’t want a repeat of the beginning of this year, when I was new to the agency, and had no pot. Signing on for 9 weeks led to a lot of stick both on here, and other places. I won’t be doing that in the new year, as if necassary I see myself commuting to London unpaid to get the work there if need be. The crunch will come when the car runs out of fuel, and there’s a ■■■■ up with the wages that week… Then there’s the “only get offered shifts dropped by others snowed out” aspect, or even me being snowed out myself, and not filling a plum shift. All risk and little upside this Christmas by the looks of it.
starfighter:
They’ve managed to find enough people daft enough to work for eight quid an hour.
Funny you say that… Got offered a shift yesterday, and I said “Yup, I’ll take that - what’s the address?” got told "Oh, i’ll just find out. Ring you straight back. 1 minute later… “Sorry bud, we’ve filled all three shifts local to the depot.” FFS.
I was wondering myself if it was a case of Me filling at my minimum for saturdays, verses someone else filling it locally at the midweek day rate…
i got talked into working my day off yesterday. not happy about it and now its december, saturdays are now normal runs instead of shutting down at 2pm. thats us now running 24/7 from this depot with pressure to work maximum hours every week for the entire month. thats fine if you need the money and have nothing better to do but i dont want 6 shifts any more so i am quite happy with 5 on 2 off. that went out the window on the first day of the month
dessy:
Most agencies around Enfield,Essex and Herts are paying less than my fulltime trunk job!
ALL agencies in Maidstone pay less per hour than full timers get. It wouldn’t be worth doing agency at all if it were not for the TC topup as it is!
I’m already looking for a FT job again, but it’s all “upto” 75 hour weeks for £500 which just ain’t good enough in my book, not when you’re spending over £100 in fuel getting there, and taking home only £360 odd of the gross pay. Who are these guys who’ll work 6 days a week for a net door-to-door hourly takehome rate of around £3.50ph. Where’s the 4x12hr week for £500? Even that’s barely more than £10ph for monday-friday nights, so it’s not as if I’m asking for a lot here!
Supply & Demand is part of the reason for low wages as well as Stobbies
But it is quiet up here in the North East even some of the people who run fridges are ticking over by that they are taking 20 pallets down to London instead of 26 this is to some of the C&C
