lilysgranpa:
Seemed like a good idea at the time.How wrong can you be…
+1 after redundancy/crap paid temp work.
although now ive (fingers crossed) got a possible perm position at an agency client ten mins from my house and decent hours/pay/pension/overtime/development.
because i am too thick to do anything else 
but, pretty much the same story, going out with my dad when i was a kid 
Used to go with a mates dad delivering kitchens to new build housing developments in the late 70s and early 80s. Always wanted to drive trucks from then on really.
Without an opportunity to get into transport when leaving school at 16 I went into engineering and during the next 10 years I had quite a promising career ending up in a design office.
Having earnt good money from a stint working in france I put myself through the HGV class 1 at 21 and sat on it for the next few years. A company merger changed the job completely and I started doing weekend agency work for a local dairy on supermarket deliveries. This in turn lead to an offer of full time work with the agency and the rest is as they say, history.
Would I have been better off sticking to the design office?. Probably but then I wouldn’t have had the great experiences or met some of the great friends I did driving trucks. I doubt I would have been substantially better off but I would have been working less, more sociable hours for that money. On the downside I’d probably have been living for free at her majesty’s pleasure because with some of the tossers I ended up working with after the merger had I not got out I would have likely stabbed somebody with a compass before too long.
With a family at home I wouldn’t go near driving trucks if I was starting over now but at the time I wanted to, and did, drive trucks to most European countries. I still get great pleasure out of the job but begrudge the fact that to earn a decent living wage I need to spend time away from my family.
Chers
Neilf
coz I wanted an easy relaxing job with no hassle or pressure with short hours & respect from planners. 
Got a little job washing my dads’ mates trucks, had a couple of rides out and loved it. Decided to go out and do the job because i know if i hadnt i’d kick myself in the future for not doing so, but for me its not a career for life, its fine for now but its a hard way to earn crap money. away all week for what £500 pw on average.
My childhood dream!
Life went to hell in a handcart following divorce needed a job to get by until I got things straightened out and a new business up and running, did my class one donkeys years ago so it was a logical option. Now do shifts when I’m quiet, find the driving (mostly night trunking) boring as hell but like the folk at the companies I do runs for and the money comes in handy.
Because of numerous amounts of days going with me dad when i was at school.Was always told if you become a truck driver i will kick your arse! He never did but wasnt best pleased when i told him.How i wish i had listened and taken art like he wanted me to! Cant think of one good thing about the job
I thought it was a good idea at the time 
lilysgranpa:
Seemed like a good idea at the time.How wrong can you be…
+2
Out with my dad as a kid. Thought not a bad way to make a living driving round listening to the radio all day.
Because i got made redundant from my last job. Got the perfect driving job, then got injured and lost it, so now do it cos i need the job and the money. Retraining though and as soon as i qualify and get a job i’ll be gone
where i grew up it was …work on a farm, in the woods,drive a lorry.
well i grew up on a farm ,took my dads advice and went self employed in the woods on a machine…Thatcher stuffed that up!..that left driving so ---------- after31yrs now in Canada .
jimmy.
I was a drivers mate / porter when I left college, went on to take my test and drive class 2, drove for a few years and loved it. Then one day saw advert for prison service on the side of a bus, applied just for something to do and been a prison officer 4 1/2 years now…hate it and can’t wait to get back on the road!
There are far worse jobs than driving, I know I’ve got one. I’m taking my class 1 in a few weeks and got someone calling me about a job tomorrow so hoping to be back driving in a month or so.
Joan (AA recovery driver from over swansea way) talked me into it.
Never wanted to do anything else,same as many others on here,my dad was a lorry driver for over 40 years.
Lorry daft from a young age my father worked on farms near Kirkcudbright and I used to go with Hayton Coulthards milk lorry after he picked up our farm for the rest of his run and got dropped of on his way back it was normaly a Seddon.Also used to go with a couple of Hallidays of Palnackie when they were going to pick up round timber at this time I would be 9/10 yrs old.I found a Commercial Motor in a newsagents in Dumfries when I was twelve and never bought a comic after that.Left the school Dec.56 worked in a garage untill March 63 and started my driving career at the tail end of one of the worst winters in memory so it was a babtisme of fire as they say and drove distance and local for the next 40 yrs tried factory jobs on three occasions during this time but never lasted more than a year and a half before I was back driving.But it all went haywire when in 2003 I had a nervouse breakdown which resulted in me having to surrender my HGV licence after 5 months off I started at Currie-European on the wash bay at the garage preparing them for test that took me to retirement which I now enjoy modelling trucks and also takeing photos of them.So its still a case of Keep on Trucking. Eddie
The only way a dumb white guy can earn a living wage 
mike68:
The only way a dumb white guy can earn a living wage
How do black people people earn money?
I’d always wanted to drive truck’s as a kid. Passed my class-1 three days after my 21st birthday.
Stopped driving trucks professionally in 2007…