newmercman:
Carryfast:
kr79:
More liky would you let a total stranger loose with fuel cards toll cards and god knows what else all over Europe.
Isn’t that exactly what happens most times that an international operator employs a new starter 
.Having said that it might explain the example in which I was told I’d got a job on international work in which similar circumstances to those you’ve described would have applied and then got a phone call before the start date explaining that they’d changed their minds and it would have to be working on their uk work side for the foreseeable future.
Luckily I hadn’t handed my notice in at that point which just left the question what if it had been an international only work type operator intead of one with a seperate uk and international running division.Which I didn’t even know at the time of the interview and at which the guvnor,who I spoke to then,didn’t seem to have any issues about sending a new driver all over Europe .
Experience tells me that the issue of experience and elitism bs in that sector of the industry has alway applied and I don’t think the ‘total stranger’ issue applies in the case of experienced international drivers changing between jobs which suggests that in many cases it’s subject to a type of closed shop which keeps out new drivers entering it from uk work. 
The only ones that were elitist are the type of bell ends you get on here gobbing off that a ‘supermarket driver’ wouldn’t be able to do the job, how the [zb] does anyone know what anyone has done before
Every single driver out there starts off the same, with no experience whatsoever, you learn that over time, sometimes from other people, sometimes from being lucky and more often than not from making a right balls up of the job 
I started out quite young, this used to attract some attention from some drivers, mostly banter, but some of them obviously had insecurity issues and I found the ferries were the worst place for it, especially the Zeebee boats. There’s me in my early twenties sat minding my own business and Billy Big Wheels and his mates sit at my table, all furry clogs and wallets with chains, gobbing off about how supertrucker they are and arranging to meet up the next day in Lokeren or Meer, then it starts, asking me if I’m driving a Transit or a 307 Merc, telling me how I have to do this and that with my T Forms, I said I have only got one T Form, that’s for my diesel, he started to look puzzled at this point, then I told him that my load is on carnet and he then finally STFU. Billy Big wheels was only going to Schipol (nothing wrong with that in itself) but he was Mr Continental and talking down to people he knew SFA about, even his mates knew he was someone who regularly brought himself to climax 
You cannot make assumptions about what a driver has done or is capable of based on the lorry they’re driving or the job they’re doing at the time, take that Dave bloke off Destination Doha, he’s running around on a night trunk, yet he’s probably done more M/E runs than anyone else, you’d look a bit of a mug if you started telling him that night trunkers ain’t got what it takes to do Euro work
I bet you wouldn’t have to tell someone like that about covering fruit or bringing temperatures down either, you wouldn’t need to tell him, because he’d ask and the reason he’d ask is because he’s been around long enough to know that he doesn’t know it all
Some people need to pluck their head from their arse and realise that they ain’t as good as they think they are. HTH 
Exactly.I’s not often that we agree on something.
BUT.The fact is in the real world of employed drivers,as opposed to owner drivers,their’s always been a type of pecking order in a lot of international running firms in which the system,both at driver and management level,often conspires against just letting the new ones get on with it with friendly advice as and when needed.As I said I think it’s mostly about international drivers ( and guvnors ) often seeing themselves as in a different division when really it’s just a case of a ferry crossing,drive on the right,and much better scenery depending on the destination.While the differences in language etc etc aren’t rocket science to deal with.
As I’ve said I consider myself as one of the victims of that type of bs in the industry while you’ve often seen my issues as all being my own fault.We’ll probably never agree on that argument but I think that I’m doing many potential new drivers a favour by warning them of that situation and I’m actually grateful that beefy4605 actually posted such typical bs because it’s a very real issue in that sector of the industry and it can cause ( a lot ) of problems,in the case of many new drivers,who want to get a break in that sector.It certainly would have helped me to have known about that issue when I started out.At least from the point of view of wasted phone calls and journeys looking for jobs that were never going to happen while listening to all the bs about starting at the bottom,by accepting zb work,making someone more employable in that sector than someone who didn’t.
Although having said that,as I’ve said,starting out at the age of 21 in 1980,I was lucky to find any job let alone get a start on somewhere like Inter City Trucks driving a drawbar outfit on international work.Which looking back was one my more impossible dream ambitious ideas at the time.It just would have helped to have known that to start with before I bothered to ask for a job and get into an argument about why not when they said no. 
Which just leaves the same type of of over ambitious idea of asking the agency when they were going to have any runs to Italy instead of zb local multi drop or building deliveries.Although at least the experience of all that helped when I knew if something sounds too good to be true it probably is which is why I never handed my notice in when someone finally said yes no problem you’ll be running all over Europe start as soon as possible.
