Carl Usher:
robroy:
Truckbling:
The agency I work for make about £1 per hour over and above what I charge them, I know this because I’ve seen the agency charge sheet for ALL the agencies that supply the company where I work most often.Are you telling me that you seriously believe that?
You have probably seen a charge sheet that they ‘accidently’ left lying around for drivers to see more like. I reckon the genuine one would make for different reading.Robroy, could I offer you some friendly advice? Instead of feeling the need to post on EVERY thread made with your uninformed and often wrong opinions based on what your mate down the boozer has told you, it would perhaps be better if you paused and asked yourself, “do I know what I’m taking about and will my comments have any constructive input on the thread?” before bashing away on your keyboard and ultimately looking rather foolish when people who do know what they’re talking about come along and post.
robroy:
If you are going to have a pop mate at least have the courage of your convictions and back it up, instead of taking the easy way out, back pedalling, and denying it in an attempt to create an air of innocence.Clearly you still don’t believe Truckbling and the tiny profit margins the agencies make as you know better from listening to your “good mate of mine who has been agency for 10 years” (yet after a decade still lets agencies “[zb] him about and gets shafted on a regular basis” - sounds like a real pro at his game then!!
).
Here is the agency charge rate for the northern depot of a big logistics company for 2014 :
I sub-contract to them via the 3rd agency in the list. My rates early last year on nights were £11+VAT standard time, £16.50+VAT overtime & Sats, £18+VAT Suns/BHs. Profit margin for the agency per hour, £0.75, £1.13, £3.50 respectively. £1/hr profit on the standard rate is about as much as they can get in any area where there’s a lot of agency competition and they have to rely on volume if they want to make money and pay the driver as little as they can get away with.
robroy:
I couldn’t give a flying [zb] how much you love sitting by a phone every day, but I prefer the relatively secure aspect of a full time jobThere is no such thing as job security. Contracts come and go all the time and if you become surplus to requirements then they wouldn’t hesitate to lay you off.
I have never sat by the phone waiting for it to ring with work either. I get a text from the transport company planning manager on a Monday morning asking what my availability is for the week and I can 99% guarantee I will be working on those days. The agency don’t have any input in it but I inform them as a matter of courtesy. The only thing the agency does is transfers the amount on the bottom of my invoice into my account every week.
Full-time employed drivers always seem to have infinite amounts of time available to bad mouth agencies yet most of them have never done it, or if they have, they have expected to have a full weeks work right from the off with no handball, no distance, no London, no nights out, only 8 hours, can’t start til 8 need to be finished for 3 etc and because of their inflexibility have stormed off home in a sulk and concluded that all agencies are parasite scum when they don’t get what they want. Those that haven’t done it absolutely despise seeing the same agency driver in all the time and it eats away at them knowing that they are earning significantly more money for doing the same job, so then it becomes “all agency drivers are scum” as well. Yet if you point out to them that they too could enjoy a much better work/home life balance with money in the bank and being able to sleep in your own bed every night if you follow some simple rules it’s nearly always met with some feeble excuse such as “yeah but I won’t get my own truck” or “sounds too complicated to me.”
For those reasons alone it doesn’t matter how hard you try to convince them, they will always stick with the faux security of their comfort blanket which is doing 70 hours a week sleeping in a Topliner for £500 + £100 night out money and anyone that deviates from this “norm” who goes out there to better themselves is automatically labelled a “clever [zb]/nob/■■■■/[zb]” and this is where all the hostility, resentment and ‘them vs. us’ stems from - it’s sheer jealousy.
Personally, contracting to agencies and “mingling/networking” with the ‘right’ people has provided me with a lifestyle that I could have only dreamed about over a decade ago. I am in a very envious position of only working when I feel like it so I can enjoy my hobbies and pastimes and have a healthy sum in the bank allowing me to buy whatever I want when I want it. I also sleep in my own bed at the end of every shift, not some greased covered, sweat stained flea pit in a Topliner on a urine drenched MSA, layby or industrial estate with no room to swing a cat nor any basic hygiene provisions.
In summary, agency work is exactly what you make it. The opportunities are out there, seek and ye shall find, but in the meantime please quit the agency rhetoric and change the record if you’re not prepared to get off your behinds and do anything to improve your lot.
Bloody hell, I’m catching it from all sides today.
and I was the one that said ‘we were all drivers, agency or otherwise’ and admitted that any remarks I made were ‘just banter’
I’ll be getting a persecution complex next, and mince off in a strop towards the sunset with my lip curled
Well mate Ì’ve certainly rattled your cage, 8 paragraphs a virtual essay and a breakdown of accounts as some kind of justification
Thanks for your life coaching style of advice, tell you what, I’ll get back to you if ever I feel the need for it, but don’t hold your breath.
…but hey thanks for your concern.
Oh and can I just add and only speaking for myself here. I am certainly not jealous of YOU
fact!