Strange to see FlyByNite having to advertise, there was a time when rock and roll was difficult to get on, I guess it’s just a reflection on the fact that young people don’t want to do the job any more, and given that it costs around £3,000 to get a Class 1 licence nowadays I can’t blame them.
Still, as you say if Carryfast wants to finally achieve his lifelong ambition then it’s the perfect opportunity.
Harry Monk:
Still, as you say if Carryfast wants to finally achieve his lifelong ambition then it’s the perfect opportunity.
Firstly I’d doubt if a 60 year old with a knackered back who hasn’t worked let alone driven a truck for the last 20 years needing to reapply for my licence and get a DCPC card will be at the top of their wish list. 
While the advert doesn’t exactly say regular distance international work inexperienced/uk drivers welcome even if I was in my 20’s. 
While ‘if’ I did go back to the job now ( unlikely ) it would be by using some of the equity in the house to buy a truck outright and meaning no repayments to make on it,until I’m dead and buried out of my estate and work as an owner driver until I reach retirement age in a few years.Which was my ‘real’ lifelong ambition.
Although having said that Tufnells are advertising locally for drawbar night trunking paying around twice as much as I was getting for the job.
Imagine double manning on a long run with Carryfast!
switchlogic:
Imagine double manning on a long run with Carryfast!
My nightmare, right there ^
And you’ve bought it right back, after months of expensive hypnotherapy 
Simon:
switchlogic:
Imagine double manning on a long run with Carryfast!My nightmare, right there ^
And you’ve bought it right back, after months of expensive hypnotherapy
There would be no problem there because I think that two people having to live in a truck whether on UK tramping or International would be a nightmare regardless and I’d have walked away from that type of job even if I’d have been offered it.
Carryfast:
Harry Monk:
Still, as you say if Carryfast wants to finally achieve his lifelong ambition then it’s the perfect opportunity.Firstly I’d doubt if a 60 year old with a knackered back who hasn’t worked let alone driven a truck for the last 20 years needing to reapply for my licence and get a DCPC card will be at the top of their wish list.
I doubt it either, but what I still can’t understand is why you couldn’t get a job doing continental work during the heyday of the British continental transport industry, when even newly passed drivers had no problem getting a gig driving to Germany or Italy.
switchlogic:
Reef:
switchlogic:
Did it really not cross your mind that starting on UK work for a company that had an international side might have been your foot in the door? Prove yourself on UK and the day will come, .Yep it was like that with S&K, they even stated this at the interview.
Same at Virginia. Few weeks on Ireland UK work followed by a couple of short European runs then boom one day ‘head to Liffey Meats and load for Portugal’
Ah used to meet Virginia wagons in Manchester with loads from Liffey. Have handballed thousands of those blue boxes!
Harry Monk:
I doubt it either, but what I still can’t understand is why you couldn’t get a job doing continental work during the heyday of the British continental transport industry, when even newly passed drivers had no problem getting a gig driving to Germany or Italy.
The only memories which I have of the 80’s and even late 70’s in that regard was a totally trashed labour market for anything with an unemployment figure to match and loads of drivers looking for such work many of them advertising in the situations wanted pages of Truck/Truck and Driver magazine.All of them making sure to genuinely or dodgily meet the all too very real ‘experience’ requirements for being considered for the job.
However no surprise,just like today,even in the worst of Thatcher’s employers’ utopia you could still walk into any agency or Jobcentre etc and find a job doing local multi drop/retail/building materials deliveries or in my case find a job on the council.Unless you’re trying to say that I preferred that,while everything else is a made up fiction of my imagination,then somehow as I said we are obviously talking about two different universes.
Although it seems strange how even in yours it contradicts itself by the idea that UK experience only drivers often had to do UK work based on the carrot of maybe jam tomorrow.Which I’m sure though wasn’t what happened in my case.More like as usual they saw naive,hopeful,enthusiastic mug written on my head.Nothing changes in that regard.
specialdrivers.co.uk/Job/information/9
So there we have it then or now an elitist,arbitrary,career progression regime using the E word to facilitate the ongoing discriminatory unfairness of it all.As I said the end result often being some drivers bored out of their skulls on a constant diet of local UK work which they weren’t allowed to break free of.As opposed to others moaning about too long spent away from home living in a truck.
Carryfast:
[
Firstly I’d doubt if a 60 year old with a knackered back who hasn’t worked let alone driven a truck for the last 20 years . . .
Indulge him. Wherever he posts, he is always a breath of fresh air and originality.
Now, about this Fourth Reich thing CF, is there anything we should be concerned about?
Carryfast:
specialdrivers.co.uk/Job/information/9So there we have it then or now an elitist,arbitrary,career progression regime using the E word to facilitate the ongoing discriminatory unfairness of it all.As I said the end result often being some drivers bored out of their skulls on a constant diet of local UK work which they weren’t allowed to break free of.As opposed to others moaning about too long spent away from home living in a truck.
Why exactly is it “unfair” or “elitist” that a company is offering exactly the opportunity which you claim to have been unable to find?
Who exactly is being “discriminated” against?
Harry Monk:
Carryfast:
specialdrivers.co.uk/Job/information/9So there we have it then or now an elitist,arbitrary,career progression regime using the E word to facilitate the ongoing discriminatory unfairness of it all.As I said the end result often being some drivers bored out of their skulls on a constant diet of local UK work which they weren’t allowed to break free of.As opposed to others moaning about too long spent away from home living in a truck.
Why exactly is it “unfair” or “elitist” that a company is offering exactly the opportunity which you claim to have been unable to find?
Who exactly is being “discriminated” against?
Did you actually read the ad/s.
Define ‘Permanent’ ‘UK’ Driver.As opposed to ‘International Driver’ ?.
Why does having only UK experience only buy the former categorisation ?.
Why isn’t UK and International work shared out equally among ‘all’ the drivers and why the obvious different categorisations between drivers in that regard.Why can’t UK only experienced drivers get exactly the same tuition from the experienced International drivers on that basis from day 1.Or for that matter new drivers with no UK or International ‘experience’.
If it looks like an elitist duck and quacks like an elitist duck and flies like an elitist duck then it’s a duck then or now.
switchlogic:
Here you go Carryfast, your new job Awaits!0
Just for the extra thread divert…
Is that an active advert Switch?
Got a mate in Hereford ( no, not one of those! ) looking for a change, he has been abroad many years ago and is up for a challenge, wants Europe work and is available for multiple weeks. Both me and him wonder though, if your away for say 4 weeks, what is your home time, is it just within WTD or do you get a few days more.
I know you won’t have the answers for this particular job but what would you expect if you’ve been a away for many weeks…
Edit… he was looking at S&K too, they seem to have updated the fleet etc but again he was looking at more than a week away, so any hints would be welcome…
Norfolkinclue1:
switchlogic:
Here you go Carryfast, your new job Awaits!0
Just for the extra thread divert…
Is that an active advert Switch?
Got a mate in Hereford ( no, not one of those! ) looking for a change, he has been abroad many years ago and is up for a challenge, wants Europe work and is available for multiple weeks. Both me and him wonder though, if your away for say 4 weeks, what is your home time, is it just within WTD or do you get a few days more.
I know you won’t have the answers for this particular job but what would you expect if you’ve been a away for many weeks…Edit… he was looking at S&K too, they seem to have updated the fleet etc but again he was looking at more than a week away, so any hints would be welcome…
FlyByNite is rock and roll work and you could generally expect (in the best case scenario) to be away from home from Easter to September. You might get home in between tours for a week or two but then again you might not. It is not a job for people who want to get home. With the extras you might take home a grand a week, but that is only during “the season”.
I have a mate who does it, he enjoys it but he does look very ill at the end of a tour, bloated, grey and disorientated. There is a lot of night work involved and a lot of double/treble driving etc. Your mate would probably start as a “third driver” and be flown to Place X then drive to Place Y and then fly back again.
Norfolkinclue1:
switchlogic:
Here you go Carryfast, your new job Awaits!0
Just for the extra thread divert…
Is that an active advert Switch?
Got a mate in Hereford ( no, not one of those! ) looking for a change, he has been abroad many years ago and is up for a challenge, wants Europe work and is available for multiple weeks. Both me and him wonder though, if your away for say 4 weeks, what is your home time, is it just within WTD or do you get a few days more.
I know you won’t have the answers for this particular job but what would you expect if you’ve been a away for many weeks…Edit… he was looking at S&K too, they seem to have updated the fleet etc but again he was looking at more than a week away, so any hints would be welcome…
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
why dont you try the irish paddys for a job.
they like to keep you out for as long as you can last so that by the time you get home your dog is likely to attack you.
Norfolkinclue1:
switchlogic:
Here you go Carryfast, your new job Awaits!0
Just for the extra thread divert…
Is that an active advert Switch?
Got a mate in Hereford ( no, not one of those! ) looking for a change, he has been abroad many years ago and is up for a challenge, wants Europe work and is available for multiple weeks. Both me and him wonder though, if your away for say 4 weeks, what is your home time, is it just within WTD or do you get a few days more.
I know you won’t have the answers for this particular job but what would you expect if you’ve been a away for many weeks…Edit… he was looking at S&K too, they seem to have updated the fleet etc but again he was looking at more than a week away, so any hints would be welcome…
Yup posted a few days ago
dieseldog999:
Norfolkinclue1:
switchlogic:
Here you go Carryfast, your new job Awaits!0
Just for the extra thread divert…
Is that an active advert Switch?
Got a mate in Hereford ( no, not one of those! ) looking for a change, he has been abroad many years ago and is up for a challenge, wants Europe work and is available for multiple weeks. Both me and him wonder though, if your away for say 4 weeks, what is your home time, is it just within WTD or do you get a few days more.
I know you won’t have the answers for this particular job but what would you expect if you’ve been a away for many weeks…Edit… he was looking at S&K too, they seem to have updated the fleet etc but again he was looking at more than a week away, so any hints would be welcome…
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
why dont you try the irish paddys for a job.
they like to keep you out for as long as you can last so that by the time you get home your dog is likely to attack you.
Sorry mate, he’s not wet.
He’s had his time behind the wheel, he’s divorced with grown up kids so time away isn’t an issue. He just fancied time abroad…
switchlogic:
Harry Monk:
Carryfast:
Now seemingly also able to walk into any agency office and ask for a few days work as and when he feels like it while others can get as much distance work as they want.I forgot to answer this point of yours, so I’ll do my best to address it now.
I don’t claim to be able to “walk into any agency office and ask for a few days work as and when I feel like it”. I’ve been registered with the same agency for the last three years, and when I moved on to my boat I went to see them and explained what I wanted, namely as much work as they could provide me with between September and March, but that I wouldn’t be available to do anything between March and September. So, being an agency they work around that. Perhaps they would rather I was available in July and August, which are busy months, but I’m not. There is some advantage to them in that when work slackens off, typically in February, I don’t get bent out of shape if they don’t have work for me.
So again, I didn’t use my magical powers or “the Old Boy network” to get the work I do, simply went along to see them and said my thing. It’s not rocket science.
This. If my short stint as a failed transport manager taught me anything is how hard it is to find decent, well presented reliable truck drivers who’ll turn up and do what asked when asked so if your are one of these most companies/agencies will do their level best to work around your needs
I figure you are being tongue in check, but I will make the point anyhow, I understood you did an absolutely marvelous job as a TM setting up a new depot from scratch with no previous management experience etc…I thought it was a sad day when they let you go…I agree you were too candid perhaps on social media…but ironically that job could have lead to bigger positions in bigger companies where you could have had a lot of influence and improved drivers conditions…and also earned really fat pay checks, which let’s be honest is always nice to receive…
rsg1234567:
switchlogic:
Harry Monk:
Carryfast:
Now seemingly also able to walk into any agency office and ask for a few days work as and when he feels like it while others can get as much distance work as they want.I forgot to answer this point of yours, so I’ll do my best to address it now.
I don’t claim to be able to “walk into any agency office and ask for a few days work as and when I feel like it”. I’ve been registered with the same agency for the last three years, and when I moved on to my boat I went to see them and explained what I wanted, namely as much work as they could provide me with between September and March, but that I wouldn’t be available to do anything between March and September. So, being an agency they work around that. Perhaps they would rather I was available in July and August, which are busy months, but I’m not. There is some advantage to them in that when work slackens off, typically in February, I don’t get bent out of shape if they don’t have work for me.
So again, I didn’t use my magical powers or “the Old Boy network” to get the work I do, simply went along to see them and said my thing. It’s not rocket science.
This. If my short stint as a failed transport manager taught me anything is how hard it is to find decent, well presented reliable truck drivers who’ll turn up and do what asked when asked so if your are one of these most companies/agencies will do their level best to work around your needs
I figure you are being tongue in check, but I will make the point anyhow, I understood you did an absolutely marvelous job as a TM setting up a new depot from scratch with no previous management experience etc…I thought it was a sad day when they let you go…I agree you were too candid perhaps on social media…but ironically that job could have lead to bigger positions in bigger companies where you could have had a lot of influence and improved drivers conditions…and also earned really fat pay checks, which let’s be honest is always nice to receive…
BTW a totally unrelated addendum…I was just browsing the net and noticed a photo of a very young you in a coach, next to your brother and your dad’s truck…I can’t explain why, perhaps for a lot of reasons, but that photo deeply moved me …one to be proudly displayed on the wall I hope.
Last time I went to Tescos, I had to sit watching a screen for two hours, like an idiot, waiting for my bay,and then sit on a metal seat, nah, I can live without going back there.
Fair play for admitting your mistake on here, nobody’s perfect, all we can do is try our best to drive as safely as possible, while we do our job.
Sploom:
Last time I went to Tescos, I had to sit watching a screen for two hours, like an idiot, waiting for my bay,and then sit on a metal seat, nah, I can live without going back there.
Fair play for admitting your mistake on here, nobody’s perfect, all we can do is try our best to drive as safely as possible, while we do our job.
I am so glad that I never have to go to supermarket RDCs (or indeed pretty much any other RDC for that matter).