Following on from the “fed up” thread and not to rub any noses in it, more to find out what you Lads and Lasses think and is the grass any greener elsewhere 
I work for a local company, driving an artic. The unit isn’t the best a W plate E.R.F. Ec 11 but is clean and well maintained and I pull curtain siders about 3 days a week and bulk tankers the other 2. I only work Monday to Friday and am normally home for 17.00 quite often earlier. I only do a night out once in a while which I dont mind at all, and to be honest i wouldn’t mind if I had to do 3 or more a week. The wages won’t break the bank and normally take home about £320 a week, we also get £4 pounds a day meal money and on the bulk runs we get a £23 night out money, even if we don’t do a night out as it’s normally paid on distance, so can usually take home with meal and night out money about £380-£390 a week.
The Transport manager is a great lad, but to be fair hasn’t got a clue about transport so is often overuled by the ops manager, who can be a bit of a pillock at times.
Now I read this it doesn’t seem like a bad job, but as a company they arn’t the best as basically they couldn’t give a hoot about any of the staff and are treated like dirt, their health and saftey policy is nearly non existent and only do enough to keep the H.S.E. at bay but i would guess that if they really looked into the place they would have a field day, but don’t get me wrong there are only three drivers and have never run bent and wouldn’t be expected to.
I appologise for the long winded post but have for a while been wondering if maybe i should move on and is the grass any greener elsewhere or am i on a downer and should be thankfull for a decent job.
Cheers
Dave.
Slightly off topic but your Transport and operations manager are clueless yet probably earn more money for less hours (would this be true?) and this is something that annoys me about this industry.
mrpj:
Slightly off topic but your Transport and operations manager are clueless yet probably earn more money for less hours (would this be true?) and this is something that annoys me about this industry.
The ops manager is an ex driver but has now gone upstairs, so usually expects the unreasonable and wants us to do what he never would. I cant complain about the transport manager he does a good job with his limited knowledge of transport and we dont take the mick out of the job and try to help him out when we can.
Dave K.it sounds as if you have a reasonable number there and if your reasonably happy then at least you have some time in which you can look for something better. As for the grass being greener? well speak to ten people and get ten different views, I think you have to call it as you see it at the time, after all its your livelyhood at risk if the other side turns out to be the wrong side and you end up worse off or even worse, unhappy at work. When you consider the amount of time we spend at work, as long as the job pays a living wage then job satisfaction has to be a high priority. There’s nothing worse than being miserable at work.
Davek,It sound’s as if you got a no bad job there(nearly).We have had a few lads leave thinking that the grass is greener on the other side.They soon found out that it ain’t and have since come crawling back.Our job ain’t hard ( if it was i’d be gone) 
and the hourly rate is no to bad ( could be better) 
we only work monday to friday and don’t get much hassle from the transport office.if we get any hassle fae anyone we tell them and they just pull us off site with frieght still on trailer.soon get’s a good reaction from the like’s of safeway’s,tesco’s,etc when their freight ain’t where it should be ( on their shelf’s)
Going back to the time’s i was on the rigid’s doing multi-drop in Edinburgh.I had a delivery on for safeway’s at ferry rd,i reversed on to the bay and battered on the roller shutter door.From behind the shutter came them word’s ffffffff offffffffff.So i did.I got a call fae the office asking if i had been to safeway’s,i said yes i’d been there but was told to f offff from behind the shutter.He told the guy on the phone what had happened and he said could you ask the driver to come back as it’s till roll’s that i had on and they needed them. The office did ask but i told them that i was away from the area and was not going back to that area till tomorrow morning.( i was sat round corner) The following day i went to Safeway’s and hit on the shutter door b4 reversing on the bay,it went up and the guy said who was the guy yesterday that was delivering this pallet . I said me,the look on his face was a treat.I said did you get your ■■■ chewed Big style,well m8 it’s like this,next time don’t tell a driver to fffffff of from behind a shutter door.As you found out to your cost&the companies cost for a failed delivery,it sometime’s backfire’s on you.doesn’t it.
In answer to your question “is the grass greener on the other side?”
I think my signature sums it up perfectly
The grass is always greener on the other side…
Usually from being well fed on copious amounts of bull pooh.