Author: Buck

I applied for this new driving job because Hermes has let me down and the tax man had just robbed us blind so we needed cash. I’m really glad I did. The job is a doddle and it’s loads of dosh. So far I’ve not had a single thing said to me. No-one on my back, no frantic ‘phone calls, nothing. They are so relaxed that yesterday, after I’d been off all day, I was about to leave the yard in my truck when I noticed I still had the truck keys from the night before. No-one had said anything. I drove around and handed them in, the guy said “Oh, yes. I was going to ask you about them.” Anyway, it’s all good. Apart from the fact that it’s the whole of my life at the minute. I’m either working, asleep, or bog-eyed, wishing I was asleep. That should change when I adjust to sleeping in the day. At the moment I ain’t nothing but tired, to borrow from Mr Springsteen. Still, it’s what I signed up for, and it’s better than what I expected. The first week was 4 days working and the 4½ hour induction. Which is to say, 4½ hours day rate, 3 shifts Mon-Fri night rate, and 1 shift Saturday night rate. 38 hours in total. Friday was the test of my snake-oil charlatan accountants. They came through.  I earned £486.23 , paid the accountants £23.28, paid my N.I., PAYE, and Corporation tax and still came out with £426.10 Gotta love the slimy weasels. I did some working out (but got the pay rates wrong) and thought that would put me on about £40k (for 48 weeks, 48 hours per week) it’s actually £33.5k. Bah. Penury. The thing to remember though is that when I was busting my balls in de-kit, or freezing my arse off order picking in –28C, I was on £18.2K, taking home £290 per week.When I get to the proper pay rate (another 10 weeks) I’ll be taking home about £631 per week. It’s not a direct comparison as I’m doing another day’s worth of hours nowadays, but on the other hand my old job was so hard I didn’t have it in me to do any extra hours. Also, I’m assuming that as weekly pay, but if I take 4 weeks holiday a year (no pay) then it averages at about £583 per week.  Anyway, that’s all back-of-fag-packet calculations based on one week’s pay. Guideline at best. My point is; I spent all that money and went through the ordeal of lessons, tests, and the horror of gaining experience for a better paid, easier job. I’ve finally got it. By this time next year we should be minted. We’ve got that piss-take tax bill to pay off, then another £1,500 to pay the tax man in June or July, but that is actually forced savings. I was only self-employed for 8 months last year, I’ll have paid £3k towards the […]

First week at the new job done and dusted. There have been some minor moments, mostly with me getting lost and them not providing addresses, but all in all it’s been a good week. I got paid for my induction on Monday, I was off Tuesday while the not-very-good guy at the agency faffed about, Wednesday someone else took over and I’ve worked Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. There is no work tonight (Sunday), which they texted me to tell me. So plenty of good here. They text you to tell you if you are in or if you are not (loads better than most, who’ll ring you and say “Get in in 10 minutes” or “Why aren’t you in work? Didn’t you get our telepathic message?” 4 consecutive nights work. So there’s work available. Good pay rates, which get a lot better in another 11 weeks. The job is a doddle. They expressly forbid drivers from doing blind side reverses. Woo-hoo! All their yards then are big enough that you can spin around and reverse in on the drivers side. Easy life. They put out big bins of free packets crisps for the drivers. Crisps give me heartburn, so not much use, but a nice thought. And amazingly, they actually care about the drivers! Most firms treat drivers as a necessary evil, like customers in shops except they don’t have to be nice to them. Here they ring you up and tell you that it’s snowing so slow down, pull over and wait it out if you feel you have to. *gobsmacked*   The bad points are; nights are never great and the shifts haven’t been that long. A smidge over 8 hours per shift this week (after taking off the 45 minutes a day unpaid break.) You expect a 10 hour day average at least. To be honest, apart from the relatively short shifts, it’s a great job. I am grateful for Hermes dropping me in the shit. Had it not have been desperate times I wouldn’t have applied for this after reading about it online. The assessment (‘harder than your driving test’) and their health and safety mania would have put me off. I was forced into applying but I’m so glad I did. If it works out as it seems to be, I reckon this could be my job for life. I have filled in my agency timesheet and my accountant’s expenses form. I just need an address for the former and one thing clarifying for the latter then I’m set up. Once you’ve done it once and know what you’re doing it’s easy. I hope. Next week we’ll see how this actually translates into money in the bank. Hermes don’t know I’ve got another job, but so far I’ve had those 11 days work, an offer of one shift and enquiries as to whether I’d be available on two Sundays. So potentially 14 days work since the 24th of December.  “We never have a […]

I applied for that Walkers Crisps job. They had me fill in a load of paperwork then come back for a driving assessment on Monday. Walkers are really strict. The guy said they were health and safety mad. Other places accept that shit happens, there they go out of their way to make sure it never does. Fair enough. But this meant a really stringent assessment. I hate them at the best of times. I drive for a living, but having someone sat there watching and judging me freaks me right out. I was a bag of nerves on Sunday night. Though surprisingly I slept alright. When I got up I was a bit nervous but mainly just keen to get it over. The assessment was first thing, at 0600. I passed. Yay! Then I had to sit through hours of Powerpoint. There was supposed to have been two of us there but the other guy didn’t show, so the assessor had to drag it out to fill the allotted time. I had to suffer death by powerpoint, after an ungodly o’clock start, and the relief of getting the assessment out of the way, and an onsite cooked breakfast. It was hard. I  finally ticked all the boxes. (Incidentally, there was a test on driving/ working time directive, hours. Only 7 questions, –eg drives for 2.5 hours, other work for 2 hours drives for 2 hours, 20 minute break. Legal Y/N-  apparently I’m the first one to get all 7 right! Go me.) That was a hellish long day/ 5.30 hours. Give me some work! Go! Patience, young padawan. Then the agency that runs the contract for Walkers workers, G.I. Group stepped in. They had to chase down my references. Not rocket science, you’d have thought. Pick up ‘phone, has he worked for you, is he OK? Job’s a good ‘un. No. Somehow Drivers Direct has to take a day or two to give me a reference. Though it took them less than half an hour to ring me and say if I needed any work they could get me shifts. So there’s that. Then the guy who handles the accounts at G.I. rang me saying he didn’t believe that Think Accounting (who run my ‘Buck the Truck Ltd’ company accounts) were accountants, he thought they were an umbrella company and as such G.I. couldn’t deal with them. I kind of thought the clue was in the name, but rang them anyway. Yes, they are indeed accountants. Quelle surprise. And they work with G.I. on lots of their contracts. *headdesk* Emailed G.I. A woman from G.I. just ‘phoned me. Yes, they do deal with Think, but I’d need to get a blank invoice template from Think, with my company name, my name, and address and fill it in with my hours/ rates for each week then send that in with my timesheet to G.I. each week, they would then confirm it and pay Think who would pay me. Rang Think. […]

Last post I was breathing a sigh of relief that the 9 days of no work were over and I was back to full time work. I had to have the weekend off by law, then nothing all week. It’s now Sunday, 9 days with no work again. Monday and Tuesday I didn’t mind, to be honest. I had taken the car in for it’s MOT and it’s been raining every day so I didn’t fancy riding in. (8.6 miles, just looked it up on Google maps. Nearer than I thought.) After that though, all bills and no work so no money I was getting worried. The MOT was a bit grim. My poor little Polo has been run into the ground. It’s an ‘05 plate VW diesel, so in theory should be good forever. As I say, the previous owner just ran it into the ground though.Nothing has been repaired, loads just botched. When I tried to change the oil filter I saw that the cover underneath the engine had screws missing and was secured by cable ties. It’s that level of bodging that I’m having to overcome. Anyway, I needed a new arm for something or other, a new suspension coil, bushes, and a several small things. I told him (in light of the ‘managed decline’ ethos of the former owner) to give it a full service. All the filters, oil, etc. That was £180! I figured do it once, know that it’s done, then just do the basic service myself in future. The worst thing was he said the headlight beams were off alignment because the clips that hold them in place were missing. But they are not a part you can buy separately, so for the sake of a few pence clip you need to buy two new headlights. He said he’d try to bodge that for me, and he did, thankfully. Then when he had it stripped he noticed the brake cylinders were dripping onto my rear brake pads. So new cylinders and pads as well. All in, it cost me £599.09! (+ £54 for a tyre I got myself.) Then £110 for tax for the year. With the £3,466 tax bill supposed to be paid by the end of the month. (You don’t have to, you can pay it by the end of February, with tiny interest.) All in all, I am more than usually focused on getting some work.   My Tory tax dodge thing has come through. I’ve just signed the paperwork and am now a managing director of Buck the Truck Ltd. I think.  Fat lot of use that is if I’ve got no work. It’s such a bummer because this is an ideal job for me, especially when they move to the site 1.3 miles from my doorstep. But I have bills to pay. So tomorrow I’m applying for the agency that recruits for Walkers Crisps. The online forums say I’m in for a grilling. It’s supposed to be a […]

After my last post, worrying about not getting any work, it’s been all hands to the pumps. I went in New Year’s day then they texted me the next day asking could I make it in ASAP, I did and that was that, non-bloody-stop since. I had one day off last week after 5 days, then worked 6 days this week. Not very many hours per shift unfortunately, but at least by being available at the drop of a hat I’m getting the shifts. I was talking to one driver and he said he’d only got 2 shifts in the week, they’d cancelled him on all the others. It might be a coincidence but after I couldn’t make it in that Sunday (‘cos they hadn’t asked me and I was in the middle of a 22 mile run) I didn’t get any work for 9 days. I did them a favour and I’m in every day the law allows. Which reminds me, there’s a manager at work who is a complete tool. One of those who has to be at the centre of everything. I asked the drivers if I have on day off in week (reduced weekly rest) can I then work 6 shifts before taking the requisite compensatory rest. They were debating it when he butts in “5 shifts, two 11 hour rests. End of!” This is utter bollocks. The law says weekly rest is 45 consecutive hours, or reduced rest of at least 24 hours, once in a fortnight, to be made up in full the next week. 11 hours is the full rest on a standard day (can be reduced to 9 hours, 3 times a week.) Then when I was filling in my duty sheet he pulled me over my breaks. Told me just to put that I’d had 45 minutes, not the 1 hour 20 I’d been waiting. Work stop you half an hour a day for breaks, the rest is for your Working Time Directive. By the WTD law you can only work 60 hours maximum in a week, 48 hours average. The way driving firms get around it is by using Period Of Availability and breaks, neither of which count as ‘work’. So I can only drive for 9 hours a day (10 on two days) but if I’m sat around waiting to be loaded I can be at work for 15 hours a day. But only ‘work’ for, on average, for say 10.30. This is all driver crap that is of no interest to anyone else, none to the driver either, truth be told. I only mention it to explain when he told me to alter my break (“we prefer you to use ‘break’ because POA cuts into your WTD hours.” Wrong.) he was limiting the amount of hours I could work. Work must be using the WTD bit on the sheet to keep a track of how many hours you do that count as ‘work’. By altering it I’m going […]