Any Co op Drivers

UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUMS THE UK PROFESSIONAL DRIVERS FORUM (INTERACTIVE)
21

I did a lot of agency shifts for Harthill and ■■■■■■■■■■■ depot.

All positives are true, and I can’t find really so much negatives… The vans are all right, most of the time I was driving the long volvo fridges, but sometimes I was driving blue 18tonner DAF LF with air-condition :wink:

As for my scottish experience, most shops are easy to get in, and the staff there is usually keen to help - in most cases I was just taking the cages out of the lift and they were doing the rest.

Many vans are organized quite smart - you have wide compartment on the left for two rows of chilled cages and narrow one for one row of frozen on the right, so no bothering with this bulk doors and moving the stuff arround (altough it sometimes happens).

Plenty of waiting. You don’t touch the load in the yard, so you just have to seat in the canteen and read the paper or watch TV - good part of job that is :slight_smile: I always dreamed of being paid for reading the books :wink:

The vans are clean inside and out, altough sometimes the mud on the floor makes it really slippy.

But there is one stupid thing, especially in ■■■■■■■■■■■ depot. The van, when it’s ready, it’s sealed on the bay. Then you have to drive about 8 to 50 metres (depends on which gate you are parked) when the seal is broken, they get a quit lurk inside, and seal it again. Whole road there is covered by yellow seals… :slight_smile:

22

I worked at the Co-op for two days on agency and have never been back since!!!

Don’t do it, the money is good but it isn’t worth the hassle. I worked from both the new and old burtley site and I’d say that only 75% of the wagons are 09 plates. These are mainly Scania refrigerator’s but the also have one or two new Merc tractor units.
There is still a small fleet of DAF LF tractor units and the good old Foden these range from 53 onwards.

I’m never going back again especially after the state of the wagons.

23

I’ve worked for the Co-Op for over 6 years now, at the Halesowen frozen depot, and it’s honestly the best job I’ve ever had !

Don’t get me wrong, at the end of the day work is work… and yes, some of the above comments about locations of stores and loading issues have just made me smile ( someone very obviously HAS done a fair bit of work with us ! ) but I’ve found them to be a great employer - you get out what you put in !

Each depot has a driver orientated focus group meeting once a month, so any issues that arise can be put in front of management in an open forum. Can’t speak for other depots but ours do look at making improvements wherever possible.

Most of our fleet are the long 6 wheel rigid type as mentioned, but all rear axles lift with the exception of rear-steer units. Again, can’t speak for other depots but we are lucky enough to have an on-site garage facility and the condition of the fleet is taken very seriously with even the most minor defects sorted promptly.

Yes, some days are longer and harder than others, and some of the routes don’t make much sense, but that is always balanced by other days with easy routes and a few drops. You have to take the rough with the smooth ! Overtime is not paid, each route is allocated X amount of hours, and any time you take over these hours is banked and given back to you as time off in Lieu when (if) you have accrued a day.

The class 1 work is easier work than the class 2, bigger stores and less drops, or trunking / cross-docking, but that’s the job everybody wants !

The pension is supposed to be one of the best in the business, full kit of uniform is provided and pay is good too… Circa £27k for class 2 and £28k for class 1. Pay rise hasn’t filtered through yet for 09 but is being negotiated. We’ve had 3 vacancies of late and nearly 200 applicants so that should tell you something !

Training is always on offer, and if you want to learn other aspects ( eg in the transport office ) then you can do this too. Putting it plainly, there are a few of the usual moaners in our place bleating on about how badly run the business is etc etc, but they’re the longest serving drivers and they never go get a job anywhere else !

Hope that sheds some light on things for you… I’ve heard you’ll be collecting trunks from our place in the near future so maybe we’ll catch up some day !

24

Bigg Mike:
and yes, some of the above comments about locations of stores and loading issues have just made me smile ( someone very obviously HAS done a fair bit of work with us ! ) but I’ve found them to be a great employer - you get out what you put in !

i guess that was aimed at me mike. :laughing: :wink:

to be honest they are one of the better class 2 jobs you can get. i thoroughly enjoyed working there on the agency and it was a steep learning curve for a newbie, but a good one. the class 1 work is a lot easier but can be a little more difficult, shall we say, with some of the reverses you need to do.

like you said sometimes you get long days and short days, i found they evened themselves out over the week. the most horrendous day i had was when they sent me to the isle of wight, it was only my third day with co-op and i had a nightmare. when i got back i said i never wanted to go there again. and they were really good and didnt send me there again where as a lot of companies would have just sent me to wind me up.

it couldnt have been that bad because i did apply for a full time job with them but seeing as they hadnt had a driver leave for over 2 years there were no spaces, so that tells you something about the company.

you could do a lot worse, put it that way :laughing: :laughing:

25

Sounds like the job requires some co-op on your part :laughing:

TAXI for a FANNY :laughing:

26

Lee G:
I’ve done a lot of agency work for the co-op on the chilled and frozen side out of Southampton. The things I found about the job are

Positive’s
Easy day really (compared to what you might get doing multidrop on the agency)
No chasing of you if you are running late
Always ask if you would mind doing a third run, never demand it
No self loading at base
Most drivers will help you out if you ask them

Negatives
Every single co-op is built on a hill
The loading area where you park will 9 out of 10 times be at the bottom of the hill
If it’s at the top of the hill you will have 6 heavy cages to take down hill
Keep an eye on the loaders as they will load your drops in the wrong order
Wagons are tired and gearboxes a little bit ‘crunchy’
Most drops are ignorant and won’t help you drag the cages in, they’ll just watch you do it.
If you have to block a road it will be as quiet as the dead of night until you turn the ignition off then it will become spaghetti junction on a Friday
A few drivers will just ignore you and hope you mess up.
You will get numerous complaints about the noise your fridge is making
A lot of the drops the reversing is blindside and very tight, just stop when you hear a crunch or scrape!
You get bollocked for taking rubbish back on the empties
A lot of tip and turn drops (drop load off, they unload cages, you take empties back)
All cages will be loaded with light on the bottom and heavy on the top, not much good when you have to wheelie them up a step.

Apparently the wages aint too bad but you know you have done a days work when finished.

things must have changed. before co op bought out alldays (chandlers ford) i used to get 3 or 4 drops on one load and that was my day. when co op took over it became 3 or 4 drops per load but you had 3 or 4 runs in a day.
then i did some work for the co ops depot at fareham/pompey (cant remember where they were) and it was non stop all day.
up here i wont do shop work for them. it just isnt worth the hassle. trunking to inverness or newcastle is ok but the shop work is a shambles, especially on frozen where you are literally taking a few boxes off the truck at some shops rather than cages

27

Just out of interest guys would you just look for a job on their site because i cant find any sections on there where driving is an option?

28

Class2ldn:
Just out of interest guys would you just look for a job on their site because i cant find any sections on there where driving is an option?

are you talking about looking for a vacancy on their website? dont bother with that mate. get your CV into them with a covering letter before they are looking for drivers. its pro-active and shows you are keen to work. you dont wait for a vacancy before you ask for a job. you get in there first before they start looking :wink:

29

Was my first class 2 job agency work with the Co-Op in ■■■■■■■■■■■■ The long Scanias gave me nightmares, especially being a n00b at the time and loads of fun trying to get into some of those shops.

Was an easy number though three at most deliveries a night, usually Edinburgh area, or up past Dumbarton. spent ages sitting around waiting for a run. Started at 3pm wouldnt be leaving the depot till 7pm typically.

Did the frozen at Harthill, did about 20 shops in the borders all over the place, was a bit of a nightmare. Each shop supposedly on a pallet i was told, didn’t tell me some pallets had two shops on them. Guess what i did gave one shop another shops stuff, call to the next shop you have to go back. Added an extra hour on.

Was a nightmare because i didn’t have a clue where i was going or how the deliveries worked was used to just roll cages. Think ended up something like a 16 hour shift, and because of getting lost driving time way out the window. Think with that shift ended up i had put the tacho in the wrong way and had to do a manual entry :laughing:

Looking back though would be a good run now, nice drive, nice sceanry out for the whole day, nice 12hour shift. Kinda shift i’d kill for rather than usually class 1, go do a localish drop, come back take another one out, then come back again.

I’d work for the Co-Op again, unfortunatly moved house and ■■■■■■■■■■■ and Harthill are to far away for me now otherwise i’d be back like a shot.

30

You can take your Co-op Scania round the TT course in the Isle of Man - like this:-

That’s the only bonus though,they all look like s*** drops to me just like the UK :laughing: .

31

NikNik:
I worked at the Co-op for two days on agency and have never been back since!!!

Don’t do it, the money is good but it isn’t worth the hassle. I worked from both the new and old burtley site and I’d say that only 75% of the wagons are 09 plates. These are mainly Scania refrigerator’s but the also have one or two new Merc tractor units.
There is still a small fleet of DAF LF tractor units and the good old Foden these range from 53 onwards.

I’m never going back again especially after the state of the wagons.

cant speak for the job,trucks, but tipped at birtley last sat , nice big yard , and a very nice freindly bunch of folks, come on in driv, we dont bite, id go there everyday, no problem

32

Seems like decent money but remember 24/7 I work for an agency that covers Birtley but don`t do it got a mate of mine that does & a couple of mates on full time, both looking for something else.

33

Done CRL at Alfreton (Co-op), busy days and they get their pound of flesh - found there was a tendancy to overload quite a few of the cages, had a couple of close things with cages tipping. But they did give me one of my best days driving when they sent me up into the Derbyshire Dales, delivering to lots of tiny stores, on lots of steep hills :slight_smile:, but it was cracking driving country. Never put under any pressure by the Transport bods, but some of the store staff could do with learning how to smile

34

ady1:

NikNik:
I worked at the Co-op for two days on agency and have never been back since!!!

Don’t do it, the money is good but it isn’t worth the hassle. I worked from both the new and old burtley site and I’d say that only 75% of the wagons are 09 plates. These are mainly Scania refrigerator’s but the also have one or two new Merc tractor units.
There is still a small fleet of DAF LF tractor units and the good old Foden these range from 53 onwards.

I’m never going back again especially after the state of the wagons.

cant speak for the job,trucks, but tipped at birtley last sat , nice big yard , and a very nice freindly bunch of folks, come on in driv, we dont bite, id go there everyday, no problem

The new Birtley site is good but the old isn’t. The guys that work there are spot on and were giving me loads of help and advice on my first shift.
But the locations of the stores in terms of access and suitability are the worst ever.
My first shift after my induction day was to take a tri-axle refridgerator trailer and the good old foden to Maske. They guys said you’ll be fine but need to watch it when you enter.
Little did I know that when I pulled up I thought the loading bay would be around the back to the store, no!!!.

I looked to my left and it was the main enterance, loading bay and car park.
Managed to reverse in, there was less than the width of my the windscreen for vehicles to get in and out. Not worth it I’m afraid.

35

Can’t wait for Lea Green to transfer. By what’s been said it can be a hard days work. I know a fair few Lea Green drivers who count actually doing one run hard work nevermind 3. And that one run is hand picked by them as well. About time the so called wincantons finest did some honest work and stopped drinking coffee and ■■■■■■■■ in the canteen.
Yours faithfully
disgruntled ex agency driver :smiley:

36

hi 1st time ive posted on this site so hope i do it right. I work for the coop and have done for about 11 years this is my second time back and thought every thing was fine but the job is going down hill!!! :confused: You are expected to work 3 whoe weekends in a row and have one off. Try and have a life no way be better off down the road and have a bit of a weekend off. Money was good but not when you break it down now for all the early shifts you do weekends and late shifts. Then there is the family friendly rota where they let lads have weekends off and early finishes so they can go and pick kids up or see them YEAH RITE!!! :imp: more like take the ■■■■ and normal rota lads have to do there work while they go home. There was a lot of good points but more bad now. :frowning: If you like days off through the week then this is the job for you but if you like to keep in touch with family and friends it is not keep away. The managers treat you like crap and there is no favours! its the co-operative way or noway unions are in there back pocket and dont even try to help as dont want to upset managers etc. The whole operation is run by muppets who either have never done the job,know nothing about trucks or have lost all touch with reality!!!