Hi everybody. Im working boxing day for £40ph. I remember working boxing day 2006 for £30ph. Something somehow doesn’t seem right. Whats everone eles getting? And why are wages so bad given the problems with driver recruitment?
I will be on £26.**Hr boxing day and Friday/Saturday whilst I go to Germany and back so I’ll get the hours in. Full time employee so not a mad one off agency figure just my overtime rate.
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I know it’s a bit of a cliché, but I wouldn’t get out of bed for £26 (~$52 hr), on a public holiday. Depending on what size truck, here Boxing Day rates are $80~$100 hr.
A litre of diesel fuel costs $1.60, a loaf of bread (not the cheap supermarket rubbish) $4.00 and quality milk $160 a litre.
$160 a litre SDU! Jeez, you could buy a cow here for that! 
have a great upside down Antipodean Christmas my friend.
Xmas down under will be nearly over by the time you wrote that!
Merky Crimballs to anyone still sober enough to read this 
Boxing day price 
the rest of the year it’s $1.60 a litre.
I had a wonderful Christmas thanks, I hope yours was equally enjoyable.
We were told there was no work at the depot Boxing Day ( yes ) so they wanted you to do a shift swap , shift swaps have to be done in the same week so one of my rest days 27 th / 28 th , I said no as I wanted the 4 days off ( 25 th - 28 th ) , I’d just have Boxing Day off unpaid .
They wernt happy so said have Boxing Day off unpaid & work 20 th as a extra shift ( since they have said they will pay £100 per extra shift from something like 18 th - 28th ) ,
But I’m sure theyl try to weasel out of paying the £100 by saying it was a shift swap , even though they said shift swaps can only be done in the same week , not bothered as off , though ■■■■■■ off as even though I’ve had the covid jab , mrs tested me & test is positive for covid !!! , not feeling well at all .
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Anything that starts with the hangover from hell can only get better from that point on. Cheers 
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Never worked Boxing Day ever.
I have took long Christmas hols since my kids were little, and just carried it on ever since.
I’d be thinking…
Hmmm off on Boxing Day after a hectic Christmas day both spent with my lovely wife and our family.
Or.
A crap Christmas day, going to bed early for next morning spent in a f kin truck whatever the pay rate…let me think. (for all of 2 seconds.)
And I’d be jacking around October after being told.
My Stobbie mate rang me earlier, he was on his way to Birmingham his Christmas had been completely rubber ducked.
He tells me they even got 4 drivers in to sit around the yard all day (with no work) …in case any body rang in sick 
… have they never heard of ‘At home on call’ ffs?
Nah working over Christmas main period, the immeadiate sentence that springs to mind contains the words…‘Game of soldiers’.
Is Boxing Day not a public holiday there?
Apart from retail and essential services, this joint all but shufs down from the last Friday before Christmas until the first Mondays in the new year. Christmas Day, Boxing Day and new year are (paid) public holidays.
When I were a lad…
Bank holidays used to be a time when just about all retail shops etc closed. Now many shops do open although often for shorter hours.
Much the same with Sundays: it used to be that most shops closed but now many do open for part of the day. 10hr00 to 16hr00 hereabouts.
Pay has changed too. When I started it was double time, with a guarantee of at least 4hrs if you had to do owt, plus a full paid day off later. Being expensive it rarely happened.
Now it seems to be a lot less pay than before, and seems much more common.
i was half shocked this year my local morrisons petrol station hasnt changed the opening hours at all over xmas still open 6am to midnight as usual
Still creeping nearer 24/7 or maybe 365/365 then.
to be fair when i worked for tesco doing the extra stores one store/petrol station near surberton told me they made over 100k a week just on food and drinks.
I guess it pays to be open if you can flog stuff during the night etc it pays for the night staff that are then stacking shelves etc
It’s a “Bank Holiday”, I don’t know if that is the same as a “Public Holiday”.
There’s no law that says employers have to “recognise” a Bank Holiday, they can just keep the business open as usual, also no obligation to pay leave for a Bank Holiday
From the government website (gov.uk):
Bank holidays
Bank or public holidays do not have to be given as paid leave.
An employer can choose to include bank holidays as part of a worker’s statutory annual leave.
When I worked four-on-four-off in the recycling industry, Boxing Day was considered “a normal work day”, we go no extra consideration (pay or holidays) for shifts that fell on any of the Bank Holidays.
In reality Boxing Day was the worst working day of the whole year, because everyone dumped their Xmas rubbish at the supermarket recycling sites as if they were dumping rubbish at a council tip. Hence all the supermarkets (at least those in my surrounding area) have these days ended their provision of recycling facilities - and I don’t blame them.
The overall problem is the UK’s overreaching “Protestant work ethic”, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the logistics industry. I even saw a guy on FB complaining his firm was shut for two days over Xmas, and did anyone have any work for 25th and 26th December
There’s no driver shortage, that’s just a permanently recirculating myth: The problem with driver recruitment is that there’s a ratio of 100:1 of people with an HGV entitlement versus vacancies for capable drivers. Every employer I speak to complains they struggle to find decent drivers who actually know what they’re doing, and who they’d be confident to hand over a set of truck keys to.
For example: Some unwise TM handed over a set of keys to this schlub, who it appears decided this morning to try to do a U-turn on a foggy B-road with a steep gradient complete with an escape lane made of gravel/sand. Now he’s well and truly stuck and road is completely blocked.
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I guess in this case “You Can’t Do It”
Boy am I glad I don’t have to drive for B&Q anymore
That’s on top of my day rate of £165 so it can add up. So far though everything has gone really smooth so I have only done 23.5hrs over the two days. Hopefully and nice 12hr or so tomorrow will get me back to the yard so to ‘normal’ people a standard 35hr week then off till Thursday.
EDIT: This is replying to star_down_under’s first comment to me.
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Was he going to Scarborough store?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
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More like “He’s on the road to nowhere”
