If I am ill I will get the job done if I can do it safely, if it is my family they always come first.
Good to hear some positives about stobart,when I was taken ill during my time with them I was taken ill during a shift and when finished and went straight to hospital and I was that Ill doctors told my family they were not hopeful,anyway to cut a long story short they were very good for six months after during my rehabilitation then after the HR brigade got involved and decided that I’d never be fit to drive a truck again and finished me on ill health.i had a meeting with them one evening and said my rehabilitation is nearly complete but they would not have any of it and I was gone…
Six weeks later I was working for another firm just 8 months after doctors thought i would not make it.
Stobart HR said when your fully recovered contact us and you can apply for employment again Iv done this 8 times now and got nowhere.
I tried legal action about been finished but got nowhere,even office staff at my depot were disgusted at what had happened…
Like I said good to hear the positives of the two lads in previous posts but sadly when my situation got in the hands of HR the good will shown by my depot manager counted for nothing 
The above illustrates what’s wrong with Stobarts and the like.
Your immediate boss wanted you to stay employed because he could see you are an asset to the business ( he likely wouldn’t of done what he did for a clock watcher). Yet he was rendered powerless by the higher ups to whom you were just a number on a payslip.
At the firms I’ve worked for if my immediate boss wanted me to stay I’d be staying as it’s his name on the lorries and more importantly the cheques.
I’m dreading the time this happens to me if i’m back on the road. My dad is 71 and went into hospital 3 week ago to have his heart stopped then restarted to try and improve his breathing and heartbeat. He cant take the bins out sometimes without having to stop and gets short of breath.
They stopped his heart and restarted it but it didn’t improve anything and the hospital say’s there is nothing they can do. He’s got chronic lung problems, asbestos on the lungs and other things so his heart works overtime sometimes (he was a scaffolder on power stations and oil rigs in the 80s-90s so worked in ■■■■ working conditions and come face to face with asbestos)
He’s going to have to live with what he’s got and loads of meds but I can assure everyone on here that when the call does come, if I’m back on the road, wherever I am, I will be running straight back with the truck even if it means running bent and even if I’m loaded. Like others have said, “family come before any job”
Our place are very good when it comes to illness,death,bereavements etc.,YET,for all the good they are,theres some ■■■■ of a driver happy enough to bleed it for all its worth.This,in turn,will turn the company against any flexibility in this regard.
Why is it we always mess it up for each other,for genuine cases.
Lost my stepmother a couple of years back,a woman whom I wasnt fond of at all.I was rostered off the day of her funeral,and attended,but was berated by a few drivers who wanted me to take the (statutory)3 days leave,and if possible stretch it out for the rest of the week.Cant understand their mentality.
I was loading in Blois when I got a phone call saying my brother was in hospital, at first it wasn’t certain whether he had been in a motorcycle accident or what. I discovered he had had a heart attack at work and rang my boss in Belgium. He said drop your trailer on the point, there is a loaded trailer to tip in Bristol. Give me a ring from Dover. Oh and feel free to use the cab phone.
I drove to the tunnel and called the boss man as well as the hospital. There wasn’t much I could do so I said I would do the Bristol. I was then told to go straight to the hospital, even in the lorry if necessary. Pete was in Hull. I was in Bristol but lived in Derby so I picked up the bride and my car.
I couldn’t fault the company one bit and they put me and my family first.
When my ex-wife went into labour with my daughter, I called my boss who told me to get to the hospital.
I parked my wagon in the bus area of GWH, got out, was about to lock it when the manager came from nowhere to take the wagon back to the yard. Even handing me the keys to a company car he came up in.
Back in 1983, my grand father was a well known and respected warrant officer in the RAF at Lyneham (he was in charge of the tower). My father is one of 4 brothers. the eldest 2 brothers had driven to Germany to see the youngest brother. (it was a 3 day trip back then) While they were driving there, my grandfather had suffered a heart attack. My gran phoned lyneham to pass the message on to the boys when they got to Germany.
When the eldest 2 got to the house of the youngest, there was RAF police sat waiting. They took the 3 brothers and the car to the RAF camp there, put the car and the brothers onto the back of a waiting Hercules (diverted from Cyprus), and flew them all back to Lyneham, where they then travelled by RAF police car to The Military hospital in Wroughton. They got there an hour before my grandfather died.
When I had a bad smash in 1971,my Dads company rang the Docks where he was loading and got a message to him telling him to head back. They also allowed him time off with pay for a week.