You hadn’t even handed in your notice! You expect your new employer to know a week (month?) in advance, what load, what truck.
You have no idea how this industry works.
1 Like
You have come out with some ridiculous stuff in the past but this is right up there. You hadn’t even started or accepted a job with the company yet, why in the hell would they be telling you anything like what truck, load or where you were going? They would not have known stuff like that so far in advance let alone told some random driver who may or may not end up working for them at a future date … utterly clueless.
I see you have decided against answering any of the relevant questions I posed a few posts up that may have gone some way in helping you in your mission to drive a truck abroad had you decided to put some or all of them into action. That or you are pretending you did not see them because the truth could be a bit too close to home about why you didn’t succeed.
So being the kind sole I am I shall just copy and paste the post again for you. Here we go.
How many jobs did you apply for?
How many companies did you personally visit stating your intentions and aspirations?
How many times did you go back to those companies, and back again and back again?
Did you seek advice or speak to drivers currently working at companies who did Euro work - maybe that could have been a way in?
Why didn’t you accept a job at a company who ran trucks both in the UK and abroad. Yes you may have to start on the UK side but once your in then you never know when an opportunity may present itself?
You have to be proactive if you want something. My guess is you did none of the above and then blamed everyone and everything but yourself.
That’s his modus operandi, Newlion. Ignore the hard questions, introduce random crap and twist or totally change what others have said.
I’d consider a job offer and acceptance, including a start date, is the definition of accepting and starting a new job.
Bearing in mind that I chose not to hand in my notice on the basis of the offer alone without any or all of the stated types of confirmation being forthcoming.
Thanks for the realistic answer Ro.
As opposed to the young naive, but keen, CF, applying to Inter City Trucks for one example.With a Cold Call which went along the lines of class 2 UK experience ranging from up to 38t specialist types fire trucks to 6x4 Gritters and general/plant haulage so know how to keep a load on the deck.Would prefer to use a tilt than a flat in that regard and would like to use the class 2 up to its drawbar outfit type max with a special interest in driving drawbars.
Familiar with driving privately from Scandinavia to the Balkans.
The rest is history.
As for the experience of union membership that ended even worse.
Still avoiding answering the questions?
I can copy and paste them for a 3rd time if needed?
I’m happy to ask for a 3rd time. 
1 Like
Firstly I don’t have a drawer still stuffed with every rejection letter from every firm I applied to, generally using their own application forms, over 30-45 years ago.
Obviously there is no record of all the phone calls.
My memory of every name of every firm is similar some obviously stand out.
Let’s just say it was a lot I’ve provided one of the earliest because being one of special interest.
There were others in that line like IPEC at Northampton.The answer there was our phones are constantly ringing with numerous hopefuls we have a large long waiting list of potential applicants.
Then class 1 opened up numerous other potential employers to ask.My call list was a who’s who of 1980’s international road transport scene.
Contrary to folk lore a rejection letter to an application form or no answer or rejection of a cold phone call doesn’t mean that turning up at their yard uninvited in person will have a happier ending.
Nor is their generally time for such a luxury when you’re in full time employment earning a living.
The fact that you’ve even asked such stupid questions justified the answer you got to them.
Absolutely no bleedin idea of the job market for drivers in the day.
On roads generally devoid of trucks and more operators closing their gates and laying off drivers than taking any on.
So for years you’ve been blaming a conspiracy against you and your “face didn’t fit” excuse, when everybody else who wanted international work was snapped up without hesitation. Now you’re saying you applied in writing or by phone, prospective employers didn’t get to see your dial, how did they know it didn’t fit?
Everyone here can tell why your short transport career flopped. Are you genuinely that stolid, or refuse to admit it to yourself?
Look at yourself if you want the real reason.
How do you know if you never did it? I know drivers who can barely string a sentence together and probably struggle to dress themselves in the morning who managed to gain employment.
However, since you mention the amount of rejection letters you have received do you ever wonder if you were the problem rather than a lack of opportunities?
Very good point. I’m sure he will have some spin on the matter though.
As opposed to the credibility of anyone claiming that they got their break in serious international road transport by putting their record of driving a bus for a few years, on the table.That might work in Australia but generally not here.
Suggest you read exactly what Ro said in that regard.Only international experience would generally cut it.
Although local city bus driving is obviously the league where road transport unions belong.
I wasn’t unemployed.I was never unemployed from when I started work at 16.
Rejection letters, often no replies at all, when trying to make the upgrade from UK work to international.
In a severely challenging job market, caused by massive recession acting disproportionately against ( perceived ) inexperienced ( unskilled ) drivers when too many experienced drivers were out of work, documented in Commercial Motor by the RTITB if you want to look for it.
No one refused me a job because I didn’t actually have the required skills required to do the jobs I was applying for.
Your point being what exactly.Other than believing the total bovine excrement that many/any firms have a driver recruitment protocol, based on employing anyone who walks into their premises uninvited, holding a suitcase containing enough kit for a week or more away, saying gissajob.
So tell us what was your exact personal experience of the UK driver job market of the 1980’s as a relatively new inexperienced driver ?.
Just getting into UK work.Let alone lnternational in which UK experience counted for nothing.No experience no job was the default in an environment of too many drivers looking for work and not enough jobs.That was magnified massively in the jump from UK work to International.
Bearing in mind even Ro’s answer of an exception to the rule break in that regard.
My guess is you haven’t got a bleedin clue.
With respect, CF, my answer was not an exception to the rule; rather, it was the rule. I came late to trucking. Just as I had to eat humble pie by driving a humble wagon to France to get my foot in the door, I also did the same to get into UK driving in the first place. I walked into dozens of transport offices, showed my face, volunteered to undertake temporary and part-time work (no agencies in the early '80s) and gradually built up a reputation for reliability, skill and honesty (bearing in mind that locally hauliers actually talk to each other). I was by no means the only one doing this. It took a relatively short time to secure a permanent position in what was a thriving industry at that time whatever you say about the tight belts.
1 Like
There are similarities in our histories LS. It was all but impossible to get a truck driving job if, as I was, under 25, so I ensured I had some heavy driving experience under my belt, for when I reached the magic age.
Carryfast may deride bus driving and bus drivers, but it was the only way I could, later, prove I could safely manoeuvre a 15 tonne, 40’x8’2½" vehicle. Attaining the sudden insureable quarter of a century, I got a start on trucks. I had to drive some absolute dungers on total crap work, but as when I drove busses, nothing was beneath me, I was on a mission and broadening my experience.
I worked hard and always aimed to make myself an asset.
Oddly enough, apart from my bes driving role, I rarely “applied” for any of the jobs I had/endured; usually I was recommended for, or to with a glowing report. Later in my career, up to the present time, when I became available, my phone would ring with various offers, such is the bush telegraph, in this industry.
There is an unfair term in this country, for your compatriots, “whinging Poms”. Unfair why? Because, in my opinion, for every whinger like you, there are ninety-nine Poms who just get on and do it, but like most generalities, the minority paint a picture for the entire crowd.
You were destined for another failure, Carryfast, because nobody was going to offer you a top spec truck with cream runs until you had proven yourself on the work you believed was beneath you.
That you are clearly the issue here. It appears everyone who wanted it managed to do what you failed to do. You seem to be in a very miniscule minority and coming up with every excuse you can think of won’t change that.
1 Like
Precisely, anyone who wanted it enough, regardless of which hemisphere, got it as long as they had some nous and lots of determination.
I ate LS’s humble pie long enough to suffer cronic indigestion, but I didn’t allow it to deter me.
I’m sure that getting a break into international by offering to drive a day cab TL on it, which obviously few would, was an exception to the rule.
To think that I thought using a Marathon on medium distance UK work was its limit.
I wasn’t afraid of using a tilt on local work either.Ive already been told by the experts on here that I couldn’t have been using it’s cover as a sheet when used as a flat.
The 1980’s weren’t exactly thriving times for the industry.Exceptions proving rules indeed.But the point is road transport unions worth it or not.The idea is good but generally rubbish when translated into this industry.Even in the best case Teamsters example.