All I can say is, refer again to what Newlion said several posts up:
When it comes to something you want, there are generally 2 types of people.
1. Those who will go out and do everything they can to make that thing happen. 2. Those who make excuses, do nothing and expect that thing to fall into their lap, then make excuses and blame everyone and everything but themselves for not achieving that thing.
I was in Education for much of my working life. Exactly the same principal worked there too. Most of the best teaching jobs I had fell into my lap. I wonder why.
Your view might be valid in some cases Ro.But definitely not mine and it’s patronising and unfair in the extreme to suggest otherwise.
The fact is the industry has long had an arbitrary entry and progression regime and ironically your own case v mine actually if anything proves that it’s a lottery.
In which as someone who started out from day 1 knowing that truck driving will be my career and took and did whatever jobs were made available to me, as was expected of me, in that aim.
As I said it’s a lot more valid to point out the winners in that lottery moaning and whining about spending too long away and their resulting lost family home lives.
While single no ties young drivers get lumbered with local home every day jobs caught in the ‘experience’ trap.
As for the idea of giving someone like Danny Bryan the powers to decide your wage level and the duties required to earn it no thanks.
You should not have turned your nose up at bus driving. I managed to succeed where you failed miserably, so there must be something in it.
What is in it, is that it and the other stepping stone jobs I had gave me a chance to show my willingness, work ethic, apptitude and apptitude for the job.
The proof is in the pudding, I reached my pinnacle and have something to be proud of. You couldn’t get your foot off the lowest rung. With a different attitude and a lot more effort, you may have gotten you chance, only you could have made it happen, but your “do the minimum possible” ethos ensured your failure.
Well, as this is a unions thread (and I’m not against them and have been a union rep), there is a factor we haven’t mentioned. All the shinanigans we got away with to further our careers in my area may well have been much harder to carry off if any of it had been unionised; and well-nigh impossible to carry off if its a closed shop. Closed shop union activity kills all this kind of creative career enhancement and preferment stone dead. You may well have been wing-clipped by the union you mention. In that case, you still may have been able to choose leaving for a non-union company (ie most transport outfits), or just move to a more thriving transport region. In Kent in the '80s we had the Garden of England to transport, along with everything that came unaccompanied through the Channel Ports - there was loads of work.
You should have tried the Paddy firms in the 80s CF.
At that time all the qualification needed was a licence and a pulse.
At 21 I was offered a job with Kelly Freight (who employed a few local lads in my city, a couple of whom I knew)…without them even meeting me.
You were almost guaranteed a 141 Scania or the like running Euro, the downside was you were also virtually guaranteed not to get much sleep.
I was advised by an older driver who’s opinion I respected not to touch it with a bargepole, so I declined.
You’re a bit wide of the mark regarding all the implications of unionised workplaces Ro.
Firstly as in my case the ‘closed shop’ applies by default everywhere and anywhere that there is union ‘recognition ’ ‘by the employer’ for collective bargaining purposes.In which case you’re subject to every agreement made between the union and the employer whether you’re a member or not whether you like it or not.
Obviously, as in my case, no issues by the employers when that arrangement works in the employers’ favour not the employee’s.
No complaints either by the employer in the case of no consultation nor ballot regarding such agreements, again when it’s in the employers’ favour not the employee’s.
The result being that any resulting dispute, even in the case of having no knowledge about such detrimental changes, by implication puts the employee into a disciplinary situation and the disciplinary procedure.
Which obviously then makes walking away a precarious situation regarding those all important ‘references’ which you referred to.
That was exactly my situation having to firstly arrange an exit strategy from that resulting disciplinary process.In which walking away was the worst possible strategy on the advice of said workmate and shop steward.
So back down apologise profusely get on with the job it was …and break my back.
Job gone anyway.
Unions indeed.
There was nothing imaginary about that situation Ro.By definition leaving a job while under a disciplinary process means leaving under a cloud.
The idea of the closed shop is a laughable red herring when every firm with a union recognition agreement is by definition a closed shop.
Obviously no complaints by management when that allows self appointed commissars like Danny Bryan to then impose detrimental changes on the workforce regardless of them being union members or not, or agreeing with the changes or not.
Or not even knowing anything about the changes in question before suddenly being lumbered with them under threat of disciplinary action for refusal, or even for just refusal in the first instance.The employers are happy enough with a ‘closed shop’ and no consultation and no ballot in that regard as and when it suits them and is advantageous to them.
While at that point in my career it was all moot anyway.
As I said if mad keen wannabe international drawbar outfit driver, prefers using tilts to flats, early-mid 20’s no ties, doesn’t get a break at that point, in favour of holding onto burnt out old hands whining about leaving the missus and family at home for weeks on end of continuous turn arounds that’s the industry’s loss and shame not mine.
Let alone the circumstances which eventually took me out of the job completely.
Ironically I’m more bitter at scumbag unions and their over paid out of touch officials like Danny Bryan, than the almost as bad arbitrary recruitment and career progression regime of the degenerate British road transport industry.
You should have forged a career in literature, Carryfast. Your gift for fiction is quite remarkable.
Should your version of events have the remotest semblance of truth, that sector of the industry would have collapsed. By all other accounts, it was in its heyday.
Could have been that CF was in the wrong place at the wrong time, of course, just to cut him a bit of slack here. Some of the big companies had some right old jobsworths toeing the union party lines. Parts of the country were very tight in the '82 to '86 period. Heavy industry and manufacturing suffered. ERF itself was on a short week and practically giving lorries away to export customers just to keep the wheels turning. But the food still had to be shifted from farms and pack-houses and the channel ports were still thriving so it was patchy.
…and lacked the wherewithal to move to the right place.
Bottom line is he sat at home waiting for his ambitions to be delivered to him.
The alternative, that in no way, shape or form would Carryfast entertain, being that he simply lacked the skills, qualifications, or particularly work ethic.
Ah! Now you’ve hit a sore point. The mid-seventies onwards saw the nation divide into those with a sense of work ethic and those who had none. I don’t believe for a moment that CF lacked work ethic - quite the opposite. However, the opposite culture was there and it stood us in poor stead. The corn stands high in the fields and awaits only the reapers. The third generation of reapers has forgotten that work is an option because they get paid off so that the clandestines can do it as slave labour. Rule Brittania? I don’t think so.
Some years ago I identified CF’s modus operandi and recorded my findings as follows:
How to be a successful troll and go undetected for years
a. Masquerade as a knowledgeable expert
b. Infiltrate as many threads as possible
c. Criticise everything in sight
d. Mount unwarranted attacks on as many ideas and transport products as you can
e. To avoid detection, observe the forum rules and never attack a poster
f. Ruthlessly and relentlessly disrupt healthy debate with non-sequiturs, disinformation and conspiracy theories
g. Rubbish sound theories and good ideas and quickly move the goalposts to make counter criticisms look less credible
h. When good forum members give up and stop posting, move quickly to a flourishing thread
This may or may be unfair. Look chaps. I’ve been variously sparring and on very rare occasions aligning with CF on here for at least 12 years. For all the quirky and Walter Mitty-esque stuff the old boy comes out with, there is no escaping the simple fact that however effectively he derails yet another thread he does so without malice of forethought. He is no threat to anyone. People get easily triggered by his waffling but actually it is people’s reaction to his posts that causes most of the unrest, not his posts. Some really seriously good members have left TN because of CF’s posts; but that may just say more about their inability to ignore or cope with CF than it does about CF’s perceived inadequacies. Yes he drives everyone mad with his wriggling out of arguments but amid all the flak shot at him, he never attacks anyone, never insults anyone. CF is not the bane of TruckNetUK that people would have him be. He is not an enemy of the industry or culture we cherish on here.
I).This would definitely not only be unfair it would also be incorrect.I think I’ve praised as many truck related ideas as I’ve criticised.Ironically standing by the innocence of workforce and workplace solidarity in those post war years that wrecked the UK economy.
I take umbrage that he expects me to believe his diatribe.
I fully agree with your assessment of him masquerading as a man of knowledge.
I’m sure we’ve all met people who have never achieved anything of significance, getting carried away in their dreams of, if only and overstating minor milestones, but it wears thin eventually.
