I couldn’t have said it more accurately myself.
I could have put it more succinctly “don’t take any notice of Carryfast”.
I was tempted to immediately respond to the original post, with a warning about Carryfast’s anticipated negative response. He is just an old man, who has not been part of the industry for over thirty years and bitter about not being able to cut the mustard.
If you want to be a truck driver, that’s what you will be. You will probably need to suck up some excretia on the way to where you want to be, but that’s life.
There’s a lass on utoob - Jennifer Winters - a slip of a girl from Manchester - who did HGV here, moved to Canada took HGV test there and got a job with no experience. If you want something bad enough, you can make it happen
I wouldn’t call 20 years on the road, with an unblemished driving record, driving everything from fire engines to proper drawbar outfits, failing miserably.
I doubt that the OP would be here rightly moaning about the industry’s opportunities and career entry and progression path, if he thought that taking a four wheeler local multi drop round was a sure guaranteed way into his dream class 1 job.
Strange how Spardo’s accurate comment ‘it’s all a matter of luck’ didn’t get the same predictable personalised response as my similar comment that the industry’s recruitment and progression regime is a lottery.
Bearing in mind that by definition such a regime means that not everyone is a winner.
The man who never made a mistake, never made anything.
There you go again, overstating every minor achievement.
Plenty of firms around Manchester that take on new passes. Take your pick.
So you keep telling us, yet despite all that no-one would employ you on the work you wanted 
I’m not going to turn this into another 20 pages of back and forth with you as usually happens as this isn’t what the OP started the topic for, but needless to say all the reasons how and why you failed have been done to death and highlighted to you over and over again and are obvious to everyone except you.
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He’s not moaning about getting his dream job. He’s on about getting a start - 2 totally seperate things. He’s also been given some good advice about possible avenues to get that start, in this case food service type work.
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Because the context was different. Again it related to getting a start somewhere as a new driver and not the drivel you usually bang on about that there is some mythical face fits career progression than you naively believe were wronged by.
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Exactly mate. I have been in the industry 14 years. First job was working for a Chinese wholesaler delivering to takeaways. Job was the pits but it was the only start I could get. After doing that for a year I was off to the races as far as being able to get other jobs.
Since then I have done supermarket work, depot to depot distance trunking & trailer swaps, multidrop with handball for a parcel company & containers.
Currently I work for a high street retailer, it’s the best job I have had in the industry for numerous reasons but Carryfast would hate it because it involves the cardinal sin of the driver being involved with helping to tip at the store after backing on the loading bay. When I say helping, that equates to either pushing cages and rails of clothing out the back of the trailer and into the store room if the loading bay is at the same level as the trailer, or if not onto a scissor lift where the store staff send it up and down to unload & then reload empties to send back up.
To be fair maybe the OP could explain his exact problem and definition of ‘start’.Class 1 or Class 2 ( usually class 3 in old money ) ?.General haulage distance work or local multi drop.
Does he want to understandably avoid the latter assuming he wants the former ?.
I was referring to the types of mistake that in this job can have fatal, career ending and criminal charges results.Whether losing a flat trailer load of paper reels off the back of sides or hitting a bridge or rolling a high c of g refuse bulker on a roundabout.
Or even a road traffic collision regarded as non fault but avoidable.
Using that definition, most, if not all on here, are flawless. We’ve all made minor mistakes, but we’ve all got vastly greater experience and miles under our individual belts than you.
Your fatal mistake was refusal to get your arse out of the drivers’ seat and the action you employed when forced to complete normal driver’s duties, other than driving.
Try being 18 a new pass class 1 C-E and have the same problem this job is the only thing I have ever wanted to do but as you said no experience no job ??
I really don’t see what is so special about this industry compared to others, except for the presumption that after a couple of weeks training a potential employee can go straight onto ‘cream work and top money with a state of the art vehicle’ . The Trades run apprenticeship schemes lasting several years, involving academic study and practical work. The latter generally starts with sweeping up , emptying the bins and making the tea. What relevant practical experience gained is usually the most basic and menial tasks with very little financial reward. Even when fully qualified the most interesting and rewarding work, in both senses of the word, is infrequent until a personal reputation for good work is achieved. Local multi-drop work in a van then a rigid is a good start for experience of a loaded vehicle, 8tonnes on an artic is only just noticeable compared to full weight.
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As opposed to if your aspiration is to drive max weight and size vehicles far and wide then it’s never too soon to start in that specific sector.
As opposed to a local van/class 3 delivery driver who’s aspiration stops there.
The truth is the pecking order is all about protecting and reserving the best quality work for a self entitled group who often themselves by passed all the crap to get a lucky break.
Often ironically with that elite then moaning about their lost home lives because they wanted and hogged too much of a good thing.
Bearing in mind that those with no class 1 distance work type aspirations won’t even regard local class 3 as crap work.
Older and/or with home ties should be expected to take it.Lets call it what it really is before it was all laughably classed as class 2.
I’d consider nothing less than driving 6 or 8 wheeler rigid bulkers as being a suitable start point depending on aspiration for progression in the industry.
While if you want a canteen assistant and yard sweeper or labourer then employ one.
Ironically it was ‘actually’ kow towing to the union’s demands, that drivers should do the job of warehouse labourers, that wrecked my back, ultimately ending my career.Bearing in mind I was actually promoted to more or less the best type of line haul work that the firm had after that dispute. But why let the facts stand in the way of a typical venomous personal attack.
Keep repeating that prevarication Carryfast, eventually some niave soul may pass through.
Why were you so delicate, when others were not?
If you were as fragile as you claim, you were not physically suited to the European work you claim to have been cheated out of.
Tell us how you can handball two 45 ft trailer loads of freight front to back floor to ceiling 5 days per week doing regular return runs UK Italy.Or how many return runs would be lost just doing that at each end.
Bearing in mind I was stripping and rebuilding a tilt to and from a flat, depending on the job needed , around 3, sometimes more, times per week on short haul UK work with no problem.It’s why forklifts and pallets were invented.
Simple, anyone can only do an hour’s work in an hour, regardless of what that work may be.
You were not doing Italy, or anywhere outside England.
Obviously, there was no local driving needed to be done, so it’s quite reasonable for the employer to utilise staff that they have to pay anyway, to fulfill other non-driving duties of a truck driver.
You seem to be the only truck driver in the world who believes a truck driver’s duties start and end inside the cab.
If you can’t construct and deconstruct a tilt in England, there’s absolutely no use sending you abroad. If you’re too fragile, lacking the strength and stamina to fulfill that part of the role, how did you expect to be employed as a European driver? Did you think you could arrive in foreign destinations far, off and phone back to England, for them to fly out a warehouse labourer?
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