HGV (CE) Driver – Dordon

The scalable pay from £12.91 standard rate to £14.03 elevated rate for working evening hours and even more for overtime.
The sight seeing - you get sent out a lot further than other supermarkets (up to an 80 mile radius for 8hr shifts)
Lost 4 inches on my waist working only 3 months there.

Massive stress on the road - your routes are planned with no mind to the vans maximum speed limit (62mph), or the fact...well...its a van (expecting you to do 50mph down miles of narrow country lanes). If you stick to the law and their own health and safety practices, you'll always finish 1hr late.
Youre only given 20 minutes break for an 8hr shift (which is illegal for a driver. they say "the deliveries mean its not continuous driving", but the law says, "any works in relation to the vehicle or its goods counts as time spent in driving" so means it is continuous driving and should be 30 mins not 20). Not that the break matters anyway as they always seem to schedule it when you're in the middle of nowhere so goodluck finding a toilet. as if 20 mins is enough time to park up, go to the toilet and eat your lunch anyway...sheesh. Taking it at any other point makes you late for deliveries (if you're not already) and stopping to call the next few customers to inform of lateness just exacerbates that.
Most of the customers live in hard to drive to places or unsafe to drive places like down lanes with low overhangs, lanes too narrow or muddy for the van, lanes with no space to turn, or down longish walkways with steps etc with no vehicle access. Management will tell you not to deliver during training but the reality is that when you call them to tell them its unsafe, they mostly say youre lying, its been delivered to multiple times before (and thats because the majority of drivers run down the lanes with the shopping so they can finish early. If its not that then its people living in top floors of apartments. They order on purpose so they don't have to lift 70kg of shopping up 5 flights of stairs, instead YOU have to do the 2 trips up and down to their door.
Very poor staff retention (about 70% leaving in their first couple months I believe).
Lost 4 inches on waist but also slipped a disc so make of that what you will. save yourself the headache and work for tesco or sainsburys instead.

Every day is different

Pay doesn't reflect the hard work we do.

Have day offs in between

Stress and lack of progression

It's reliable to know in advance all your work shift patterns. Some management is really helpful depending on which warehouse site you work at.

Had too much overtime hours during beginning of COVID 19. Now there is barely any work hours available, not reliable for career growth but easy job to get used to

Coming back early and still getting a full days pay.

Overload you with the amount of deliveries you need to do.
Takes useful features away from us making our days harder and longer but the pay doesn't get increased for these changes like bagless frozen items mixed with other items from different deliveries.

Sometimes you get to finish early but they’re trying to get rid of that.

Some customers are so lovely and some tip.

Delivering to flats with no lifts, trying to park in difficult areas then fear of getting a parking fine.

On hot days, some of the vans don’t have any Air Con.

The driving. Seeing the scenery.

Worry when starting, if theirs a complaint waiting, worry when returning and sugni g the van back in, incase you missed damage when you left or you didn't see somone damaging the van or the bollard lamp post sign, and your blamed for it.

Job and lot - you basically get to go home as soon as your route is finished and still paid till the end of your shift, this is most nights very rarely if you are back too early they may ask you to go back out to help someone or to stay a bit longer incase there is something they need a spare driver for but this is extremly rare and 99% of the time you get to go as soon as you give them the van back.
Variety of places - different areas, towns cities and countryside, routes are random so no two days are exactly the same.
Vans are all loaded for you and the route is pre planned, you just proceed through the drops logically and accordingly as long as it is not necessary to change them around for major reasons - such as being very far behind or problems on route but again this is a rarity to have to do this.
Managers are always fair and helpful if you need a hand with anything whilst out on route.
Lots of driving if you like a driving job.

The weight of the shopping can sometimes be a bit over the top.
Timings aren't always accurate even when there is no traffic they can still be short - in reference to journey times.
The delivery allowance times are sometimes again a bit little and means you lose time and risk falling behind because you are not given a great deal of time.
Items sometimea damaged meaning you have to deal with things that take longer on drops last minute - again at risk of putting you behind.
Packaging is sometimes to a poor standard meaning customers can and may get fustrated and agitated.
Overall, I think the positives outweigh the negatives as you get early finishes more nights than not and the routes are normally ok and not too stressful. It swings in roundabouts.