Heavy Goods Recruitment, Behind Closed Doors.

For along time while I worked as a silver service waitress the business men who teased showing no mercy to, used to say that I was far brighter and should be doing more with my life. Due to a motorcycle accident I was unable to work as a waitress so did temp receptionist work which I enjoyed while on one assignment I ended up assisting the M.D. and Personal Manager as they were short staffed.

Though that a assignment in 1987 I met the man who became my long term partner. He was a transport manager and the first weekend away we spent together we worked on a report on refrigerated vehicles, not romantic but I found it very interesting.    

Though that a assignment in 1987 I met the man who became my long term partner. He was a transport manager and the first weekend away we spent together we worked on a report on refrigerated vehicles, not romantic but I found it very interesting.    

I moved into a filthy room which I spent to whole weekend cleaning and started at my new job in central Cardiff the following Monday.

The manager was vile in every way you can image. His mouth was fowl and his head was very twisted. He made it quite clear he didn’t want me working their but the  Director had and I wasn’t his choice.

He put me on call the first weekend, I new nothing about the companies we were doing business with or what the driver requirements were. I got into a mess on the Saturday night and phoned his house to ask for help. The following Monday morning before I was threw the office door I was met by this fat egg shaped man on little legs screaming every expletive under the sun. This became an everyday assurance.

I had only been their a few weeks when a man came in looking for work. The manager interviewed him and said he would be in touch with run details. I looked up from my desk after the man had left, quite shocked and said. “Your not going to employ him!” The manager said. “ Yes what’s your problem with him?” I replied. “ It was obvious he was drunk!” The manager said what he did in his own time was up to him and to mind my f…king business.

Lunchtime two days latter, my manager took a phone call, turned very pale stood up put his jacket on and said he was off down the pub and I could hold the fort. Within ten minutes for him leaving the phone rang. It was the director of a lorry hire company, he was so angry it took me a while to calm him down. It turned out that one of our driving had driven under a bridge which the trailer was to high for and ripped the top off. The driver had continued to drive in the poring
rain to the designated drop point, all of the furniture inside, had been  was ruined and people at the drop refused to take delivery. So the driver opened the backdoor pulled away at speed leaving the furniture smashed across the forecourt.

Then the phone rang again this time the director of the furniture company who had employed the virile hire company to move the furniture.

Again the phone rang and our drunk driver who my manager employed had been booked on a double night out run. He had taken the sixty pounds night out money gone straight to the pub drank the lot. Then got into the lorry hit and written off six cars before burring the lorry into a brick wall.





Intermittently over the first two months I worked at the office a couple of warehouse people had been phoning saying they were owned wages and the manager always told them where to go.



One day one rang up while I was “holding the fort” and as it was quiet I took the details and went and looked it up. A lot of people in this time didn’t have bank accounts so they would arrange for us to cash their money and they would collect it from the office and sign in a book of computer printouts.



I looked threw the book at the dates he gave me, going back before and it screamed out to me I could see the man’s signature had been forged. The manager and the previous consultant  had been taking wages from temps for months.


I phoned the Director who employed me and he said that was why they had put me their to smoke out what was going on.

The manager was promoted to their head office where they could keep an eye on him as they said he was a good consultant and they let me go as I’d done what needed to be done.

I had already been approached by another company so I went to work for them, having to relocate back to Bristol. I did telesales for a couple of months and then walked in the office one morning to be told that the manager had left and I was the new manager.

I didn’t feel I was knowledgeable enough to run a division of heavy goods drivers so I went to the department of transport who had an office in Bristol and asked him to teach me the rules and regulations of driving which they did. They also taught me to read tachographs.

The office was very badly managed so I set about putting it straight. I phoned every driver and asked them to come in and re-register and to bring their licences in for me to copy to keep on record. I was met with major abuse, who did I think I was, and f….ing woman, they had worked for the company for years. My reply was quiet and calm, I was the new manager and they would do as I asked or I’d sake them. I sacked the all bar two as I new that most of them had be disqualified for driving threw drink and drugs. I ordered over two hundred P45.

I also went threw all of the contracts we had with existing companies and went to the depo’s and updated them.

Then I was summed to the Safeway distribution outlet where the director asked me if I could proved him with nine drivers a day. I said yes knowing I had only two.
On the way back from the meeting, in the back of the car, in twenty minutes, I wrote an advertising campaign. I new I had to get drivers but also the company I worked for had a terrible reputation so I put under new management on the adverts.

I interviewed a hundred drivers the following week and took on two.
As they came threw the office door see me in a suit and thinking I new nothing. So my opener was, “Take my threw the hooking up procedure, then I’d ask about lorry checks, loaded of the vehicles, weight distribution. By the time we talked about splitter gearboxes they realised I new what I was talking about.

The drivers came via recommendation and the business grew by word of mouth. As I took on more drivers so I would go out and get more business by the time I left nine months latter I had over two hundred men working for me.

Unlike most other agency people I worked differently. A lot of agencies mess people around just giving them a couple of days then taking on more people and leaving the original people twisting in the breeze not knowing if they were employed by the agency or not. Where as when I took on people I built up their hours very quickly, until they were working full.

I never lied to a client, if all of my drivers were working, rest and not legal to drive I’d tell then to go to another agency, or that I would have a drive legal to driver in  four hours or so.

I checked my drivers’ tacho before passing them back to the companies as was legal requirement. My drivers new if I caught then speeding or not taking the legal breaks I’d sack them.
They also new I was psychic and would often tell them why they had rung me before they said, it kept them inline as they new if they did anything they shouldn’t I would now about it. As far as I was concerned all of my drivers were professionals and treated them with respect.

If a company complained about a driver and demanded them sacked I would refuse until I’d spoken to the driver. This only happened a few times and it turned out by checking the tachos that they had the wrong driver, so the drivers weren’t sacked. Unlike so many other agencies that would sack staff on a sneeze.

My introduction to Heavy Goods Recruitment was a nightmare. I
witness every law being broken by drivers and employers. It taught me how to do it properly with the help of the department of transport.
I also closed the original agencies office down in Bristol by taking all of their contracts. It was a fabulous time in my life (very long hours) and there is something about working in heavy goods that stays in your blood. Now I will point out to my daughter, a wagon and drag or notice to much weight over an axle of a trailer.

My long term partner died a few years ago but before he did the company he worked for grew and we’d travel around the country visiting the transport depo’s. He’d often drive Bristol to Cornwall in a day and working in distribution a local journey to me is some where you drive their and back in a day.

Life moves on but I consider myself blessed to have worked in distribution and met such great people.

Love to all jo x