Trainee driver wage drop

[Busyboy89]

Only fans?

Top comment

 

[Horizon22]

This rule is only for trainee drivers - you are one right ?

No it isn't - many contracts will stipulate that you cannot have secondary employment.

Also can I remind people to please remain on topic here and comply with the forum rules regarding any advice you give.

 

[43066]

No it isn't - many contracts will stipulate that you cannot have secondary employment.

Also can I remind people to please remain on topic here and comply with the forum rules regarding any advice you give.

Absolutely. If you ended up having an incident due to being tired from a second job (or as a trainee failing a rules exam) it would go down like a lead balloon…

 

[RJ]

Absolutely. If you ended up having an incident due to being tired from a second job (or as a trainee failing a rules exam) it would go down like a lead balloon…

Surely that’s more about poor management of spare time?

If you earn 6 figures a year on the side by trading for 30 or so minutes a day but get all your training done and a good night’s sleep, is that considered to be worse than not sleeping properly because of an inability to manage time/sleep where no money is involved?

I think such clauses are less about money and more about avoiding poor time management, conflict of interests and breaches of working hours.

 

[TheEdge]

Only fans?

There's the comment I was looking for...

Hmmm, but then everyone else will want a higher training salary. Where's the fairness in that? Why should the OP be considered for preferential treatment?

Its fairly common for internals, there are different ways its done but its common practice.

Hello all

Im just wondering how people have coped with the lower starting trainee driver wage. Im in a reasonably well paid operations earning just a little under driver money. I`e always wanted to go driving and now ive got an opportunity to do so but the 30k plus drop in wages for what could potentially be up to 2 years (worst case) would seriously derail my current financial commitment. How did you guys manage this?

Budget and budget some more. Payment holidays have already been mentioned. My drop was significantly less than yours but I decided to move into a house share to cut all my bills (although I was single and renting at the time so it may not be an option) among other things. And just remember the carrot at the end.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 1 Dec 2021 ==

Surely that’s more about poor management of spare time?

No. As has been said its written into a lot of railway contracts that you can't have other jobs without permission. Obviously if your second "job" is a flutter with your savings on the market or weathering locos in the evening its not a real issue but if you had a second undeclared job you were going to and it was found to be a cause of an incident. As a trainee or on probation you'd be finding that second job was your main job.

 

[philly1001]

Thank you for all the advice so far guys. To give a bit more context, i dont work for the toc that has offered me the driving job however it is part of a group of company all under the same parent group to the one i currently work for. After speaking to the hiring manager it was confirmed that there is very high competition for the job and i may have got myself into an earlier course because im sort of considered an internal candidate. As far as he knows they dont know of any trainees retaining their previous wage even if they were internal. He was also against any additional employment before passing out due to the intense nature of the course.
Short of leaving the opportunity for the future, im considering taking a loan to top up my wages every month. i dont have a particularly expensive lifestyle but mortgage plus childcare costs as a single parent does cost an arm and a leg..

onlyfans..hmmm

 

[sw1ller]

I didn’t cope well at all. I had to do agency work for 2 days a week while in training and ended up getting a rather large bank loan too. The drop in pay was painful for me.
But, 6 years on it’s been well worth it.

 

[class ep-09]

No it isn't - many contracts will stipulate that you cannot have secondary employment.

Also can I remind people to please remain on topic here and comply with the forum rules regarding any advice you give.

Perhaps it is an exception but my contract says that any secondary employment has to be declared but it is not forbidden .

At my previous 2 depots there were guys working as London black cab drivers , management was aware and they had no problems to do their 2nd ( or 1st ?) “trade”.

2 of them also were DI’s .

As for running your own business - who can stop anyone to be a shareholder, company director , CEO etc ?

I understand that the fatigue can be an issue but no one can say , how I spemd my free time providing I am well rested and not under influence .

 

[TheGoldfish]

Perhaps it is an exception but my contract says that any secondary employment has to be declared but it is not forbidden .

At my previous 2 depots there were guys working as London black cab drivers , management was aware and they had no problems to do their 2nd ( or 1st ?) “trade”.

2 of them also were DI’s .

As for running your own business - who can stop anyone to be a shareholder, company director , CEO etc ?

I understand that the fatigue can be an issue but no one can say , how I spemd my free time providing I am well rested and not under influence .

I think it’s more about secondary employment during training due to the intensity needed to pass out ..then probably looked at slightly differently for qualifieds..?

 

[westcoaster]

On my trainee course we had a chap who was still paid his old wage (internal move, but from a different operating arm).
Which was a considerable amount more than the rest of us.

 

[dk1]

On my trainee course we had a chap who was still paid his old wage (internal move, but from a different operating arm).
Which was a considerable amount more than the rest of us.

I think that is usually the case. Internal candidates are generally on better pay.

 

[westcoaster]

I think that is usually the case. Internal candidates are generally on better pay.

Yes which may help the op in this thread.

 

[TheVicLine]

I have an amazing Mrs who worked like crazy to support me for a year, it was really difficult especially as I took a near £30k pay cut during training. Stick with it though as the rewards are massive once you are qualified.

 

[richfoz84]

My income dropped from £50k to £22k when I started. But i wanted it that badly I was prepared to make it work. I planned and budgeted initially. Then, I saved what I could before leaving my old job. I then sold my nice car and bought a cheap run around. I used this money to top up my wages monthly for the first year. No bills were missed or paid late. I sacrificed holidays and some days out but it’s for the great or good! Do what you can to make it work and don’t miss the opportunity.

as I side note, I had a holiday booked and told them, when they called to offer me a place.. however they accommodated me on the next course without any issues!

 

[Stigy]

Not sure if we’ve stabilised @philly1001 has been offered a Trainee Driver role with their current employee? If this is the case, it may be worth striking a deal with the current line management to stay in post for a while, so they don’t have to recruit their soon to be vacant position, in return for deferring the course, but retaining their salary. Long shot, but sometimes this works….

Regarding secondary employment. You just have to be smart. Do some cash in hand takeaway deliveries .