Dog walker is not a considered line of work...
“Huskies” (c) 2007 B4Bees. Used under a Creative Commons license.

Hello, dears!

Today, I thought I would ask for your help once again, seeing as so many of you are in the courier business, and this has to do with that area.

You see, I have a friend – a gentleman who stops by my cafe now and again for a sausage buttie and a cup of coffee – who is what you in the industry normally call an 'owner driver'. He owns a little local haulage company (nothing fancy, just a couple of vehicles) and is well known around our area for efficient and very friendly service. Also, he is an older gentleman, and rather old-fashioned, which means his staff do not indulge in any of those shenanigans which annoy me so. There are only a handful of them altogether, and they are all clean-cut young men I would let my daughter date, if I had ever had a daughter. The gentleman himself is, I must admit, rather desirable, and if we were even ten years younger...

But look at me, faffing about without having told you what the matter is yet! You see, my friend has been having a horrible time finding work lately. Just the other day, he was bemoaning the lack of courier jobs for owner drivers, saying that if things keep going on like this, he will have to change his occupation very soon. And that was when old Gertie got her big idea...

Now, like I said, I know many of you are in the courier business. And I'm sure, among the lot of you, there will be at least a few owner drivers. So what I thought I would do to help this gentleman was poll my fanbase (every blogging manual says it's a good thing to do, after all, am I right?). This time, however, the survey won't be about fun and games. This time, I'm asking a serious question, and that is: what are some alternatives to courier jobs for owner drivers that my friend could go for? As I said, he has a small fleet, and I know he is not afraid to roll up his sleeves, so we are open to any suggestions! I'm particularly interested in hearing from owner drivers - what do you do when work is scarce and you have to put money into your account? By all means enlighten me.

As usual, you won't be, as they say, 'working for peanuts' – I will make a list of the nicest alternatives to courier jobs for owner drivers that I get and not only present it to my friend, but also publish it on here for you all to read about! So get cracking, and get those suggestions to my inbox! And don't worry if your suggestion seems silly or insignificant – this is a team effort and, as Tesco says, 'every little helps'!

Ta-ta for now!

Gertie
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