Future prospects as a roadside Patrol

[hackett]

I'm thinking about changing my career. RAC/AA patrol man is probably my ideal job. Thing is my wife thinks sensibly. I have a family to support and she reminded me that i'm currently in a really secure job (military) with almost no chance of redundancy.

The way i see it is people are always going to break down though surely??

What do you guys think should i wait until this crazyness is over or shall i just go for it?

[mybrainhurts]

You'd freeze your nuts off in this weather...

HTH...

[andy-xr]

I've had recruiters calling me at a rate of once a week headhunting basically. I get the impression they're trying to go to likely employers with a hunted CV, as from what I've seen there arent many jobs around at the moment

In every call I've said the same thing to them. I've got a mortgage to pay, dont want to chance a probation period not working out, and the greener grass they're talking about is all one muddy field at the moment

[Darkslider]

RAC/AA patrol man is probably your ideal job.

Why? Long hours, crap pay, lying underneath clapped out sheds in mud and rain with screaming kids and ungrateful morons being your sole customer base.

I can't for the life of me think why anyone would WANT to be an AA/RAC patrolman. And if it's because you want to 'help' people, you'll be doing that a hundred times more by staying in the military.

Hate to say it but I'd listen to the wife

[miniman]

Have you any idea what the pay is like? Believe me, it is not good. My mate runs a recovery firm, he's a contractor for RAC / Green Flag / Britannia and various others. He works all hours, and then a few more hours, in the rain, snow, sleet, heatwave, you name it, and spends plenty of time crawling around on the hard shoulder of the M4 trying to help out fkwits who break down at Bristol and tell him "well the oil light came on at Reading but I figured it would be ok".

He struggles to get good staff because he can't pay much more than minimum wage. When he does a job for RAC or one of the others (which he can't turn down, because he will miss his targets and lose his patch) he gets paid a fixed rate regardless of where it is (so long as it is in his patch) - if I recall correctly this is something like £32. Yes, that's right, £32 to get up at 3am, drive a £30k recovery truck 15 miles, pull some cock out of a hedge and drag the scrap back to his yard. Fuel, insurance, wear and tear, computer system and everything else comes out of that.

So if you're still up for it and fancy doing a shift, let me know and I'll see what I can do!

[hackett]

I love driving (don't we all) but don't want to just drive for a living. I also love fixing cars. I currently fix big heeps of ste that most people think are amazing but in reality after 7 years of trying to make these things fly and getting no thanks from the toff tossers who drive them then the AA/RAC can't be much worse.....surely.

Oh and timmy the terrorist doesn't want to kill AA patrolmen in Basrah 4 months of the year.

[snotrag]

FYI - I got a tow the other week, and the chap had told me that RAC had cut ALL recruitment comp-letely, and were downsizing many of their patrols.

[miniman]

hackett said:

Oh and timmy the terrorist doesn't want to kill AA patrolmen in Basrah 4 months of the year.

True but I think you'll find sleepy Polish truckers and half-blind pensioners mow them down in the hard shoulder with quite disconcerting regularity...

[hackett]

snotrag said:

FYI - I got a tow the other week, and the chap had told me that RAC had cut ALL recruitment comp-letely, and were downsizing many of their patrols.

Thanks for the info. 22 years in this job here i come then

[hackett]

miniman said:

hackett said:

Oh and timmy the terrorist doesn't want to kill AA patrolmen in Basrah 4 months of the year.

True but I think you'll find sleepy Polish truckers and half-blind pensioners mow them down in the hard shoulder with quite disconcerting regularity...

Hmm when you put it like that..........yep changed my mind....i think

[miniman]

snotrag said:

FYI - I got a tow the other week, and the chap had told me that RAC had cut ALL recruitment comp-letely, and were downsizing many of their patrols.

All the clubs are ditching contractors left right and centre too.

[sleep envy]

snotrag said:

FYI - I got a tow the other week, and the chap had told me that RAC had cut ALL recruitment comp-letely, and were downsizing many of their patrols.

not surprising seeing as people are reducing their outgoings - AA/RAC membership renewals will be well down the list of things to buy in this climate

[miniman]

sleep envy said:

not surprising seeing as people are reducing their outgoings - AA/RAC membership renewals will be well down the list of things to buy in this climate

Especially as more and more people are now "covered" with their bank account. Albeit the sttiest cover possible without breaching their human rights.

[Sgt Bilko]

Ask the AA/RAC how many of their vehicles get wiped out whilst they are trying to fix someone's vehicle. Not just on the motorway, but on all roads. Sometimes, that vehicles is the buffer. Sometimes you are in that vehicle. Sometimes you are stood in between the van and the errant car.

Not trying to put you off, but it does happen with alarming frequency.

[SystemParanoia]

get one of these!

all the motorway maintenence guys get to work behind one.

im guessing it should do a pretty good job at saving your life?

[wolf1]

Hackett just to give you an inside viewpoint I'll drop my two penneth worth in for you. The pay is reasonable with a 25k basic and last year I earned just shy of 40k and looking to exceed that this year come April. Yes the hours are different but they are no longer than any other job out there. Monday you could be on a ten hour shift and Tuesday it could be just five hours. Yes it's shift based as lets face it cars don't break down on a nine to five basis but your present job isn't exactly nine to five is it. Well its winter now and I still haven't frozen my bollards off because I'm issued plenty of protective gear and I have a nice new van with a heater in it. It's a great job and I wouldn't want to do anything else.

Down to the nitty gritty though. You'll need to know a fair amount about fault finding especially on the electrical side and some form of qualifications to back up what you've said you can do. Now I know you can take relevant courses (electrical and diagnostics etc) that will help as part of your resettlement package so it's not exactly an insurmountable task to achieve (don't mean to insult your intelligence if you're REME). Also the ability to think on your feet and present a workable solution is a must. However In the present climate recruiting has been scaled down as lets face it no company out there is 100% sure of what may or may not happen. Both the AA and RAC will ride out the recession / Credit crunch (or whatever the latest media buzzword is) as cars are always going to break down and with less money, servicing and repairs that should get done will get missed so invariably people will join up as and when they break down (which is a bad idea financially as it costs more to join if you've already broken down) also quite a few banks use either the AA or RAC for their breakdown cover and I very much doubt we do it for the love of it so both firms still get paid, not to mention the manufacturers accounts and leasing companies such as Lombard, PHH, Leaseplan etc etc.

I work for one of the above mentioned but my van isn't orange

[BB-Q]

wolf1 said:

Hackett just to give you an inside viewpoint I'll drop my two penneth worth in for you. The pay is reasonable with a 25k basic and last year I earned just shy of 40k and looking to exceed that this year come April. Yes the hours are different but they are no longer than any other job out there. Monday you could be on a ten hour shift and Tuesday it could be just five hours. Yes it's shift based as lets face it cars don't break down on a nine to five basis but your present job isn't exactly nine to five is it. Well its winter now and I still haven't frozen my bollards off because I'm issued plenty of protective gear and I have a nice new van with a heater in it. It's a great job and I wouldn't want to do anything else.

Down to the nitty gritty though. You'll need to know a fair amount about fault finding especially on the electrical side and some form of qualifications to back up what you've said you can do. Now I know you can take relevant courses (electrical and diagnostics etc) that will help as part of your resettlement package so it's not exactly an insurmountable task to achieve (don't mean to insult your intelligence if you're REME). Also the ability to think on your feet and present a workable solution is a must. However In the present climate recruiting has been scaled down as lets face it no company out there is 100% sure of what may or may not happen. Both the AA and RAC will ride out the recession / Credit crunch (or whatever the latest media buzzword is) as cars are always going to break down and with less money, servicing and repairs that should get done will get missed so invariably people will join up as and when they break down (which is a bad idea financially as it costs more to join if you've already broken down) also quite a few banks use either the AA or RAC for their breakdown cover and I very much doubt we do it for the love of it so both firms still get paid, not to mention the manufacturers accounts and leasing companies such as Lombard, PHH, Leaseplan etc etc.

I work for one of the above mentioned but my van isn't orange

To give you another inside view the pay is roughly as mentioned, but the hours are long- 12 hour shifts are the norm here. It's not pleasant out there no matter what kind of gear you have, but I'm sure you're aware of that.

You need to be a time served & qualified mechanic and also have very good people skills- we get around 500 applicants for each available job, roughly half of whom are potentially qualified to do it. That should give you an idea.

It's very rewarding, although I have been attacked twice (once by a chav lunatic and once by a smackhead trying to rob my van), but I could gladly do something else for a living that didn't restrict the time with my son so much.

Be warned too- I don't know about the other mob, but the divorce rate amongst our patrols is 50%. Wives don't like the long hours and working most weekends and bank holidays (and the only day you paid extra for is Christmas day, which is the only day they can't force you to work).

As mentioned also, recruitment has ground to a halt due to uncertainty about the future climate. I have not heard of a single patrol redundancy though.

I work for one of the above, but my van isn't yellow.

[hackett]

Thanks for great replies guys.

A little more info about me. I've been an aeronautical engineer in the RAF for 8 years. i'm also a mechanic for the RAF rally team and the chairman of the RAF motorsport club. I work part time for an ex coleague when his garage is very busy. He uses me as he trusts my ability and knowledge of car repair, i started doing it with my dad as a kid and carried on as i got older.

The AA said this was great and because i had proven mechanic skills on aircraft and if all of the above i could supply referenced for then they would snap me up. They said the guy for my area is off sick and has been for a year, i live in the north scotland and they said they are struggling to fill the position up here. At least theres no motorways here! The AA said they do a skills assesment and that would soon show my knowledge base, i'm confident i could pass this test as i already have experience using most of the kit/tools the patrols use inc laptops and i do quite a lot of fault diagnoses

The RAC said i was not qualified but if i applied it would be solely upto my areas hiring manager and i happen to know he is ex RAF and was the same trade as me. As for the bad weather remember i live in the north of scotland and work crazy shifts that can go from being a nice 8 hour shift to a 14 hour non stop shift trying to get a jet fixed in horizontal rain sleet snow.

As for the wife well she is used to me being out of the country for 4 months of every year (just think about that for a second!) which means i've been away for nearly 2 years of my 5 year olds life. I'm sure she would be fine with me working weekends.

Thanks again for the great replies folks any more info greatfully recieved

[s.m.h.]

I can understand the recovery services not recruiting presently, but surely with the current economic climate, this could be a good thing to get into.
New car sales dropping, drivers keeping hold of their cars longer - servicing less. After all, to most drivers a "service" is an oil change and pump up the tyres!
Quite a while ago (4/5 years) I applied to an agency to do just this.
I have worked in garages/dealers for (at that time) 18 years. I didnt get any replies or interest for, I'd say, 5 months, then got a few emails. Its could have been the agency but more likely no positions in my area. If you think theres a position available and you fancy the change - go for it.

After all, theres always the private jobs to add to income......

[Ranger 6]

hackett said:

...i'm also a mechanic for the RAF rally team and the chairman of the RAF motorsport club...

Do you spanner on the LRs that do the BRC - I think there's an RAF one in that team?