Joseba welcomes us with a smile. He is from Leioa, the birthplace of the company and of several of the people who work there.
We go for a drink in a nearby café while he tells us about his professional history at Fernández y Aedo. Just at that moment, Jesús Fernández, who Joseba says is his uncle and the founder of Fernández y Aedo, now retired but who still visits us every day, passes by our table.
He remembers perfectly well his first day in this family business in 2003, of which he can in a way be considered part of the third generation.
Before he started riding on his own, he did six months of apprenticeship with a companion, to get used to the routes, the times, loading and unloading.
He generally rides nearby routes without going outside Spain: Murcia, Alicante, Castellón, Tarragona… He calls the long route the one he does passing through Zaragoza and he rarely has to sleep away from home and at most it is only one night, it is never a week from Monday to Friday as the drivers with international routes do.
The daily routine is to arrive at the destination factory between 6am and 10am. There they take a sample of the load for analysis, which takes about an hour. Then it is unloaded, a process that usually takes between one and two hours, and finally, if necessary to make a new load, it goes to the washing area to wash the tank.
Sometimes he has had to go to the south of France. There he has to be there at 8.30am, where he says they are more demanding with the paperwork and sometimes there is a queue to do it.
Although it might seem that the most tiring part is driving all day long, that is not a problem for Joseba, he likes driving, but he admits that the hardest part is the hours of waiting, when he can do nothing but stay close to the lorry.
He has organised the times and places to eat and generally does so in the lorry, except on Fridays when, if he has enough time, he allows himself to eat in a restaurant.
He seems to be a quiet man, at ease with his life and with no special need for adventure, as he himself says: “I like to travel, but just enough”. Depending on the moment, perhaps he feels more like going on holiday to a quiet village in La Rioja where the family has a house, rather than embarking on a more distant or complicated journey.
He is happy, comfortable and proud to work at Fernández y Aedo. He has no plans to take up another job, this is where he would like to retire.
If you would like more information about dangerous goods transport or any of our services, please do not hesitate to contact us.
