Let’s meet Christophe, Driver at BKS Belgium

With four production sites all over the world, BKS is your blade producer for various industries like Plastics, Recycling, Steel, Packaging and much more!
We have been established in 1983 and have continuously invested in our people and state of the art technology since then.
We are proud to own the most advanced software and production equipment and are keen to help you out with all your slitting and cutting challenges.
With this series of 10 interviews, we invite you to meet the people behind our blade manufacturing company. All of them play a key role in making our company unique.

Hello Christophe. You have been a driver at BKS Belgium for almost 10 years. Can you tell us more?

Hello! I’m a driver at BKS, I’m in charge of the delivery and collection of industrial knives at our customers.

My day starts at 6 a.m. and begins with the loading of the knives requested by Nadine, Viviane and Natacha, our internal sales representatives, prepared by the sharpeners, and checked by Cindelle, our storekeeper. I then go on tour, through Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, the Netherlands, and France. I deliver and collect the material from our customers all day long. They are often the same customers from week to week. In the long run, we have a very good relationship. We’re used to working together and we’ve been communicating very well all this time, so we work very quickly.

What are the main strengths needed for your job?

I’m very careful about securing the packages: I don’t want to hear my loads moving! you should know that sometimes I have to move parts weighing more than 700kg! So, I have to be very careful when fixing the boxes in the van.

I also have to be focused at all times because my workplace is on the road: I travel an average of 10,000 km every month.

Languages are obviously a key when you cross so many borders. I speak French, Dutch and English and I have the basic German necessary for my work.

Finally, you also must be able to be autonomous and not be too stressed, because in some very large companies, when I have to deliver or collect material, no one really knows where I have to go… Warehouse? Workshop? Sash 13? Door 45? Some companies are real labyrinths!

And what do you enjoy in your job?

I spend a lot of time on my own, but I like the fact that I am independent. I have found a certain routine that I might not have liked as much when I was younger. Those long hours alone give me time to listen to music or podcasts while I drive to my next destination.

And then there are the little anecdotes of everyday life. For example, on one of my deliveries, I arrive at the guardhouse of a company where they ask me what I am delivering. When I answer “industrial knives”, I am regularly redirected to the company’s kitchen! Having said that, I must admit that when I applied for this job, I also imagined working with cook’s knives! (laugh)