Changing terminology
 

This new job has me seeing things from a different perspective, after kind of going through the world with blinders on in my little niche of trucking.

One of the things that's struck me is that dispatchers have become "driver managers" somewhere along the way. I thought it was just this company my boss is leased on with, but no, it seems to be pervasive. Nearly everybody talks about their "DM" around here.

So I wonder when this changed. I'm a geek that way.

The term changed last Wednesday at 12pm EST. Didn't you get the memo??

It changed at least three weeks ago. You think you can fool me that easily? You're just holding out the truth. IT'S A CONSPIRACY!!! :shock:

It was on the latest TPS report. Have you filled out your TPS report?

Re: Changing terminology
 

Right about the same time "garbage men" became "sanitation engineers" :?

Me, I flushed my TPS report. :lol: :lol: :lol:

Frankly.... calling them managers was really a ploy to get them to except crappy pay.....but make them feel all warm and powerful with a fancy title. Pity is, most couldn't pour piss out of a boot if the directions were written on the sole..... :shock: :? 8) 8) 8) 8)

Don't forget your stapler.

http://i64.photobucket.com/albums/h1...ed_stapler.jpg

At M.A.T.S. this year in the recruitment center there was a guy recruiting "transport engineers". I can't remember the name of the company to save my life. So it would be my guess that the ladies and gentlemen thining about joining the industry are "Future Transport Engineers". They get the low pay but a warm and fuzzy feeling that goes with the title.

Employees at Wal-Mart and Home Depot became "ASSOCIATES". Housewives became "DOMESTIC ENGINEERS". Drivers became "WAREHOUSE RELOCATION ENGINEERS". And, dispatchers have become "DRIVER MANAGERS". But, while some of them got the idea that I worked for them, they now stand corrected.

I've been at it long enough, I know my job. What I need is "DRIVER SUPPORT", and "DRIVER LIASON". And THAT'S THEIR JOB. When I need something, it's THEIR JOB to get it for me. Customer address or phone number, things like that. Appointment time. If they're too intent on me working for them, they're not doing their job, and I FIRE them. I've even been known to fire a whole company, and told the owner of the company that HE was fired. I've never had a problem going to another comapny. And, I've gotten letters from those same companies making offers to me to come back.

I think everything has to be so politically correct anymore. I heard this funny story from a comedian. He was on an air plane and said "Excuse me, Stewardess, can I have another Pepsi." She turned around and snapped "its Flight Attendant." He said "Lady, all you are to me is a waitress with a death wish!!!!" :lol:

On applications for rental property and loans, I've decided to use Inventory Relocation Specialist instead of Driver. Now that I think about it, I should probably have some cards made up.

Transcontinental Transporter for a Fortune 500 Company.

I saw an ad for USA Truck in the wrong section of the paper. I forget what they called the job. Logistics Specialist or something like that. They called it anything but "truck driver" and tried to slant the whole ad so it didn't even sound like driving a truck at all. I found that amusing. Kind of like those guys who try to get you to come sell "air filtration systems" door to door. You know, the air filtration systems that have four wheels on them, and a hose, and they filter the air that's on the floor, and remove all the spilled potting soil from it by vacuum action.

But seriously, I do wonder how long this "DM" thing has been going on. I was already a Wal-Mart "Associate" and a "freight distribution engineer" when I was calling my dispatcher a dispatcher. They snuck this one in on me somewhere along the line. Either that, or dispatchers have always been called "driver managers" for my entire career, and I missed that boat because I started off working for a small outfit with no Qualcomms, and a one-man dispatcher/fleet manager/safety department/mechanic.

Many companies have went to calling their load planners Logistic Specialists. A few companies are also applying this term to the sales staff who go out and try to obtain loads.

It's because the republicans changed the laws regarding over time.
They went into effect last year.
Used to be they had to pay dispatchers over time for over 40 but now they are managers and by being managers are exempt from over time!
You can thank the republicans for our countries demise!!!!!!!!!!!!
All these different companies can now classify different employees as managers and they are exempt from paying them over time.
Now all these people have to work more hours for less pay.
Why do you think the economy is supposedly so good, because companies have beenable to improve the bottom loine by deregulation.

Only thing regulated now are the working class.

My dispatchers are now managers too and are suppose to handle all our affairs, but they only have time to dispatch!
We still have to contact all the various deprtments to do any thing.

We got a memo saying dispatchers are driver managers now and will do it all for us.
Bullcrap. they only have time to dispatch and fuel programs stops.

This has been a big conspiracy for a while now.
If you had a company that went from paying over time to not paying and able to eliminate health care , andcuts so many of the operating costs they had to pay before your stocks would soar too.
The working class is taking it in the ass while companies are recording ecord profits thanks to the like of bush and his cronis.
They all sceam the economy is doing good, well it is for business but not workers!!!!!!!!!!!!

People are getting such a royal scewing now it's unbelievable.
All the years of democrats gaining better conditions , benefits, and pay have been given back by the republicans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'll stay out of the political side of it, but I think you've hit the nail on the head there. I remember this. It wasn't that long ago, maybe a year or so. There was a lot of noise about who could be on salary, and who couldn't. The idea was supposed to be getting people off of salary who were getting screwed out of overtime, but it's not hard to believe the end result was that companies cooked up a whole new load of ways to officially and legitimately pay their employees on salary, and screw them out of overtime.

None of which affects us so much one way or the other. We've been getting screwed since time immemorial. Being FLSA-exempt means we have absolutely ZERO legal guarantee of EVER getting paid a red cent for anything we do. Our time has no value. Leave us sitting for 70 hours at a rathole in West Memphis, and who cares. We get paid because we will quit if we don't, but there is nothing else to back that up.

That's why our wages keep going down and down and down. More people are willing to do more for free, or for less money, and there's nothing we can do about it, because we just have to be grateful they deign to pay us anything for our effort at all.

There, I'll see your Republicans rant, and raise you a Being Exempt from the FLSA is :dung: rant.

Laissez les bontemps rouller!

actually the laws that govern overtime for salaried mangers has been in effect for years so you cant blame that on bush.

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Excuse me, I believe you have my stapler...

The new name for the zit faced kid who pumps your gas at Sunoco is now a "Petroleum Distribution Engineer"

Hey, I resemble that remark, sans pimples, sans "kid". Really, while working full time as a pressman, I had a part time job pumping gas. Made $10/hr too. Thanks to the great state of Oregon, it's still against the law to pump your own gas. Got called a "Fuel Jockey" once by an ignorant woman that was upset when I told her I was too busy to wash her windows. I told her this was a fuel station, not a service station. If she wanted service, go pay for it at one of Bush's Stations!
Glad to be a Inventory Relocation Specialist now and will gladly jockey my own fuel from now on.

Can to blame bush , got mud, he is the one that signed the bill to extend that law to apply to who ever business wanted it to, via a burger flipper is now a burger flipper manager, hence exempt from over time, duh!

Actually.....the no overtime thing was caused by a lawsuit that was filed by Assistant Managers with "Starbucks", yep...the coffee house ..... it was done as a "class action" about 4 or 5 years ago. Starbucks was working those people into the ground.....way, way past 40 hours a week....under the guise of "being management"......and while they were "AM's.....their pay literally "sucked" and they were getting hosed. The courts said: No, pay them by the hour....and it made it harder to make Assistant Managers or many other management positions "salary exempt".

It was decided during Bush's tenure.....but he really can't be blamed for it. Hell....if he had his way, you'd either be replaced by a foreigner willing to work for 1/3rd of the money you make...... Or if he could get away with it, he'd sign an Executive Order ordering you to work for minimum wage and accept 40 hours pay or less regardless of anything.

If you doubt the above..... you're in trouble. The republicans are pushing like hell to get a "guest worker program" and "amnesty" for all the illegals, and Newt Gingrich is riding shotgun on it......and has told members of the ATA "Help us get the "guest worker" program approved, and you'll have more drivers than you will ever need"....or words to that effect.

Can I get a "hell yeah"?! That's exactly why that job sucks.

No, you can't.

Benefits the companies, the shippers, the receivers, the guy buying widgets at Wally World or tacos at Taco Bell or a new Camaro... We subsidize the entire American economy by working for free.