Quote:
Originally Posted by slacker
I have to admit I bristled reading the opening post.
Bear in mind I was a business owner for 25 years and had many employees and several locations. I understand what a job is, and demanded commitment and loyalty from my employees, for which I compensated them well. How I wound up in the trucking industry was a matter of fate....
I had to ask myself why I bristled, because I agreed with the assertions, but I wondered if you reversed this conversation, and posted the opening list as the job description, who'd even take that job? Only the very desperate, or somebody will no other options.
It brought back memories of a day I drove around Atlanta and a couple of other towns looking for empty trailers for about 14 hours (unpaid), which happened frequently, because the company I worked for was publicly traded (I found out later), and there was this lady whose job it was to reduce the trailer count to the minimum to raise the stock price. Brilliant huh? My terminal manager, who was young enough to be my son, who I had a great relationship with, mostly because I did everything that was asked of me, replied, "Well, you chose to drive a truck," when I complained out of frustration of spending hours driving around looking for trailers. Instead of making a call to corporate as to why we never had trailers in Dallas or Atlanta, he chose to blame the driver. I wondered who he was afraid of to not speak up. His words were condescending and It hit me hard. I thought the goal was profit and productivity, but I guess not. It was just the corporate model. I never saw him the same way again, and plotted my escape. I'll be honest, despite all the talk, I felt more like a slave than an "associate" after that. I was called into the terminal general managers office and asked why I was leaving, and he just shook his head, but he was close to retirement and didn't want to call corporate either. So the stupidity continued.....
It never even occurred to me to blame my employees for my bad management.
The train of thought in the opener would never be accepted outside of the trucking industry, but prevails here, and is accepted as "normal," because the government has allowed this industry to violate just about every workplace rule, from overtime to whether a person is an employee or contractor, allowed per diem scams and a host of other schemes to take money from the uneducated. It's just wrong.
I know of one big trucking company that purposely recruits returning soldiers because of their willingness to suffer hardship, commitment to endless hours on the job, time away from family, and eagerness to work for low wages. Isn't that admirable of them to help our veterans out like that.......
That's what I bristled about, not so much about what you could or couldn't do in a truck or what the job requires, but reading the post gave me the same vibe I used to get from time to time in the big box companies.
I'm just being honest.........
Slacker, Thank you for being that honest and strong enough to tell us your story. I think we, the drivers, are mistreated and underpayed, because we let to treat us this way. If we have loads with sh..ty rates why do we move them?
