Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

Day 2--The Fleet Manager

At one of the mid-morning smoke breaks a DM (Driver Manager) stopped out front to meet us, take her smoke break with us and talk to us briefly and explained that normally she does the presentation to new drivers but had to be away tomorrow so that her co-worker would speak to us instead. This was my first opportunity to speak to a Driver Manager and I tried to get as much 'inside' information from her as possible. She was friendly and unhesitating in her answers and answered all the questions that I could think of and there were quite a few. I thought I got well past the things she wanted me to know and into the stuff I wanted to know.

For one thing, I learned that they work 12-hour shifts, like 3 days on, then two off, then two on, three off or something like that. Plus, if I recall, they alternate Saturdays. But basically, if one was working, the other was home. Of course, this could all change. It sounded pretty intense, though. Gordon assigned new drivers to these two DMs for at least the first thirty days, maybe longer or shorter, depending. Then you were assigned a permanent DM.

Early in the afternoon, the Fleet Manager spoke to us and I should have paid better attention because she's where the buck actually stops on your pay, the truck you're driving, time off, discipline, driver evaluations, etc. But she did not tell us this. Instead, she encouraged us to resolve issues through our Driver Manager--of course! Because if there's another shoe to drop, she wears the big shoes. I learned that she had a background as a team driver with her husband and she would often be found 'holding court' outside, just below her office window with a group of drivers and co-workers around her, many of them (and her) smoking.

I just totally missed the significance of the Fleet Manager. She had some tips for us and that's what I focused on. Fuel at least fifty gallons she said, then start over with another fifty. That way you'll get at least two showers off one fuel stop. Gordon likes showers. Gordon also places clout and responsibility on the Fleet Manager. The Safety Guy's desk faces her desk, although there's enough stuff in the way so they aren't actually face-to-face, they can hear each other and that helps keep them both posted. They're a good team.

Later in the afternoon the Safety Guy took us all out in the Gordon van for Smith Defensive Driving training. We had all six of us in the van and took turns driving, calling out loud our Smith System observations. I thought C.R. England and I were probably the best 'test-takers' for the Smith System as I had gotten some very thorough Smith System training from FedEx back around 2000 in California when I part-timed as a ground delivery driver. The Safety Guy was also a Gordon Certified Trainer, had only been out of a truck and into management a little over a year and a half, I think, and moved to Indy to take this job. He demonstrated first and had some angles on the Smith System, like "pushing your eyes out" and "pulling your eyes back" that were very helpful but not explicitly part of my prior Smith System training.

 

Wrapping Up Day 2

So the Fleet Manager was sort of a one-person driver personnel department, truck allocator, driver disciplinarian and general all-purpose ramrod and the DMs were her henchmen, her border collies, driver herders. And nothing in Orientation served to enlighten you. No, in fact, we were provided with a schematic that showed the Director of Regional Operations at the top of the pyramid, the Driver Manager directly below the DRO, Planners off to one side at the same level as DMs and Customer Service Reps off to the other side of the DMs, but at the same level. Clear as mud, huh? I never met a DRO, a Planner or a CSR. The Fleet Manager wasn't even on the chart.

In retrospect, I think Gordon didn't want us to know too much, but did want us to know that Planners, Driver Managers and Customer Service Reps existed somewhere at Gordon but your DM was your main interface to Gordon. If you knew (and I didn't) that the Fleet Manager and Safety Guy were a special team, okay, fine. I came to the conclusion that the Planners were mythical creatures that did not actually exist. I never met a Planner, never talked to a Planner, yet a Planner was always the excuse for that lousy load and the DM wanted you to believe that the Planner assigned it to you and so you had to live with it. I concluded that Planners were just there for deniability.

Gotcha!

The fact was that if Gordon wanted to spin you around, Gordon could move loads around like grabbing ping pong balls bouncing around in a big basket. With 2000 trucks and drivers and tons of freight, you popped up on someone's screen based on your 'PTA' or Projected Time Available. If you wanted to keep moving, you set your PTA as close as possible to reality. If you needed some space, you could set it with your PTA--but Gordon really didn't want you to know that you had the power. I'll have more to say about this later.

The surprising thing is that Gordon did a great job of knowing who you were. Despite 2000 drivers, when I walked into the office I was recognized by face and name--immediately--and they made it seem effortless. I think somewhere behind the scenes this was highly emphasized by higher powers. I also learned that there was often food in the office, so if I swung through Indy I stopped in. Someone apparently always had an excuse for a mini-potluck going on, burgers, cold cuts, chips, dips, homemade fudge, donuts, drinks, you name it. The office was always open when it was open. Well, maybe not the Recruiter's. His door was often closed. Not always. But often.

At night, when you tried to reach your Indy DM, you usually got either Green Bay or Pacific. Now trust me here. Make sure your DM stacks your next load. Pacific probably won't dispatch you but Green Bay will, and it's the dregs left over at the end of the day that are about to fail. In fact, as a newbie, a lot of the loads you get have already failed. More on that later.

 

Correction to Page 1 post 'First Look at Gordon': I found the leasing flyer. The picture on front is a group of Freightliner Columbias. New ThermoKing Tripac (APU), 3 year or up to 1 million mile warranty on engine, transmission and rear ends. 1 year or up to 100,000 mile warranty on turbo, injectors and water pump. I never got around to actually speaking to someone. But I did talk to owner-operators. I'll have more to say about what I learned from Gordon owner-operators.

 

Day 3--Driver Manager on Fire

Now recall that the Driver Manager who usually speaks to new drivers at Orientation was to be away and her co-worker would meet with us instead.

The highlight of Day 3, without a doubt, was the Driver Manager co-worker who came with attitude, like she wanted a 2x4 with a nail in it and to beat us all with it really hard and repeatedly for all those transgressions she just knew were coming from us. Between her and her co-worker, she said, they had--I think she said 17 years of trucking experience--"so don't even think of trying to get over on us." And she wasn't smiling. She was strident.

"Hm-m-m-m," I thought, "Wow. The gloves are off!" And they were. Now this was an entirely different tone. The Gordon welcome mat was gone, gone, gone, disappeared, and this was our main interface with Gordon. "Don't just tell me I'm stupid!" she said. "If you have a problem with a dispatch, tell me what the problem is." I couldn't imagine telling her she was stupid and living to tell about it. It sounded like she had just had a really bad experience with the worst driver on her board and she was bringing it all on us.

"P01 (Pickup Number One)," she snarled, "is not the same if you punch in 'P' then the letters 'o' and 'l' instead of 'P' then '0' (zero) then '1' (one), it's NOT something wrong with your QualComm!" She actually shouted! Some of her more computer-challenged drivers had apparently just driven her either to distraction, or right over the edge. She said she had all sorts of failed loads, I recall it as over 150, that Gordon couldn't get to in timely fashion. She was tweaked. And it sounded like it was all our fault, or would be and for sure the fault of the gear-shifters out there in the smurf-blue trucks. If it wasn't our fault yet; it soon would be. She was quite a performance.

I got to know this gal later as very competent and capable, and there were drivers that I respected who could have had other DMs but who preferred her. But in this instance she was, well, majorly intimidating. On fire, even. Made me want to crawl under the table and hide. What? Me work here? At Gordon? For her? Waaaaa!! That sign-on bonus is NOT enough!

 

More on Day 3

The very intimidating Driver Manager announced at the end of her spiel that we would get our truck assignments from her tomorrow. I mustered the courage to tell her that I wasn't starting until next week. "Why not?!" she shot back. I explained that this was pre-arranged with the Recruiter because I had work to do back home first. "We-e-l-l-l-l-l-l-l," she gave me a hard, hard look; I expected her to say it's not up to him, "When you get your lawn mowed, you call me. You're still getting assigned a truck tomorrow."

"Yes, Ma'am!" I thought. She said I was getting assigned a truck like my ONLY option was to agree with her. After her spiel I had a chance to buttonhole the Recruiter, who had come up to see his Assistant. He just walked away from me, but I persisted. I hadn't seen anything on my paperwork about the $1500 bonus. The Recruiter sort of turned, backing away from me, pushing his arms out from his chest, palms up as if to push me backwards, except we were now six feet apart as he backed away. "Vic, you're getting a $1500 bonus, $750 on your first check, $375 3 months from now and $375 after six months." Then he added, with emphasis "We've got no problem!" A variation on, "I don't think that's a problem," was this declaration that we had no problem.

I was starting to feel like a chick being kicked out of the nest and into the hands of one hard-case Driver Manager, but I wanted the bonus.

In the afternoon, the Safety Guy wrote '16' on the board in large letters and asked if anyone knew what that meant. Super Service, to my surprise did. It was the years of reduced longevity truck drivers have compared with the rest of the population. (Our life expectancy as truck drivers is 61 years, which means I'm already dead almost four years now. I hardly feel it!) He also took us out to see that we could climb up onto the back of a trailer. I went first and got up fairly easily. Everybody oohed and ahhed since I'm the oldest in the group. Swift struggled some, as did the Viet Nam vet, I think. Someone told me the average age of a driver in Orientation is 48-years-old and our group was a little older; but if true, that factoid does surprise me.

I was the only one with no experience with a QualComm or APU and it seemed like we rushed through those. I took notes but missed much. There were codes for this and codes for that but it was emphasized that if your load was a Service Watch load, one minute late was a service failure and Gordon looked dimly at service failures. Fortunately, not all loads are Service Watch loads. More on that later.

 

The Money Thing


I'm going to break away from my narrative here and list what I made my first 3 weeks at Gordon. Then I'll return to my narrative. Funny, although my sign-on bonus was supposed to be $1500, $750 on my first check and then $375 in 3 months and the last $375 in 6 months, Gordon paid me a $1000 bonus my first week. I'm usually the kind that if you over pay me, I'll bring it to your attention. I decided not to do that; I kept the $1000. My target was to make at least $750 per week, net--after taxes. Not much chance of that at Gordon. At first I did not have a transponder so I paid tolls out-of-pocket.


Week 1--10/14-10/20 Paid 10/26/2012
Indianapolis to Olney, IL.........................................................$ 48.67
Olney, IL to Effingham, IL to Seymour, IN................................. 75.95
Sign-on Bonus $1000 (Should have been $750)........................ 1,000.00
Gross pay...................................... 1,124.62
Net pay............................................. 869.46
Miles...................................................... 402


Week 2--10/21-10/27 Paid 11/02/2012
Seymour, IN to Spencer, IN to Indianapolis to Melrose Park, IL....$ 79.98
Melrose Park, IL to Forest View, IL to Pontoon Beach, MO.............. 90.83
Pontoon Beach, MO to St James, MO to Columbia, MO to New Century KS
.................................................... ....................................... 112.22
New Century, KS to Lenexa, KS to Columbus, OH......................... 214.21
Columbus, OH to E Columbus, OH to Indianapolis.......................... 54.87
Toll.......................................................................................... 12.00
Gross pay................................... 564.11
Net pay...................................... 472.51
Miles............................................. 1781


Week 3--10/28-11/03 Paid 11/09/2012
Indianapolis to Plainfield, IN to Indianapolis...................................$ 11.78
Short Haul Pay............................................................................. 30.00
Indianapolis to Indianapolis............................................................... .31
Short Haul Pay.............................................................................. 30.00
Indianapolis to Spring Valley, IL (with trainer)................................... 46.36
Spring Valley, IL to Hammond, IN to Columbus, IN (with trainer)......... 59.28
Columbus, IN to Indianapolis (with trainer)......................................... 8.36
Short Haul Pay.............................................................................. 15.00
Indianapolis to Washington Courthouse, OH...................................... 51.46
Washington Courthouse, OH to Columbus, OH to Coldwater, MI.... ...... 83.08
Gross pay........................................ 335.63
Net pay............................................ 294.29
Miles................................................. 1073

 

Continuing the $6.64-per-hour Digression

Gordon tells you that Gordon will run you 2100 to 2200 miles per week. I came to the conclusion that Gordon means a full 7-day, 11-hour driving, 14-hour per day week or an average of a mere 300 miles per day for the 'traditional driver.' In my case, 31 cents a mile in order to get home sometime on Saturday, off on Sunday (the 'mythical' five-and-five Fleet that some DMs said doesn't exist) and back on the road Monday, I then have to subtract a day-and-a-half or 450 miles from the 2100-2200 weekly mileage 'guarantee'.

To repeat, since I'm not a 'traditional' driver, on the five-and-five (working five-and-a-half days) I have to subtract 450 miles from 2200 since I'm not working a full 7-day week. That gives me 1650 miles per week. Multiply that out and I get 1650 x 31 which equals $511.50 per week gross, for a net (less 25%) of $383.62 (511.50 x .75), little more than half of the $750 that I expect to net per week. That's still a 77-hour work week (five-and-a-half 14-hour days) or 5.5 x 14. If you divide the gross pay of $511.50 out by 77, you'll see that my expected earnings from Gordon were actually $6.64 per hour (511.50 / 77) and it bears out really well with what I actually earned at Gordon.

Gordon didn't tell me going in that I could only expect $6.64 per hour, of course. I was thinking 2200 miles per five-day week because after all that's only 400-450 miles per day. But if you thought as I did, you'd be wrong based on my earnings with Gordon. I got on average one new dispatch each day with Gordon, usually 250-400 miles and averaged out around 300 miles per day. If you're satisfied working for $6.64 per hour, you'll be fine. Welcome to Gordon Trucking. The result is lots of turn over because "them's small potatoes."

After all, how can a man (or woman) support a family, a car, a home, on $383 per week? Now, I have an edge. I collect early Social Security; I own all my vehicles (and have quite a few); I own my 4-acre property free and clear; I'm single and no alimony or child-support payments. So if I wanted to, I could actually survive on Gordon's pay and keep my utilities on, pay my property taxes on time and keep my car insurance up. But if Gordon made this clear to new drivers coming in to the company, I think a lot fewer would stay much past Orientation. I feel especially bad for Super Service and C.R. England who specifically came over to Gordon to get away from that type of short load, short pay work. And both had families to support back in Wisconsin.

The result is turn-over. Driver turn-over is so high in some parts of the trucking industry that it would justify a federal law requiring that trucking companies disclose their turn-over rates. I've worked for trucking companies that had little or no turn-over, where the 5-year, 10-year, 15-year and 25-year drivers were there, just based on how long the company had been in business. But they paid well.

On the other hand, if an OTR trucking company pays like working at McDonald's pays, it just makes sense that those OTR trucking companies have even more turn-over than McDonald's or Pizza Hut because at McDonald's and Pizza Hut you at least get to sleep at home in your own bed at night. At Gordon, I slept in a different state most every night. (But I liked that.)