Stevens Transport aviary

We use PeopleNet. Very simple. Really all we do is enter the morning and evening PTI's, the daily inspection report and just because I want to I send a message after unloading each load telling them that Im done and on to the next load. We rarely get any messages.

 

Accident last night. Truck parked for night in Truck stop. Truck next to it catches on fire that spreads to our truck. Driver is sound asleep, but bystanders pull her from the flaming wreckage. They are able to save her purse, passport and laptop. She escapes without a scratch. Talk about living right!
No idea how the fire started. All the trucks were tucked away for the night. I suspect it was idleing and a fuel line broke.
Police wouldn't release status of other driver...usually not a good sign.

 

Here's a thought people...if you have a Canada or NY load, call well in advance for the routing talk. Tonight, safety is overloaded with calls from drivers heading into NYC tomorrow morning. These talks take 10-15 minutes most of the time. There is one safety person at night and weekends.

Today was a hard day. Three of us answering general lines, plus three others answering direct lines. There were times where we were backed up more than 22 calls on hold. Geez I hate that! Sorry for all of you that had to wait so long. Thanks for your patience.

 

Glad to hear our driver is alive and well. Hoping other driver pulls through. Very sad set of events.

 

we get 5 messages in a group for each well site. the header that we just press reply and send, same thing when we reach the well, when we leave the well we enter the amount of oil and the specifics, send, reach the destination, reply send, done unloading, enter the amount unloaded, send, delete, and get next set. No ptis. Daily inspection report is part of the hours of service, press one button, enter truck number, defects, enter trailer number, defects, send, log off.

Others in the area are using peoplenet, with terrible results. not enough cell tower coverage in the wide open spaces.

 

most NYC load go in over the weekend and monday... maybe there should be more staff to handle these mandatory talks.

I always called a day before, while on my break, and talked with Mark.

 

In the places that we go, its rare that I lose the cell signal with PeopleNet. I guess that its just the part of the country that Im running. But like I said, we hardly use it anyway.

 

I cant say enough good about Mark. He was great to work with and knows what he is talking about and even seems to care about his job. Stevens needs many more like him and Emul....

 

There are a lot of good people that work inside. Most of us never see them or even come in contact with them. But on weekends and nights, we're just short handed. I wish we had a few more bodies to lessen the burden, but management likes to run a 'taunt' ship.
I think the one addition (and I've spoken often about this) that would make everyone more relaxed is if we could have another person answering phones, especially on weekends.
It is so frustrating to wait on hold for 45 minutes and more, especially listening to that mindless recording over and over and over!
And I know it bothers us on the inside to see the phones backed up 11, 15, even 25 calls.
Frustrations from the inside flow over onto the drivers.
Here's an example from last night.
I had a driver with a family emergency needing to get to Grand Rapids, MI. Now most of us know that MI and FL are the two states that have the least freight coming out and about the only people heading in are those going in for hometime.
This driver was in Gary when he came to my attention with a load heading to New Jersey.
I found a load heading to Grand Rapids (miracle!) with a solo driver that needs to be in Florida on the 16th for a family event. I found him in Pittsburg.
Now I know (and I reminded the FL driver) that once he's empty in GR, he's likely to be deadheaded to the Chicago area where he'll get a Kraft load heading to Springfield MO or Ft Worth...and his chances of getting to Florida on time are pretty slim.
You'd think the swap would be pretty easy. The Florida driver would pick up an extra 250 miles, put him on the I-95 corridor and almost guaranteed a trip home.
But he refused. "I don't do repowers. They never do me any good."
I had three other repowers just about the same.
Another was a load running late due to the shipper. Running with a team that needed to stop for their break. Another team with a load headed to the same receiver would have been able to swap, allowing them to empty out 8 hours earlier and both loads arriving on time.
Again...not willing to do it.
So this frustration flows over from the inside people towards the drivers.
Not fair, but I see some pretty jaded charactors there due to these kinds of issues.
I see drivers that get away with murder. But there are no reprocussions.
Driver running with a meat load two days late. Again, not the driver's fault, but he passed two mandatory repowers and flat out told us he wasn't giving up his load. He'd take the service failure on his record.
But he knows that means nothing. He was delivering this morning and I know he's going into an area that is short on trucks this first of the week, so he'll likely get a decent load back out.
And the hard working drivers that follow the rules, try and do what's right and help out get the big stiff weenie.
Well, I guess I vented for now. I'm still fuming over that family emergency issue. I ended up leaving last night knowing this guy would continue on to Jersey and I failed to get that done for him.

 

as a former driver, repowers are the equivalent of the popular club in school, certain people have learned how to game the system to their benefit, while screwing over most drivers. The attitude is to slam any truck under the load, and get it moving, then it is someone else problem to fix it tomorrow. There is no one, and I mean no one, held responsible for their actions at stevens. I was lied to by the weekend crew many times about repowers. I refused to do them after that. And as that one driver had come to learn, a service failure means nothing on the drivers record, although at first a new driver thinks it is important.

Emusified's insight into the actions behind the glass wall, just confirms what I suspected, accountability is lacking.

Management at stevens needs to get out of the mind set of monday thru friday, as trucking is a 24/365 day operation.