Just got fired....now what?

Get those applications submitted and you'll be back on the road in a few days.

 

And almost every ltl driver does the same thing, that's a ######## excuse

 

Exactly right......I heard some good words the other day.

"It's not about the time you put in, it's about the time you gave away."

 

The only thing I can be called that makes me angry is to be called late for dinner! Outside of that I have a rather thick hide and let the names roll-off. @Chinatown might remember a while back I photoshopped a photo of my CDL and used Adolph's photo on it. That is because I have been called a Nazi several times. You have been respectful, so as far as I am concerned we have no issues. I am the type of person that will tell a good friend their butt looks too big for a dress! Or tell them they are being a "donkey" about something. I just learned a long time ago to be direct. You have made some mistakes that cost you your job. I then told you how I felt about that, and I was deliberately harsh! Reminds me of the lyrics from an old Dan Hill song! "I'd rather hurt you honestly. Than mislead you with a lie.".

So you stand on the precipas of a change. You can either continue as you have, or make some changes and maybe have a long career. In the end, ONLY you can decide what happens. Just remember this though, no matter what you do, even as an OO unless you run your own numbers, there will always be a critter in safety! They do hand out "pink" slips!

 

A safety nazi is not a Nazi it's just a colloquial usage to denote an extreme, often blinded devotion to something. A rules nazi as an example is somebody strictly following rules to the letter regardless of how it works in reality.

A soup nazi says no soup for you.

 

The night I backed into the reefer at Kroger i was at 14 hours on my clock and been awake 18 hours 5 hours earlier when I spent 3 hours getting towed and shoveled out of the 3 foot tall snow drift at the farm .

So after an exhausting 3 hours of Hand digging out my waiting full tank I than had to unhook my empty down the road in a clearing.

I Than had to take 20 Attempts with a 200 foot running start to back uphill under the full tank.

Than I had to wait for a tractor to plow out a clearing just to drop the full

Than I had to try get back under the empty on icy ground than pull out of the drive and run down the road and turn around and get a running start to get up the drive with the empty to position it.

Than unhook and get back under my full tank.

This is all at 2 in the morning in the middle of a Indiana field in a blizzard and 30 below.

After all this I had to drive a 100 miles in freezing rain to Indianapolis on Ag exempt to the dairy to get unloaded.

Their yard was unplowed and I got hung up on something under the snow in the back of their unlit lot.

Just barely rubbed the reefer backing in the freezing rain in the dark and damaged the light skin on the tanker

By than I had been up over 24 hours straight

Milk Waits for No One is the motto

My safety department didn’t think it was a big deal so why do you ?

Have you ever hauled off a Farm?

 

This comment is very indicative of the nature of Accidents/Incidents! These things in normal situations don't "just" happen. Weather, schedule, vehicle problems, family matters back home etc can and VERY frequently can lead up to a poor choice. As I think back to my time as a driver, in just about every bad situation I found myself in there was another dynamic at play. I remember once somewhere near Fredrick Maryland headed west on a holiday weekend. I had just gone through that parking lot known as DC. I was tired and simply not feeling human. I had to make myself focus that day. My normal guard was down and it would not have taken much for me to in a burst of anger kill some jakeleg that got in my way that day. This is the primary problem. It does sound easy to say, in a hole stop digging. It's just not easy to put into practice. I have been there, done that! AS has everybody else that comment in these boards IF they are being honest! This mindset is the genesis of accidents/incidents! Over time it can cost you a job!

 

So, all I got out of your excuse was, I was out of hours exhausted and drove unsafe and had an accident and the company condoned it. That about right?

 

Driver should haul farm to market and market back to the farm, self loading/unloading, exempt
and not so exempt sometimes to get well rounded outlook on real life trucking.

 

Schneider is the same way.