What is Steven's Pet Policy?

no pets is the policy

 

That sucks.

 

If you are a driver, they don't ask. I have a wife. She tells me where to go. They tend to overlook other things. Just don't put it on farce book.

 

If you get caught with an unauthorized pet on the truck, you become unemployed.
Drivers that had a pet before the policy change a few years ago are grandfathered in. But otherwise, absolutely none!
We do a lot of business at food processing facilities and those customers often have no pet policies.

 

(the following is sarcasm. just want to make sure that's understood)

Right. Because if I had a dog on my truck, I'd be tempted to have him get in the trailer to set my load locks!
And I can't tell you how many times Tyson has had someone rub the chicken on my truck floor and seats before they packaged it!

Have these customers looked at some of the DRIVERS???
My dog (at home) is way cleaner, less smelly, better groomed, and better house-broken than some of these guys! And they WILL be going inside the facilities and the trailer... (this comment does not necessarily reflect fellow Stevens drivers. Just drivers I've had the misfortune of standing in line with)

I suspect it has more to do with the resale value of the trucks and people allowing poorly trained animals to chew, claw, and relieve themselves all over the trucks...

Because dirty, stinky, drivers with poor hygiene that leave piss bottles all over and chain smoke in the cab won't lower resale values either...

There is no logical reason that my quiet, well-trained, 10 lbs hypoallergenic terrier (who's at home, per company policy) cannot be on my truck with me. As long as I practice some common sense, of course (ie dogs don't need to crap at a customer facilities. They can wait for the truck stop). Just saying...


Ok... my rant and lament of loneliness due to stupid people ruining things for the rest of us is over.
Carry on.

 

One of the problems of this forum is most of the people that read and post are responsible adults.
The most surprising thing for me to accept when coming inside, is the number of drivers that are whiney butt, irresponsible, self centered jerks.
Often times, the responsible persons guage everyone by their own standards. But what really happens is outsiders guage all drivers by those low life slobs that stand out. And I'm not speaking of just Stevens. We've seen them all over the place in every brand truck you can imagine.
So yes, there is a lot of truth to what disco says. Our pet policy has been shaped by the few irresponsible drivers that abused the trucks, the shippers, the receivers, the truck stops...
I joined Stevens just as the policy changed. I remember being taken back to a tractor behind the shop that looked like it had been shredded by 50 angry cats. The smell was so bad you would start gagging 5 feet away. And this coming from a person who's wife accuses me of not being able to smell a rotting carcas of an elephant in the same room! The company driver had 4 cats (that we know of). The truck was barely a year old.
I have seen other drivers from other companies walk their dog on the sidewalk entering the office. I've seen drivers empty cat boxes in shippers parking lots. I watched a driver bring his dog onto the shippers loading dock as he monitored produce being loaded, and watched that dog heist a leg there! These are the same drivers that drop their pee bottles in the parking lot, smear feces on the bathroom stalls walls and mark their territory with graffitti.
You get my drift.
Yes, we have shippers now that post signs that say, "NO PETS ALLOWED ON PREMISES". Funny thing, those signs are at the truck entrance, not the general public entrance. (Exxon Mobile in Beaumont comes to mind).
If all drivers were at least as considerate and responsible as the posters on this forum, we wouldn't have so many of these rules.
But a few mess it up for the many.
We have shippers that will not load trailers if they know a pet is on board.
We have shippers that will inspect the truck for pets at the guard shack to see if a pet is on board. I was called once to repower a load that was not yet loaded because the driver had a dog on board (unbeknown to Stevens) and was turned away at the Campbells plant. I later met that driver at the truck stop and his truck was immaculate, however the shipper had a policy to enforce that was surely brought about by irresponsible pet owners.
I've been a pet owner for years and use to take my dogs on my truck with me when I owned my own trucks. (I didn't haul food products)
I never realized the problems until joining Stevens. Not to reflect on Stevens. I think the fleet is about the same as so many others. I talk with other operations persons that have come over from other fleets and they tell me it's about the same.
So once again, the few mess it up for the many.

 

Yep... sad.