Calex Express....My New Home!

What is starting to bother me the most in what I am reading and what you guys are saying is usually not a good sign of things for a company with 1 truck or 200 trucks, is problems with drivers pay and maintenance issues.. Those are always signs a company is starting to struggle financially. I really hope that is not the case here but I hate to say it I have seen it so many times, specially over the past few years during these difficult times everyone is struggling in.

 

John, extremely good points from your post a day ago. One heck of a way to sum things up!

 

Good. Hope this means the new shop supervisor is getting settled in.

Being fair also means mentioning the efforts of our fearless leader to correct the problems you mention.

Added mechanic(s?)....check
ok, the mech is a puppy but the last three seem to have worked out. If we have to be a training company to save money; then, I would much rather have puppy mechanics than puppy drivers.

Changed tire change priority from trlrs first to trucks first...check
True that we will now have idiots taking off with trlrs before he can get to them, but we have had no pre-trip idiots all along.

Added supervisor who is actually IN THE SHOP....check
I struggle with names so all the land locked get descriptive nicknames till I can memorize their actually name. I call this one centerpiece because his station is in the center of the truck repair shop. With experience running Volvo's larger shop; he should have no problem mastering ours and be able to guide when our puppies hit a puzzle. I hope he can also help when Heather/Mel/Ray do not have enough ear capacity. I am not sure if the mechanics stay for privileges more than pay as the drivers do, but I am sure he will figure that out too.

Added washbay guy who actually gets them clean....check
OMG. When he finished I could pretrip check underside stuff without a hazmat suit.

 

4 years is a long time but I do not think I fluffed. The changes deserved mention and my reservations were included. I have been right there with you on several of your complaints. I apologise if I made you feel I blew off your worries.

It is also true that I am not as ticked about the lemon trucks because I seem to have turned Todds' "lemon" into my "lots of stuff breaks but energizer bunny truck just keeps rolling." I do a lot (some of it probably voodoo) to limit wear and tear on the engine.

I also think Tommy has been trying things to get a handle on the problems all along but has the same whack a mole confusion we do. I think the cameras inside were/are about trying to be several places at once.

Together WE caused centerpiece... For whatever reason; your growling was not getting a fix, then I gave Tommy a concrete example: the dog ate my repair request, Ray was too busy, my regen filter costs around 3k to replace, and it dying will mess up a critical load.

Two weeks later we have centerpiece. His job includes beating the tar out of the dog if it tries to eat another request and being a less busy Ray.

I guess it is the tomgirl in me. I want to take aim at what will fix it. I was/am convinced that if we fired every mechanic and hired all new ones the problem would get worse not better. I hear that Calex and the Volvo we lease from are sister companies; but, are some of the problem trucks outright lemons? Is that another direction we can aim for improvement?

Because we have seen it foul up three seemingly intelligent people; I have made no comments on payroll beyond sympathy for the 1 vs 145 nature of that position. Gail had the same hit or miss stats and so did Bob. That tells me the problem is in how it is processed not who is processing it.