Phone lines...

I forgot I knocked a sign down once in the parking lot of a barbecue place

 

I did a few phone and cable tv lines when I was running residential pickup in NYC and southeastern Connecticut, very old and tight areas that were never made for a 13'6" high car hauler to be in. We had another driver hook the phone, tv, and power feed for a garage he was loading at in Bellmore, Long Island, forgot to put his top deck down and pulled out of the driveway, tore the distribution box right out of the wall. My brother tore down his own garage door with is wrecker, forgot the boom was up from servicing it and back out of the garage, he also tore down a power line and ripped the service off the side of a garage with a friend's dump truck last year while doing him a favor (I know, some favor).

 

While working up in Santa Fe, in my RV, I went to dump garbage. Didn't see the sign next to a speed bump that said "BUMP". So I did. Still got a little one on my rear "bumper". I Crack myself up sometimes

 

That's great news, Mack!

 

Glad you came out on top on this one. Are you guys financially responsible for damages, or does your company absorb the cost and deny you your safety bonus for a certain time period?

 

Mine is a weeks pay for the first year, and 2 weeks pay for every consecutive year without issues. If you get dinged, you lose it and start back at 1 weeks pay for the next year, then back up to 2. Needless to say, we fight tooth n nail when they claim preventable.

 

For us it used to be that if the damages didn't exceed $500, the company wouldn't even hold it against you. We'd have people swiping a handrail that ran parallel with a dock a few times and we just called out a welder to straighten it out real fast. A light scolding and maybe a few laughs... It was a done deal.

Then YRC (the devil) bought us out and changed everything. We've since fired so many people for minor mishaps. Most were new guys that were still learning the world of P&D... But we did have a few old timers with 15+ years with the company that got chopped as well.