The driver shortage (solved)

we have several, what shall i say? steering wheel holders, drivers who think the only aspect of the job is driving. i have to pull samples at the farms. these samples are in part used determine how the farmers are getting paid for their milk. the quality of their product is determined (bacteria cell count), the components like butterfat are also determined. i put the samples in the ice chest in the back of the trailer. i do farm pickup, this means i go to the farm and pickup the milk i normally do not do plant delivery. i take the full load of milk back to the yard and another driver delivers it to the plant. this is the transport driver. part of the job of the transport driver is to remove the samples from the trailer and place them in a refrigerator at the plant. the ice chest must also be refilled with fresh ice (so there is ice for me to put my samples in).

we have several drivers that are too lazy and refuse to take the samples out of the trailer and refill the ice. this is not hard or difficult to understand, yet i loose track of how many times this happens. samples are only good for 48 hours then they have to be thrown in the trash. i throw allot of samples left from the previous load in the trash. i say something to the boss but nothing changes, he is afraid they will quit so he takes no disciplinary action.

seems like if you keep a fairly good driving record every other aspect of the job is overlooked.

 

Agreed.

An old friend of mine had an accident soon after he started driving.
One of those "what was he thinking" kind of deals. Today he has been
driving for over 20 years......as far as I know never had another accident.
My point is there are a lot of drivers who had an incident.......learned from
it an today are good/safe drivers.

 

I'm extremely surprised the plant would accept milk without those samples. I grew up on a dairy farm and in addition to sampling for milk fat and bacteria, the plant is also sampling for antibiotics from a treated cow.

 

I have been very lucky and haven't had an accident in 35 years of driving and I mean lucky a lot of accidents are basically being in the wrong place at the wrong time. . I know I have drifted out of my lane before and just been lucky ect. I would have a hard time be living anyone that said they had 100% concentration in that much driving ... I think it's around 99.5 % ... but a lot can happen in that .05 % and your done ..

 

here is HOW that works. i know both aspects as a i was a milk receiver before a driver. milk tanker enters the bay, a receiver (what i used to do) will pull samples from both compartments and take them to the lab. a lab tech will run the samples for bacteria AND cell count. IF the samples given to the lab are bad, they run the samples in the back of the truck and determine which farm is the culprit, if the load is good it gets pumped to the silo. its a way of figuring out WHO produced what when you have a load that is comprised to intermingled milk, that is a tanker made up more the one farm mixed together.

still, the farm samples i take are processed by the co-op to help determine how much the farm is getting paid for their milk. the higher the quality (lower cell count), the higher the butterfat; the more the farmer gets paid. the farm has to have so many samples per month, and the best samples are taken to tabulate their pay.

the entity getting screwed when no samples are provided (leaving them in the truck would be the same as me never taking them) is the farm. this pisses me off to no end. i care about what i consider to be customer service. the price of milk is already too low, its been nationally on major news networks.

we have another farm that is near a lake, any significant volume of spilled milk can result in the D.E.C. being called (if any milk reaches the ditch). i take that very seriously not to spill at that farm. the farmer told me they had so many problems from previous drivers spilling, they were looking at possibly another hauler. i have never spilled milk there. weather or not my boss realizes it, i very well might have saved him from loosing that farm to someone else.

 

I love how drivers know how the system works and never owned a truck or hired people.

Now it is a profession?

Really, look around guys, we have east crackerjack licenses, a revolving door hiring system and a attitude that it is not a profession but a means to chase the big bucks.

NO one has ever said that new drivers are safer, there is no way to support that idea and it may be a case where complacent drivers are the more dangerous on the road.

 

Best. Post. Ever.

 

the Democratic brainchild csa scores those students most have a csa of 0 mostly because they haven't had the opportunity to hit anything yet ... a guy that's been driving for 20 yrs safely got a seat belt ticket last year has 21 csa points and according to the federal government is much more likely to get in an accident than the 90 day wonder

 

and I own 2 trucks now and have had 4 others all paid for .

 

Many trucking companies conduct business based on operating ratios. Trucking companies must move freight at the price that does not negatively affect the final sale price of the goods they haul. For example, loads are priced most commonly based on freight classes. A freight class determines the price of the load based on the trans-portability of the goods. Density, stowability, handling, and liability are the four key categories to classifying freight according to the NMFTA. As you can see liability meaning the value of the goods is only one factor in pricing freight. To take things further, insurance companies place a cap on the value of freight they will cover. Therefore, expensive freight does not always give a higher payout to trucking companies.