CR England: No blindside, cant pickup load

Let me get this straight you've got 75 no make that 60 feet or 20 yards and you still can't reverse the truck in?

 

Yes, the England policy against blindsiding is nonsensical, but you can't change that. Other people are telling you to go against policy but none of them are going to pay your bills if England finds out and decides to punish you. If you hit something, piss off the wrong person, our get spotted by someone that knows your company policy and wants to rat you put it is your butt in the sling and telling your boss the policy is nonsense isn't going to do a thing for you.

Instead, use your communication skills. Someone there speaks English so find them. Find another driver and ask them for assistance. Cross the door number off on the paper, write no, and hand it back to them. Exhaust your options. When all else fails, you start calling phone numbers of bosses until someone answers. One of the worst things you could do in my opinion is blow it off like you did for so long. Now your boss is getting involved 15 hours after the fact.

And England isn't as dumb as people want to believe. They know you drivers will have to blindside and a policy like this is just further insulation when someone screws up. Then they can say "well, we told him not to, it's right here in the rules." Instead of drivers refusing to blindside until England is forced to changed the rule, the company is in the position of having it's cake and eating it too.

 

Then there's the warehouse guys making wagers on whether you can get into the dock. I saw that a few years ago and asked, "What's the over under for pull ups?"

"Three."

"Let me in on the action, I'll put twenty on the under!"

I had a nice steak dinner. I was betting on me.

 

I'm in agreement that the policy of no blindside backing is wrong. At Swift a trainee is required to accomplish several blindside backs before I could sign off on their qualification to upgrade to solo.

If you aren't improving as a driver every day, then you aren't advancing your career. You SHOULD be challenging yourself. GOAL often, especially when learning a new skill like blindside. Set your globe mirrors so you can barely see your own truck as a point of reference (I can't believe how many trucks I get into and the globe mirrors seem to be aimed to admire your truck instead of giving you a proper wide angle view).

Often when I blindside a GOAL can be as simple as rolling down the passenger window, setting the parking brake, and leaning out the window to see your clearance on the near side. To see the far side you do have to exit the truck to have a look.

When you get to the point that you look forward to hard backs as a challenge is right about the time you realize, "I got this!" Don't get over confident. Keep working at it.

Years into this I am still making breakthroughs on backing, shifting, and decision making. I review my day at the end of every shift. Where can I improve? I have weekly specials. This week it's only double clutching and NO Jakes. Last week it was only floating with full Jakes.

Always improve. Prepare yourself to be ready when opportunity knocks. It does yourself no good to lollygag along with your career, doing the same old same old, if you haven't improved your skill set.

What if tomorrow you were offered a dream job, driving a twin stick? Or an 18 speed pulling a smooth bore tanker? Have you become butter smooth with your shifting? What if the job requires numerous blind sides on a tight schedule? Up to the challenge?

Always be a better driver today than you were yesterday.

 

I would never give a driver advice to violate a company policy. However there comes a time when I need to be able to do my job. As I said earlier in this thread the places I went to required blindside backs 2 or 3 times a month. If I am working for a carrier that prohibits them I either do the back or it becomes a service failure. Honestly I rather have my reason for being fired failure to follow company policy that did not cause an accident, then multiple service failures. Most all drivers once fired by the likes of CRE should have another job within a week. If CRE has this nonsense in place that has the serious potential to cause service failures somebody needs their butts spanked! Service failures can cause loss of contracts. I know 2 brokers right now tonight that will not use a carrier that I won't name because their service failure rates are through the roof. Oh one more thing. Let me let you in on something that is a universal office politics constant. If one office is crying because of service failures it is the drivers that get the blame. You will find safety people taking coffee breaks. As a driver NEVER allow yourself to be at the mercy of office politics when it comes to the business end of this job. Me if I worked for CRE I would quit tonight!

 

Exactly. And when you can't get a hold of the company you have to be able to make some choices on your own.

The following is something I could not deal with.

 

One time at a previous job, I got tired stupid or day shift not doing their work leaving it for me. I started pushing back and I was fired. [This was not a trucking job]

While looking for other jobs, I dealt with absurd personality assessment questionnaires. Basically, many companies wanted drones and not independent thinkers. I did get such a job for a while before trucking by playing dumb.

Stuff like this might a sign such management of HR policies are spreading or people with a history of such jobs think they must simply shut up and do as they're told.

 

You are way too desperate.

 

He's also out of here for thread spamming.

 

This was a fun one I did a while back. You’ll get used to it. I’m new and figuring it out too, don’t stress and if you have to go so super slow.