Be nice to shippers and receivers it pays off.

If (again) it was ever hinted that I should pay to get "special treatment", I'll ask them if they'd like to pay me for not kicking their arse. Do it with a twinkle in your eye, and they think you're making a joke, but it still works.

I've also started doing that with mooches of all kinds. A guy (or girl) will ask for some money for whatever. I explain to them that they should give me money for taking my time to talk to them, since my time is valuable.

 

Well, you are 2 sided then.

You give them the water and expect special treatment.

Another driver comes in and then they are thinking, special treatment after water or they wait.

They expect something for nothing. You gave it to them.

 

No, I don't expect special treatment - I show them respect, which is certainly unusual from a driver, and they're no longer pissed about the last guy acting like a jerk.

If 3-4 drivers didn't act like flaming arseholes, there'd be no difference in the way we were treated.

And hey, if you were helping me move, which helps me, I'd buy you beer and pizza. Is that wrong, too?

 

No, because I gave you my time to help.

I give everyone respect. Charity is something else when they are paid to do a job.

Getting desparate I see.

No sense beating a dead horse.

You can have your opinion, and others can have theirs.

 

Never desperate. Just of a different opinion than you, and that's what makes this country so great.

 

One last thing, though... when I was a service manager and we got courted by car rental companies, please understand something. All car rental people are nice, usually, so it wasn't like Hertz, Alamo and National made us mad, and Enterprise was the only company that was respectful - they're ALL nice. Enterprise needed to stand out, and they did. With that said, if their service sucked, and they weren't taking care of my customers, all the pizza in the world wouldn't keep me from kicking them to the curb, and they were told just that.

On the trucker side of things, though, I guarantee that most shippers/receivers/dock workers get cussed out and called a (whatever) at least once or twice a day by some nitwit driver who hasn't matured since he/she hit 13 years old...

And then you and I get to walk into THEIR place of business and try to get unloaded or loaded. I'm nice, crack a joke, maybe, and it works well. While getting unloaded, I'll offer a cold drink.

It's not like I do the magician hand show thing with a cold bottle of water and say "if you get me in ahead of all those other guys, you'll get THIS!"

Just saying, and it's unfortunate, that we have to make up for the umpteen jerks they've had to deal with, because they ASSUME you're one, too, until you prove them wrong.

 

I'm not an OTR driver right now. I haul logs out of the woods. So I work in a differant enviroment than most. I will tell you though that a bottle of who hit john or a 12 pack always puts a smile on the loader operaters face. yea it his job to load me BUT he can also say go home with out a load bribery you bet. used to do it on the road too. As has been said it helps. You don't know what kinda day them guys have had or not had why not make someones day by being nice. To those that have posted the remarks of "why bribe them to do thier job" if you haven't figured it out then I wont explain the benifits. I will say that you have the attitude of most today and in my opioin it sucks. That is the attiude that causes bad feelings and poor attitudes in most people.

 

Then they should be willing to pay me a bribe to haul their stuff.

Otherwise, I can say they have the poor attitude that causes this as well.

 

Oh I most certainly will. I only bump 3 docks a week. But should I ever end up at a one dock customer, I'll be more than happy to move mid-load so you can drop off that one pallet.

I will never do more than show up on-time and hand them the bills. This is how I did it when I was a nomad for a junk carrier driving aimlessly around the country and I had few problems.

But any Ambassador relations between customers and drivers is a good thing but if they want extras I am not the guy to provide it.

 

The thread is a good topic and you will not finding me bribing anyone as I'm just a middle man dealing with strangers. If my company wants me to bribe them, then they can reimburse me for it. Being nice goes a long way, but doesn't mean you have to lower your income to do it. Now a boss doing something special for an employee is something different. Dealing with dedicated customers is something different. Thinking you have to give a strange OTR customer something to get unloaded faster is just a suck up making it worse on the rest of us. We are already paying large lumper fees for a service.

The main thing a driver can do is refrain from getting mad, no matter what. A mad driver will cause your unload to be an extended stay. Learn how to be self substained and comfortable in your truck. Being quiet is just as good as being nice. Being mad just makes things worse.

I noticed that at my numerous doctor visits. A salesperson will come in and bring them donuts or stuff. It's common practice to make a sale. That is understandable.

Getting gifts from me? I don't think so! I have 300 DVD's and will wait you out. Then you are going to pay me detention for watching movies and catching up on my sleep. My record is a 30 hour detention. I never let a hint of being mad. I also got paid $200 for the detention.