Before complaining about a company

As I read the Bad company threads, I have come to the conclusion that there are not any companies that anyone can work for anywhere; therefore everyone just needs to quit and go home. “Oh, but I need to make a living”. Then do it. If you are taking a company’s money, you do not have the right to complain until you have done the following:
Stop whining, there is a high probability that you are part of the problem
Do not tell everybody and their brother anything until you have actually quit and are gone.
Try to work out your differences with the employer verbally, face to face, or at least on the phone.
If you do not get satisfaction from the first person you speak with, work your way up the chain of command. The people are actually easier to work with the higher you go.
Realize that they are running a company that has to make money or the whole thing collapses and that you are a small part of it.
If you still do not get things resolved after really trying and a reasonable amount of time, put in your notice and then work it out.
Do not do something stupid like abandon the equipment because “they owe me”.
Remember: There are many hands right behind you willing to fill that seat and that with each change you make, your future choices will become very limited if your DAC report shows that you are a pain to deal with. Companies do talk to each other.
There should be a forum that allows companies to list what drivers have done to them or their customers. Now that would be a read.

 

The reason for my two posts yesterday is like Gears said; there are always two sides to a story. I began as a company driver in 1974. In 1984 my father in law and I began a small company. It lasted twenty years before we finally closed it due to high overhead combined with an extremely thin pretax profit. We had over fifty employees at the peak. There were about fifteen people there that were always honest, steady, there when the chips were down, covering your back, whatever term you choose. This core group probably generated eighty percent of our gross profit. Many will ask why didn't you just stick with them and remain a smaller company. We had to grow, customers demanded and more service, schedules always were being shortened and the competition increasing.
We provided paid health insurance, BC/BS, PP plan, the good stuff. We paid 100% of the single premium; the employee covered the extra cost of family coverage if he or she had a family. We had a 401(k) that we matched dollar for dollar up to six percent. We gave them up to three weeks paid vacation, depending on longevity, six paid holidays and a Christmas bonus (several hundred dollars) if there was enough profit. We also tried to have the best equipment and kept it up.

For our efforts we had people always stealing parts and tools. We had a driver run an overheated truck until the pistons and sleeves became one. What should have been a $300.00 road call became a new engine. We had a hot, expedited load abandoned on the side of the road without even a phone call letting anyone know. We had customers complain of lewd remarks being made to their female employees. The list goes on and on: customers filing bankruptcy, padded expense tickets, false workers comp claims, people begging for work and then not showing up, abused equipment, being continually lied to, borrowed money never paid back. I could go on and on. It was like running a day care. We had one driver pick up a load. He kept telling the shipper he had an emergency with his truck and might not make the delivery on time. He needed to get to the KW dealer a few blocks away for repairs. He asked for directions over and over again of how to get to KW.The whole time he was being loaded, he kept pacing back and forth worried about his truck. Finally the shipper asked him what the emergency was. You ain't gonna believe this. He told the shipper that the light was out in his speedometer and that when it got dark he would not be able to see how fast he was going and therefore he could not shift. AND HE WAS SERIOUS! Needless to say he did not last long.

Add to this list: OSHA rules, EEOC rules, increasing government regulation, a dwindling pool of good, qualified employees, taxes and just plain old high liability exposure and we called it quits. Sold off the assets, paid off our bills (I had to sell my house, cash in my 401(k), cash in my life insurance just to pay off the remaining bills). Now I am a single truck owner operator...and much happier.


Now you know the rest of the story.