Can social media be the demise of bottom feeder companies?

First thing is you have to define what is a bottom feeder company to understand that nothing will change unless there is a major change in the economy or in the market. Upside of this is many will end up losing their jobs and thinning out of the driver pool, to the point that rates will rise.

 

...hehehe... I knew some of those guys in person. Back before it became a "thing." My Facebook and all social media is nonexistent. You can still dig up blurbs here and there is you really look, but I did a good job cleaning up after myself.

Anyways! No longer a part of that so its ancient history.

I think that's a tough question to answer. On one hand we have a society that's gotten used to the "me me" and equal treatment attitude that it's become a "standard" no matter where you look. Or at least that's the expectation. The irony being that those who don't think that way are the ones who often just, "Suck it up and take their lumps." There's nothing wrong with that attitude as if we all became princesses and expected stuff to be handed to us this country would be in the gutter twice as fast. But, this isn't a political thread. People don't do the research out of either laziness or they've got the false belief of equality among everyone. You can't fix lazy and you can't fix stupid.

That being said. Could social media and the Internet/rapid spread of information lead to a sort of downfall of companies who do mistreat their drivers? Absolutely. The caveat is that unless people use the tools provided to them in an efficient way, it'll work about as much as the DOT does on road construction.

The potential is there. But the two primary issues are the ones who know how to use it aren't loud enough and the companies they are against have an endless pool of sheep. How well do you think the cattle haulers would do if all those cows knew they were going to die?

The whole thing is a balancing act. If those who were wronged speak up too soon, then they are silenced by those who don't know any better. You can't forge a sword until the iron is hot enough. Right now, the fire is only lukewarm.

Still one of my favorites.

 

For those of you who feel that the older generation of drivers has no idea how to use tech and social media, you're very sadly mistaken. Some of those guys were the ones that used the original computers. Not all of them, I know, but the things that they had to do back in the day to debug their computers… I grew up with Windows 95, I learned by myself how to debug that computer. You did it all by hand. There were no diagnostic tools, if your Internet wasn't connecting, you didn't just click a few buttons and restart your modem.

The systems are much more complex, but the tech itself is extremely user-friendly. In this day and age we have no idea what the real debugging is. today's computers, make us nothing more than script kitties in comparison to what we used to have to do.

The drivers who I have met, and have willingly and openly talk about the bad companies often feel like their opinion in their story is not worth much. Exactly how many new forum members have we tried to educate about the company they are seeking employment with, only to find that they have no real interest in our opposing opinions?

Could also be that nobody ever asked about those companies. There are too many reasons why our older and more seasoned drivers don't speak up to simply say that they just aren't text savvy or social media savvy.

 

This whole debate shows society's general lack of personal responsibility. No-one would work for these companies now if they did even a minimum amount of research before jumping in to one of these companies. There are many forums to evaluate how good or bad companies are, and yet people continue to sign on with the bad companies. I think that with proper research you can find a company that is a fit for you, but it seems like people just continue to ignore the multitude of information out there and continue to sign up with the bad companies. Maybe some of these tech savvy young people that are going to change the industry should use a little of their savvy and do some research before signing on, instead of jumping in without doing so and then blaming everyone else. Personal responsibility is a lost quality in society anymore.

 

Tech savy 20 somethings are not coming into the industry period. The average age for drivers is currently age 52. The life expectancy of driver'
s is 62. The word is out, that trucking is not an appealing way of life for those just starting out. Trucking companies are not even atempting to market that group. Given they can find jobs in other industries that pay virtually the same, and offer a better quality of life. Those young folks who are coming into the industry, are born into it. Drivers are churning from one company to the next, or they are empty - nestors, or just retireds, who are looking for "adventure". The only fresh recruits who are under the average age, are those who are seperating fom the military.

 

Social media is pretty much useless for evaluating a company IMO.

The info is only as good as the source and if you don't know the source are you going to base such an important decision on some internet attention seeking blog?

If some of the companies were half as bad as what you read online would suggest they would have been out of business long ago.

 

Obviously you don't drive for Swift. If you did, you'd know that most of what's being repeated "a million times" may have been true a few years ago, but isn't any more. They've been really working to change their image over the last few years. They start new drivers at 33 cpm, which is going to 36 cpm next month. You're hard pressed to find a company tractor over 4 years old. And while you can occasionally find a pre-Y2K trailer in the fleet, most are under ten years old.

What caused the change? Word of mouth, including places like TTR, certainly had an effect. However, any company's leading indicator is turnover rate. If you're losing most of your new employees in the first six months, then something is wrong. If you can keep the employees you already have, then you don't have to worry so much about recruitment.

Yes, I drive for Swift. I have for nearly two years. I'm on a dedicated account, averaging 2400 miles at 48 cpm. Swift was my third choice, and my plan was to drive for Swift for six months, until I was eligible to transfer to my #1 choice as an experienced driver. Obviously, that didn't happen. I'm happy here, and expect to be here a while longer.

 

Yes, and its also used to spot out the drivers that bounce around. It works both ways.

 

Social media will never be an effective tool in this industry because the MAJORITY if drivers who complain fall into two categories:

1) those that are new to trucking and find it's not what they expected (I.e. Not a paid vacation, actually a job where you are expected to work..... Etc)

2) experienced drivers who are chronic complainers and everyone knows who they are.

The older drivers whom you falsely claim are not tech savvy are just doing their job and don't have time for blogging, etc. If more drivers spent their time hauling freight than sitting in the truck stop complaining they might find that they have less to complain about.

 

Worked for trucker desiree and many others who actually do something. You're telling me all these truckers complaining about sitting for 6+ hours waiting at a shipper don't have 30 seconds to spare to spit out a tweet or two from their phone? Please