Drivers don't look like drivers anymore

It is not too much about the Generational problem rather than the decline in grooming, hygiene, sanitation and other issues. Any trucker who has been out long enough these days would know all about that first hand.

It is not good to slap a broad brush calling every one beyond a certain age morons.

There is always change in life and as far as generations, it's part of change. The people in the 60's did what they were going to do knowing that their parents in the 50's did not approve or will. And each generation since then has tried in a percentage to get.. filthy in some ways or immoral. But only a percentage.

My line was pretty basic, in my time women would come up now and then looking for a date, which I rejected. It's not for me. However. When men or immature adults (Young ones) started coming up I knew that my time in this industry was numbered. Not because of me. But for their own sake. Because if they kept doing this type of behavior or communication, there is going to be a real problem pretty fast. Essentially not acceptable to me at all.

That is when I knew late in 1998 or so that my time was going to be limited in this industry. Things were changing to where no one in the industry had the respect or morals limitations as it were that were in place decades prior.

But to call the entire segement of people beyond a certian age morons or otherwise tear them down for considering that certain behavior, actions or whatever is immoral or not acceptable from the younger generation who probably were not raise properly, if they were raised at all. Considering some of the problems within society at large. In Baltimore a percentage of young adults today on the street did not have a daddy, or have a mother to show them right and wrong. That's a given.

Again it's a form of change. Not all change is good. But not all change is bad.

In this thread we are talking strictly about attire and a display of being professional, neat and organized when dealing with multi million dollar (Or should I say billion) shippers and recievers these days. They are not going to want to talk to a fly infested Mr Towel who has not been clean in a month.

But they will have no problem dealing with someone who is dressed properly for the situation they are in engaged in the business of picking up or delivering a load into their facilities.

Finally but not last the OP stated specifically that compared to what was then, the entire culture has changed to where it's really gotten bad. And there is no point in trying to say enough and put everyone back into boots and decent footwear because they will not. (The younger drivers)

In my position I say they will have to start wearing good foot wear when they start losing feet, toes and what not in various preventable accidents when a forklift with a pallet runs over them.

 

While I agree truck drivers shouldn't wear flip flops, it doesn't bother me in the slightest. Why would what someone else looks like bother me at all? If anything, I love it. The worse drivers get the more I can charge to my customers. They are paying for professionalism.

 

I use a small backpack for my toiletries & clean clothes when I go into a truck stop to shower. I prefer the back pack to the duffel because it frees up may hands.

 

Back in the 80s and 90s, there were a lot of women still wearing short skirts and heels driving a truck. Never could see how they kept from falling on their butts lol There were still a lot of cabovers in those days.

 

It's a lot easier to get in a truck than it is too get out of one.

 

EXACTLY! That's why flip flops bother me so much, I've seen the damage done to people not wearing the proper footwear. I's painful and completely preventable. I was hauling hot liquid asphalt in tanks a few years back. It's a hot summer day and no one really wants to were boots, long pants, long sleeve shirt & a hard hot in this weather, especially while loading hot product. I threw on my long sleeve shirt & hard had, and go upstairs, open my bulkhead and start pumping into my tank. While I'm loading another driver pulls into the bay next to me, he's wearing work boots & a hard hat, but a sleeveless T shirt & and knit shorts. I tell him he should cover his exposed skin and he proceeds to tell me off about how he's been doing this for years and he knows what he's doing. To make a long story short...he ended up getting hot asphalt on his skin and they had to rush him to the hospital with 3rd degree burns. Needless to say, he got hurt and learned a painful lesson, OSHA got called to investigate, the rules got tighter about the loading procedures & what used to be a 30 minute load became a 1 3/4 hour pain in the ###.