Gee, why am I upset????

The kid must be a snowflake. He figures the government will take care of your income and fix the truck for you.

 

Heck no your not wrong to be upset. Of course we are more high strung we have hung everything on the line yet we are surrounded by guys who don't care and don't wanna be out here. It's just another job to them if they back into you or me attitude is uhoh well things happen call your company. Yes good respectful attentive company drivers are out here but few and far between these days.

I feel your pain and sucks you got hit. mentality of some of these drivers today is awful sad.

 

With all the reading I do here seems like Im a minority but I tend to treat my company issued tractor and trailers along with the company equipment as if its my own and it gets my panties in a twist when I find screwed up equipment. It seems like Im the only one that writes crap up needing fixed. I just cant not care about my equipment, and shoulda learned by now not to wear panties cause they cant get twisted up if Im not wearing them. Lol

 

It's because kids these days aren't being taught the value of a dollar.
I was born in 82 and I certainly wasn't taught much about personal finances, or economics, how to budget, how a business works, etc. None of that was taught in my public high school, and I went to a decent school in a decent community.

We aren't teaching our kids value. We aren't teaching them how to respect the value of our labor, because in this day and age, that's cheap. Cheap wages, cheap products, cheap labor, everything is spoon fed.

You're upset because your survival was threatened. Most people in this country don't have to worry about that, because the government will take care of it. The government will not buy you a new truck, the government will not let you take welfare, because you're self-employed, the government will not give you unemployment, and the government won't even give you a tax break. What the government does do, though, is make it more difficult for you to survive by your own means - which, if I wanted to turn this into a political post, is the very point of government to most politicians these days - but it is true.

People don't know how to respect a dollar. People think it's just a piece of paper you can use to go and get something. It's not. It's labor. It's blood, sweat and tears, anger, worry, frustration, stress, and love. It's the monetary manifestation of our very lives. That's what people in this day and age don't comprehend.

When you said "kid", I'm not sure if that meant your kid, or the kid who was behind the wheel of that Swift truck. Kids are by and large spoiled. I know I was. I didn't have to do shi*.
You shell out a couple thousand dollars and your kid thinks it came from a tree.
You want to teach your kid a lesson with this, you and him go without dinner one night because you had to shell out some money for some BS. Lessons only hit home when one is affected by them.

My dad worked for 30 years at the GM plant so that his kids could have nice things. I never fully appreciated what he went through until the last few years, and I'm 34 now. In fact, I will probably never be able to fully appreciate what he went through for his family. And one thing about my dad, is I will never live up to his work ethic. And neither will most of the people I know. But that is another story.

 

Well, I am a comany driver but not young... yes, we have a lot less stress about driving because we do only hop in a truck and drive... we don't carry much if any of the risk so yes, we do look at it differently than an O/O would. And being part of a larger business model is different too as they know they will have a certain amount of damaged trucks each and every year so while we don't want damaged trucks, when it does happen, it's spread out over a much larger number of vehicles too. So the risk is spread out first to a larger business and then over several trucks too.

Not saying anyone should not understand that as an O/O you are carrying the full risk of any problems but yes, it's a totally different business model so yes, a different mindset towards issues that pop up.

 

Upsets me just hearing about it. I'm surprised I'm not in jail for the few times I was hit in a parking lot when I owned my own equipment. I haven't been hit since I went back to driving for "the man" but when the day does come, I'll just laugh and get their info.

 

If someone hit me and proceeded to act like it was no big deal, I'd be hard pressed not to knock out a few of their teeth. Yes, it's more stressful when you own the truck, because every new noise, vibration, or smell and you start wondering what it is and how much it'll cost. Company drivers have someone else worrying about that stuff for them.

 

I smelled a burning smell the other day and started to laugh out loud because i used to worry about that when it would cost me. Now I just hammer down, living the dream!

 

Hit my company truck and I'm going to be ticked off.