Management Without a CDL

Seems to me that if you're running a trucking outfit, or writing government regulations for the industry, you SHOULD have some actual first hand knowledge and experience. Foolish me...

 

No doubt they should have a CDL and at least some experience as to what goes on out there in the field, especially the safety department guy. Unfortunately its not the case with most bigger companies. These positions get filled by yes men with low gag reflex who bow down to upper management.

 

LGR (Low Gag Reflex)... this should become a new Internet meme.

 

Overall trucking company management is not taken seriously by anyone. Almost no one with a college degree has that degree in logistics or transportation management. And it shows. Most trucking managers hired have degrees like "art history." Dealing with truck drivers is their last chance job before the student loans catch up with them. It is not something they ever wanted to do.

There is some bad management from former truck drivers from time to time. Some of the worst dispatchers I have run into are former "drivers." Usually these types are the company know-it-alls with poor communication skills on top of that. They get by working in the office environment only because everyone else in the office knows nothing about trucking.

The other office common profile of a trucking office manager is one of nepotism. Usually a friend or a relative of some one higher up in the company. They are just a warm body in the office sucking up oxygen and leaching a paycheck off someone else work. They are usually too incompetent to do anything else, and are only in the position to manage driver because managing drivers should be easy - right?

Should some day should I find a trucking manager that is not a nitwit, I will only increase my respect for him or her if he does have a CDL. In all honesty it took me 40mins, (10 for the written, and 30 for the pre-trip and driving) to get a CDL and all the endorsements. If you cannot make that amount of effort to be knowledgeable and proficient in the job you choose, you should not be in that job or that industry, and especially in a position of managing others in that industry.

 

Just possessing a CDL doesn't mean you know anything about trucking. It means you learned just enough to pass the tests.
Only with actual experience, does the CDL have any meaning in management types.

 

When promoted to management they are know it alls. However, as drivers they were often the wreck it alls

 

It means you know enough to pass the CDL test. That is way more knowledge then a lot of trucking management has.

But you have a good point otherwise.

 

Like i was saying, i think all companies, not just trucking companies should hire based on IQ test results. Not whether someone has a degree or not.

i think Honda mostly purposely hired people without degrees---because they like out-of-the-box thinking. i'm not sure if they still do this as policy.

 

Wait... WHAAATTT!!!???

They LIED to me!