Post Gordon ~ Thoughts, Commentary & Reflections

Don't see any damage?

Neither did the Plainfield traffic cop. "Lady," he says, "I'm not filling out an accident report. You've got no damage." "Why-not?" She asks. "Because you've got no damage, lady. No damage, no accident report." She swept her hand across the front of her hood wiping a mist there from the morning drizzle, looks at her hood and back to the cop. "Lady, if that big thing had hit you, you wouldn't have to look for the damage. It'd be real obvious. If you two want to exchange insurance information, I'll put my red lights on and make sure it's safe for both of you." And he did.

She had called her husband, her insurance and the police before I got back there with my iPad to take photos all round her green Kia Soul. When I got back to the yard, I transferred the photos over to the Safety Guy via email. "Okay, Vic," he said, "I need to write this up. Did you hit her?" I didn't know. From up in the cab I wouldn't have felt a thing. The cop didn't believe her but I felt she was convinced I had actually pushed her backwards.

Over time I've come to agree with the cop. I think she had what you could call an 'Einstein effect', where the car next to you pulls forward and you think you're moving backwards. I'm sure her eyes got wider and wider as the trailer filled and filled and filled her diminutive windshield. She could easily have felt like she was moving backwards. Pushed, in fact. Your guess is as good as mine what really happened.

I learned later that they filed a $699 damage claim to repaint her hood. In Indiana, damage over $750 total to both vehicles must be reported to the State and goes on your MVR. Was it a nuisance claim? Dunno. Did Gordon pay it to end it? Dunno. When I learned of the claim I sent the Safety Guy a sharp email objecting to any settlement or payment since there was no damage. Then I personally talked to him about it. He told me to leave it alone. "Your name's not on the side of the truck, Vic." "But-this-affects-my-CDL," I said. "No, it doesn't," he said, "Doesn't go on your DAC, doesn't go any further than here at Gordon." In fact, Gordon listed both the trailer and this incident as non-DOT reportable accidents on my HireRight. So, go figure.

I headed for the Drivers Room completely shaken. Why was this happening? I began to feel like the Universe had tapped me on the back of my shoulder twice, warning me. Maybe there's another to follow. A big one. What to do? What to do? I could only imagine what the next 'something' might be.


By the way, this was written west of Pontoon Beach. I stopped at the Flying J for my new 30-minute break to get that out of the way. When I looked over to the Gordon yard coming in, I saw four freshly-painted Columbias and no GTI decals (1-grey, 2-red, 1-smurf blue, 1-white); all now retired and now for sale although the for sale signs aren't up yet. Reminded me NOT to buy a truck that doesn't look good enough to be sold without a bucket of paint to hide a hundred evils. All rights reserved by author.

 

When All Else Fails

When all else fails, pop some microwave popcorn, I say. Contemplate the Universe. I thought about whether trucking was really important enough to me to risk finding out if the Universe really was warning me off. Would it be worth carrying the responsibility for a horrible accident for the rest of my days? I thought about what damage an out-of-control semi can do in a heart beat, to end a heart beat. Who wants the responsibility for, for, who knows what?!! My mind conjured up the worst. I became less and less invested in whether Gordon kept me. Five years from now, what would matter?

I thought about some of the different things I can do other than trucking, that I like to do. It would be nice to keep my CDL warm, I thought, but not essential. And the week prior, the week after my Orientation at Gordon had been anything but pleasant. That infernal QualComm. I really did pull over every time it squawked. A yard dog stops and starts less and it's not trying to get anywhere like I am.

You get passed by a lot more vehicles when you're buttoned at 63 like Gordon trucks. I had always given the courtesy, my headlights to signal safety to pull in ahead of me, a two- or three-beat thank you of the markers after pulling in front of someone. Why, the Cascadia has this cute little button to flash your markers right there on the right side of the console of the steering wheel...

I was passed so much that I literally raised up from my seat, hunched over the steering wheel ready to pounce so that I could reach my lights. Not only that, I had to be ready to brake before the dreaded absolute Gordon no-no of no speeds over 65. Once I got to those long, rolling hills of Ohio, I was in trouble. If I wanted to keep the cruise at 63, the downhill sides would have me on the brake. I intentionally stayed off the engine brake the first week. Wasn't a factor, though. With a Gordon truck, set your cruise down to where you don't have to worry about it. Set it at 60-61 on the hills--makes a big, big difference on your stress level. Pull it up on the flats. Keep it simple. Slow and steady.

The Trainer I would later have stopped me from signaling other drivers the 'okay' to pull in or 'thank you'. "Don't worry about them. Just worry about your own driving." That was probably the most difficult for me. Good advice at the time, nonetheless. Just very, very difficult.

W. Edwards Deming helped take the fun out of trucking with 'just-in-time' where you treat things that aren't perishable as though they were. Leaf springs, for example. What's the rush over leaf springs? Well, if you have an assembly line waiting for them and no inventory, and you're dependent upon that truck rolling in 'just-in-time' you've just stressed the whole system, transport, manufacturing, sales, you name it, waiting for those darn leaf springs. Or retail, where you sell a 3/8 socket and the computer puts a new one on the afternoon truck. Today, allotted time to make runs has become so tight that a random thought slows you down. Who needs this stress?

Suddenly a smiling Safety guy popped his shiny, shaved head into the Drivers Room. "Let's-go-pick-up-a-load!" "Sure," I replied.


Written Saturday, July 6, 2013 at Mann's Grill, Indy on Tibbs. If you've never been there, you really must. Just east of Holt/Morris behind the Marathon. Don't expect something fancy, though. The Chinese restaurant catty-corner from the Marathon has good food, too. Somehow, the Mexican restaurant hasn't been open or convenient when I've been by. Pictures on message #61 were uploaded and attached at Sam's Club, Rockville Road, Indy. All rights reserved by author.

 

Dispatch #9--$30.31, 1 Mile

If Artificial Turf represents the worst of Gordon (and in many ways I believe he does), then the Safety Guy represents the best of Gordon IMO. I wouldn't work for the one no matter the pay; I'm indebted to the other.

He drove out. Got in 3579, said "Gee, I hate driving with a jacket on! Where I can I put this?" Before I could answer he gave it an arm push-off and it went to the floor just back from the driver's seat. "There!" he said. "It'll fit there just fine, won't it?" This ride was getting interesting right off, I thought. I'm sure he looked at all my trips; he has all that, where you went, how you drove, what lanes you chose. All of it. He can see your logs, your times and loads.

He said he didn't yet know where Gordon was with regard to my job. I thought that the time he was taking with this check ride at least indicated the direction. You don't check ride a guy you're out-right firing. I didn't tell him that my earnest desire to drive for Gordon had evaporated. My confidence had shattered into so many pieces I couldn't feel it and no longer trusted myself.

He probably knew that and that's probably why he drove first. As he drove he talked and demonstrated. He showed how he got into his running gear on the on-ramp and let the ISX engine pull up to speed so that he wasn't thinking about shifting as he merged into traffic. Empty, he shifted up at 1000 through the lower gears, again to get into his higher range faster since it has its best torque at 1200.

His diagnosis was that I tried to do too many things at once. He wanted me to go back to that early training I had to enter a turn at a gear that I could complete the turn in and do that. Simplify my driving. And the codes! He said to forget trying to separate them. Do them all at once at a safe spot at your shipper/receiver. Sure, if it's a Service Watch load you want to show you arrived in timely fashion. Beyond that, just get the codes in from a safe place at your stop, then proceed. Don't be worrying about finding a place to stop within 5 miles to do your completed code. Do them together there at the stop.

That helped change my outlook. Had me drive back. Wanted to know if I knew how to scale a load and I hadn't scaled a load for 30 years. We went over to one of the truck stops at I-465, exit 4. Went over the air suspension that alerts you to the weight on your drives. Anything above 70 on 3579 meant you were over weight, but trucks are different. The Cascadias are heavy. He showed me to leave a copy of the scale ticket in the billbox on a dropped load with the tractor number and how much fuel and how to interpret the scale tickets I would encounter at drop yards and terminals.

By the way, check out this load. It's Indy-to-Indy, out from the yard to pick up a load and drop it on the yard. An OTR driver gets paid for one mile (it was a lot further than that but it's Practical Miles, right?) and $30 short haul pay. A local driver gets paid hourly. The OTR driver could spend an hour or three on the yard talking to dispatch, getting under way, resolving a maintenance issue like a bad light or flat tire with the shop, 2 hours at the shipper and Indy is a large enough place an hour drive time over and back is v-e-r-y possible and another hour on the yard talking to dispatch, the shop, ya-da-ya-da.

I believe this is actionable--the stuff class action suits are made for. IMO Gordon has exposure here. Big time. Yo! Gordon! IMO it's an abusive practice... IMO it's theft of labor, work and time that you're not paying for fairly. Shame!! All it takes is three drivers who competently document how you, Gordon, abused them financially. Cha-ching! And that eventual settlement is for 2000 drivers...


Written at McDonald's, Spencer, Indiana, July 6, 2013. All rights reserved by author.

 

The Fleet Manager

Time-to-time I'll talk about what, again, in my opinion, is Gordon's theft of your time and wages like with regard to time-consuming scaling loads, sliding your tandems and fifth wheel around to get a load legal and so on. The Driver Manual tells you to scale every load because Gordon pays for it. Not true! To me, that's just another, 'You've-Got-the-Good-End-of-the-Turd' story line. Don't tell me I've got the good end because Gordon pays the scale ticket. Hey! Gordon! Pay your scale ticket and pay me for my time at a fair wage, say, $18-$20/hr for starters. You, Gordon, should pay both. This is ridiculous. IMO it's theft of the very food off of Gordon drivers' children's dinner plates.

After the check ride where we ran that load over the scale, the Safety Guy (remember he and the Fleet Manager are a team?) told me that I needed to sit down with and talk to the Fleet Manager. She would be expecting me. Remember, her desk is right across from his. She has the power over your job at Gordon and has a small herd of Driver Managers to border collie you hither and yon. Remember (message #12 on page 2) I totally missed the significance of the Fleet Manager. This is where I started to smartened up in this regard.

She asked me how I felt. "My insides feel like hamburger," I replied, honestly. She down-right cooed. Called me, "Hon." "Things-happen,-Hon," she said more than once. She said Gordon would like me to spend a couple days with a Gordon trainer. I said he'd have to be a non-smoker but I had already told the Safety Guy that if Gordon did want to keep me on, I wanted to go out with a trainer. I don't think my thought that I needed time with a trainer and Gordon's had anything to do with each other. I had just come to a conclusion that would be a Gordon next step if the driver was salvageable. Thankfully, apparently Gordon thought I was.

Certainly I wasn't the first good driver overwhelmed by the Gordon world and system, a new race every load, rules about driving and 'the Gordon way'. My edge here was that I was still, in Gordon's eyes, a candidate for a seat in a smurf-blue truck. Gordon had just sent me through Orientation, put me up at a nice hotel and fed me well. There was a $1,000.00 direct-deposit into my checking account. Yes, I had screwed up. Plural. Both of my screw ups were avoidable and inexcusable and both could have been much worse.

I would soon start to repeatedly wonder, "Who are these guys?" Just as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid did about that posse. The one that kept up with them through every twist and turn. Except these were the Gordon good guys. I was being extended a, to me, unusual opportunity to dig myself out of a hole I had somehow dug myself into. Wow. I felt very, very grateful and I still do. So as critical as I am about Gordon's pay (and I am), Gordon has a constant need for good new drivers and goes well beyond the proverbial mile.

I was about to meet The Trainer.


Written July 6, 2013 at home, about six miles north of Spencer, Indiana. All rights reserved by author.

 

Pulling a Gordon on Gordon

I 'pulled a Gordon' on that last message. Like Gordon, I led off with a stinker, in this case something short and bad about Gordon. Gordon would lead off with a stinker load you had to do for them that paid you little or nothing, before rewarding you with a better load. "Can't have cookies if you don't eat your peas." I followed up with something better and longer, something good about Gordon. I don't know about you, but the stinker throws off the sweetness and satisfaction of the other.

There was a flip side, too. If Gordon did something for you, you could expect it came with a price tag IMO in the form of doing some work for Gordon that didn't pay. If a cookie now, peas will follow...

The stinkers left me, repeatedly, not a happy camper. Of course, I recall a girlfriend describing me as 'chronically disgruntled'. Well, that may be true. We can't all be upbeat and crackling with positive energy like the Safety Guy. I'm sure he was born with a glad-to-be-here smile on his face. Probably not. He probably wailed like the rest of us. Someone once asked me if I got up in the morning and everything was okay, everything was good, would that be okay? I'm still chewing on that one.

I might just hunt for something to grump about. Here, I will grump about Gordon pay; IMO Gordon withholds your fair pay in so many ways. Worth grumping about.



Written July 6, 2013 at home, six miles north of Spencer, Indiana. All rights reserved by author.

 

Dispatch #10--Spring Valley, IL--244 miles, $46.36 (.19/mile w/Trainer)

The Trainer, who lives in Illinois, had spent 18 or so years with Barr-Nunn and the last 5 with Gordon. He had started out trucking hauling heavy equipment, new Caterpillar equipment right from the factory. A trucker's trucker, for sure. He averaged 2800-3600 miles weekly with Gordon yet stayed primarily in the Mid-West not far from home, out 4-6 weeks. The Safety Guy referred to the Trainer with a wag of his finger, "A real trucker and VERY SUCCESSFUL."

Whereas the Safety Guy is about my size (5'7"), the Trainer is a big guy. Not fat big. Not notably tall. You'd have this guy on your front line, though; he's big enough to hold down the center. Quiet. So quiet that I ribbed the Fleet Manager that she had hooked me up with Mr. Loquacious, who never gave me a minute of relief from all that constant chatter. I did the same with the Safety Guy. "But when he does speak," said the Safety Guy, "It's with something to say. Right?" Right.

This Trainer is no dumb truck driver. He had apparently won one of those trucking contests by successfully pre-tripping a rig in 4 minutes. Very observant. Yet, quiet. You could easily miss that he's fully in gear. He's that quiet. When I mentioned that I was happy to go out with a trainer, he pointed out that this was just a longer check ride, that he wasn't there to train me. The difference in our depth-of-experience, though, meant that I got a lot of training just by default, by showing up. By being there.

Just in case, I had already pulled all of my gear out of 3579. I figured if all went well it would go back in just fine. After all, look at the practice I was getting. This was Monday and I'd already pulled it all out on Friday and put it back this very morning. Now I wanted it out. Just in case. Although I appreciated the opportunity I didn't want to take anything for granted; what I really didn't want was for a third shoe to drop with severe consequences. I could live with the two screw ups that I had with Gordon. That was enough.

I didn't feel safe and I didn't want back in 3579 on my own until I did feel safe. The Trainer already had a load for Spring Valley, IL and I drove out from the yard. The first thing that I learned from him was that no GPS was allowed in his truck. I figured he'd be my GPS anyway; and he was. Never consulted a map. Got calls from the guys he had trained when they weren't sure how to get somewhere. Really? Really. I had asked who that was when it sounded like he was talking directions to another driver. Well, how many of your past trainees do you stay in touch with. "All of them," he said.

Whoa! Slow down here, I thought. "You stay in touch with all the guys you've trained?" I repeated. "Yup," he said, "All of them." Of course, I was not one of his trainees. I was a screw up here for a check ride long enough to see if I still qualified for a seat at the business end of a smurf-blue truck. And what, I asked, do you as a trainer get for all this? "$20.00 a day," he responded.

"You do this for $20 bucks a day? $20 bucks?" My eyes widened and my neck hair straightened up. "Why, $20 bucks a day wouldn't cover my lost sleep!!"


Written July 7, 2013 at home, about 6 miles north of Spencer, IN. All rights reserved by author.

 

Dispatch #11--Spring Valley, IL-Hammond, IN-Columbus, IN--$59.28 w/Trainer

I knew we were on our way to some place called Spring Valley that both the Trainer and the Fleet Manager seemed to know well; I did not. The plan, that I was unaware of, was Indy-Spring Valley, IL-Hammond, IN-Columbus, IN-Indy, a good stress test. It was pretty quiet in that truck as I drove out I-74 west to I-35 north; nonetheless I determined to pry as much out of his brain as I could. The Trainer didn't seem to mind questions; it just seemed his answers were brief. "Yup." "Nope." "Barr-Nunn." And so on.

I remember Hammond pretty well; at least, I think I do. I don't remember Spring Valley at all. Obviously we went there loaded, dropped-and-hooked and took 80 east empty to Hammond Monday night. The Trainer seemed content to just let me drive. I caught myself moving my right foot off the brake with my left still down on the clutch. The truck didn't roll, but it rattled me further. I began to vocalize at each stop, "Engage clutch (as I did), release brake." Sometimes I would repeat a few times even after I got going.

The Trainer seemed pretty content to just let me deal with it. He did, at some point, ask what happened and I gave it to him unvarnished. Two rookie screw ups. No excuses. Told him about the check ride with the Safety Guy. We lost no time, drove straight through. My clock had started when the Safety Guy and I picked up that earlier load, even though I was now in another truck. QualComm knew me. Early on the Trainer stopped me from giving courtesy lights to passing trucks. I complied but it was not easy.

Once we got off I-80 at Hammond, we had a long stretch of surface streets to cover and my eleven were fast running out. My clock got down to ten minutes, then five, three, two. The Trainer said, "Don't worry about it. Just keep going." Oh, sure, I thought, driving off-the clock is a Gordon capital offense. Oh, sure! Suddenly he said, "Pull over there, across the street, alongside that fence." "You-mean-turn-around?" I asked. "No, just pull across the street next to the fence and we'll shut down there," he said firmly.

It seemed really odd to park facing the wrong way aside that fence, something I would later do myself more than once. It meant, though, that in the morning we could just pull out and make a quick left-turn into the shipper. I would come to understand that the Trainer was all about 'No-Wasted-Motion'. He told me we would get up early and load while off-duty, the first I encountered the Gordon practice of turning off-duty hours into usable, if actually illegal, hours, although there is a clear reference in the Driver's Manual to going off-duty at shippers/receivers. It doesn't change your 11; it doesn't change your 14; it conserves your accumulated hours for the week.

The Trainer had told me that all I needed with me was a sleeping bag and that's all I had. He actually slept some later than he planned and I thought he probably needed the sleep, so did not disturb him. I waited for him to completely roll out of the bottom bunk before I tried to exit the top bunk. And into the shipper we went.


Written at China Star Buffet, Richland Plaza, Ellettsville, IN on July 7, 2013. All rights reserved by author.

 

Big Dog Barks at Little Dog

"What did you do that for?" barked the Trainer. A straight truck had just enough oomph to get up alongside the rear of my trailer and hung there, not enough poop to get by. I tapped the brake to get off cruise and let him by and then turned the cruise back on. "That's how you lose mileage," groused the Trainer loudly and sharply. I would understand that not only was the Trainer a No-Wasted-Motion guy, he was all about getting every performance bonus that Gordon had to offer. All of them. Mileage was one of them, and he wasn't the least shy about barking at me for possibly bringing his mileage down.

"Look, you've got a 14-hour clock and an 11-hour rule. Don't worry about him. He'll be fine or not. You just drive and focus on your driving, not his. Okay?" It could have been the Intimidator, that DM back in Orientation. It was a sharp what-for, a reprimand. Big Dog Barks at Little Dog and will bite if necessary, I thought. Okay, fine. Speaking of the Intimidator, I was surprised to learn that she was his DM. I expected he had the gal whose drivers all got over 3000 miles per week. Oh, no.

Yes, if you got on with her, you'd get your 3000 miles per week but it might be out West and then up and down the left coast for who knows how long. A few weeks later I saw the Trainer on a chair beside the Intimidator at her desk and computer with a very uncomfortable-looking, awkwardly upright young driver. Intuitively, I knew two things immediately. The Trainer and the Intimidator were working out a stress test for this fellow and he stood in the same shoes where I had, at least figuratively.

"You're in for a treat," I said, hoping to relax him some. He didn't relax at all. He hardly acknowledged that I had spoken, just sort of a twitch of the head like if a fly tried to land on his ear. No, this puppy was hurting like I had been hurting. "Things happen, Hon," I thought. Apparently he had already met with the Fleet Manager but not been much assuaged. I hope he did okay. Never saw him again, though.

"That's going to tighten up on you," the Trainer might say as I entered a turn maybe a little faster than I could pull all the way through it. Or, "Just stay with the flow of traffic," when the speed limit was 55 in Chicago and traffic was running past 60. I couldn't keep up but I could run 63 if told to. "You sure?" I asked. "Just keep with the flow of traffic," he repeated. Ugh! It's not your CDL, I thought. When we passed a trooper poised to roll into traffic I thought, "Oh, boy, here we go." And the trooper stayed put. Not so much as a glance as far as I could tell. "You're more dangerous and obvious with everybody passing you," the Trainer said. I knew that, but the speed limit for trucks in some places is strictly enforced. And I didn't know where it was and where it wasn't.

We had to stop for fuel. "Take the key and lock it?" I asked. "Don't touch that key!" The Trainer almost shouted. "That key never leaves that ignition. I have another key. Go ahead and lock it." No-Wasted-Motion. I would understand, without him actually telling me, that the Trainer had spent the last 5 years squeezing out everything unnecessary in order to run hard, very hard and used up as much of his 11 as he could. Making money and driving for bonuses.


Also written at the China Star Buffet, Richland Plaza, Ellettsville, IN, July 7, 2013. All rights reserved by author.