Random LTL Rants (all are welcomed)

So, for something that is absolutely no fault of my own (and provable, we're datalogged 6 ways to Sunday, between trackers on the equipment, elogs and ECM dumps), I get dinged for CSA points. There goes my CSA score of zero. I was really proud of that streak, especially seeing that I drive in the Northeast metro areas.

@road_runner , that's how it goes with the maintenance thing. You either pay on one side, by being proactive with maintenance and repairs, or you pay twice as much or more by being lazy, forcing the driver to spend more time checking equipment, and generating road service calls. I had this same argument frequently when I worked for Ryder. Change the tire now, or spend $700 or more on a road service call, plus downed equipment, plus late, plus driver detention/breakdown. They never could see the dollars and cents benefit to doing the right thing. Deferred maintenance costs twice to three times as much as fixing it right, the first time.

 

Sounds like my terminal, if I explain something to my betters in management in terms of costs a little now or a lot later, they still choose to be short sighted and pay more in the end. Instead of trying to reason with those morons I might as well piss into the wind.

 

Seems like that's every company. These people can't see more than two minutes ahead...how do they wind up in charge?

 

I wonder if that has some relationship with whether a company is privately owned or public (issues stock). Public companies are somewhat at the mercy of Wall Street and are always under pressure to massage their numbers. You would have to suspect that may have an influence throughout the company, from the top down, since high level officers usually receive a lot if not most of their pay via stock and stock options.

This pressure doesn't exist in privately owned companies. They are free to take the long view, without having to convince the investing world every month. On the other hand, private companies are at the mercy of the person/family who is running it, and whether or not he/she is an idiot. I'm not in trucking but formerly worked at a public utility that had been managed by the same family for over 150 years, and the last CEO (he was probably the 4th or 5th generation) had to sell the company because he illegally took capital out of the public utility and lost it by buying a telecom company at the height of the bubble in the late 90s. Hate to have been at Christmas dinner with his family. You can't make that stuff up.

 

It's a really common management principle called "promote (or hire) to the level of incompetence". People are often promoted or hired to the point where they are completely out of their depth, and mask their incompetence in a number of different ways. Ego is usually a large player, as is the drive to do as little work as humanly possible while not being fired. Usually manifests in the form of attacks on lower ranking but more competent personnel, among other things. This is a huge factor in office politics, and one of the biggest reasons I don't drive a bleeping desk. I have about zero tolerance for the personality types that thrive in this environment.

 

Yes, you are absolutely correct, this happens every day. My current CEO had many of us attend a "Topgrading/Street Smart Hiring" seminar about just this dynamic. On the other hand, I've had something of a charmed office type career. It has been kind of a wild adventure. Often, just when things appeared to be going into the toilet, something that I later realized was an incredible gift happened. I personally have to chalk this up to God knowing what my family needed and what my purpose was. Not going to discuss that further because I don't want to disrespect this thread and send it off into an unrelated tangent. I will just say that if you walk with God, you exist in a completely different/parallel universe type economy.

 

and people wonder why drivers hate DOT. There's nothing wrong with a light being out on a truck with a trailer attached. What a ######## fix it ticket.

Lot of day relay drivers got caught up in this yesterday: Storms, baseball-sized hail hit WaKeeney

FUBAR.
every single window broken. One guy his driver's side was untouched, everything else destroyed, including the windows on the top of the sleeper (T660). THRU the windows. Baseball sized. Another guy came in (way late of course). holes thru the roof of the trailers. Some guys had to be towed. Some (not our guys but other companies) got blown over.

 

Was that driver fault, also?!?

 

probably be blamed for damaging the trailers. You watch
oh and being late.