Riddle me this...

i have to agree here... those doors are locked and the glass in place for a reason...

 

I feel very blessed that our fleet doesn't have locked doors and glass. Our fleet manager wants the drivers to be able to speak directly to our DMs, Trip Planners and in fact he has an open door policy himself. If we have a problem we can walk up to his door, enter and discuss it with him.

I believe it's why our fleet works well. Make no mistake though, he is the Fleet Manager and things are done his way. He's willing to listen and apply suggestions he feels are good but it is his decision and it's done his way. That's also why the fleet works well, we know who's in charge. LOL It's so supportive though to have a FM who listens to problems/complaints and helps find the answer.

We're a team not masters and slaves.

 

Quick little dumb story regarding QC code-
I had backed up to a dock waiting to be unloaded. Guy takes one roll of paper out then comes up to my door and says the forklift overheated and they don't have another one and no idea when they will be able to unload me. So I call and message asking if I can drop and bail out to a nearby truck stop and come back after my 10 (14 was getting close). During this time the QC beeps and it's a preplan now. So I decline saying Other and 'don't know when/if I will Ecall in time to pick up'. PP removed-- cool. Boom guy comes running up and says they are going to borrow the company next door's forklift and got me unloaded in the next 10 minutes. So I naturally Ecall now. Snarky message beeps on QC-- 'funny how you turn down that load and empty out just now huh?' No QC code so I don't know who sent it. I just replied back- 'refer to Mac9 reason for turning down load'. Beep PP put back on me and I accepted lol.

Yeah I know what you mean, every time I check the idle on the QC it only shows the last trip from start up to shut down with idle percentage. I can check it on the Kenworth dash display and it's like 20% which I know cannot be true. I think it counts sitting at stop signs/lights as idle time or something.

 

Precisely.

Have you noticed that the terminals that operate as you describe generally have nicer driver facilities than the places that treat drivers like inmates because the drivers help take care of them?

Otay Mesa and Mira Loma flat out irritate me. Otay Mesa has one shower available for drivers to use, through the utility closet even though there ae two perfectly good showers down the hall from the office. Mira Loma has bathrooms outside the office area in the downstairs foyer that had "No Drivers Allowed Beyond This Point" signs on the doors. I said something about it and rather than open the bathrooms up for drivers to use, they took the signs off the doors indicating they were bathrooms at all.

If the office staff want their own special bathrooms, put port-yer-potties up and let 'em have those!

 

The first time I was at Otay Mesa I had just gotten done with my paperwork at the desk there and turned stage left to use the head, but I kept hearing "Driver, driver!" finally as I was pushing the door open to enter the bathroom, I noticed the guy was calling to me to let me know that bathroom was offlimits to lowly drivers.

 

As to the "messaging tidbits"...they tried that a few years back...around the turn of the Century....it came from Safety and every morning (West coast time) that box would BEEP with more of the "stuff" from someone in the safety department. The drivers really complained about it...usually not useful info, or new...the same stuff from orientation. Back then you had to pull over to get rid of the message and the constant beep beep beep....unless the Qcomm has changed so you can acknowledge the message....you don't really want to open that can of worms again!

 

I get safety messages every weekday morning- maybe it's a Jonestown thing. They generally are useless tidbits, though, at least to me. Once you've heard "use three points of contact when exiting the vehicle" so many times, it wears a little thin I think there's a whole lot more useful info here on the forum for newbs than what safety could come up with. But I'm not going to complain about the messages, cause I'm a big girl and I can simply ignore something if it's a repeat.

As for Otay Mesa, I only went there once, about a year ago. I was making a delivery in San Diego, and found a flat drive tire. So I toodled down to Otay Mesa after emptying, and got it changed. As soon as it was done, they kicked me out and told me to park on the street. That has never happened to me before, no matter how full the terminal is (and we all know how bad Sumner gets!)

Then I got a preplan to pick up in Wilmington. I knew my 14 would be up while I was making pickup, but I accepted anyway thinking I could get the load and head to the terminal and sleep there. Wilmington to Wilmington can be logged on-duty, after all. Well, I got the load no problem, then headed to the terminal. They didn't want to let me in the gate, until I explained I was out of hours and there was no way I was sleeping on the street in Wilmington, CA after dark.

So consider this a heads up for newbs- drivers are not welcome on the yard at Otay Mesa or Wilmington.

 

Once you've been to either of them...you wonder why anybody would go there anyway!

 

I may be nuts..Well, OK, of course I'm nuts, but I actually kinda liked Wilmington. It's a great place to get the LA culture, as long as it's daylight. As soon as it's dark, I'm back inside the fence.

I spent a weekend there when I first started with Swift. I had been to Fontana, Mira Loma didn't exist yet (or I didn't know about it if it did) so I figured I'd go check out Wilmington while waiting for a load. They let me in no questions asked that time.

I was still so new I had no cooler in my truck, so I only had a few snacks in the truck with me. I went into the drivers lounge to see what the vending had to offer, and another driver in there suggested I go up to Anaheim St. He said there's lots of places to eat there. I ended up at Toms #1 World Famous Chiliburgers. Ordering was fun, the counter help barely spoke English, I can hardly speak Spanish, but I got my order, and it was even right! Good, too. LA had the best burger joints anywhere.