Where is everyone #5

Oak Grove.

Getting my feed on.

 

If you get hired by an employer, you enter into a working Relationship. Like every other relationship, there has to be things like trust and respect. Likewise, many guys going into relationships are low value.

You do your job to the best of your abilities. However, you should never agree to do stupid pet tricks just to get a job that’s not paying you for stupid pet tricks.

(See the video? All of those guys standing in line, and then agreeing to do a foot race and push ups? That is a circus, and the guys that agree to perform in a circus are clowns. They show up for a Date, but they ended up performing at a circus. That is utterly shameful and demeaning and it says that the participants are low value. Notice that they never show a winner? There is no winning at a circus.)

Point is, no matter what value we put on ourselves as a driver or a Man, we should never accept a lower value. In @Czar_Zero case, his boss is catering to sidewalk sissies. Czar is feeling dumped on. If they want you to clean up someone else’s mess, they should PAY you for the cleanup. You don’t do it for free, or to take one for the team, because that Devalues you as a driver.

 

Use to show this in a training video. Dont know the owners, just know the operator did not do his job, setting the brakes, or putting lumber down. If your gonna run with the scissor it's best to have a plan B.

 

Has anybody heard from @SAR lately

 

I wish I had had the foresight to check for more of these things at the place I'm currently writing my letter of resignation for.

Yeah, they tell me, we have drivers that made $120,000 last year! While you probably won't do the same, we definitely have a lot of work for you and can definitely get you up in the $75-80k range. Okay great, I can work 70 hours a week legally and will make tons of money.

What they didn't tell me was what they pay in detail (should have been first red flag). They just gave a "lump sum" for "the season". Oh yeah, you can make $7500-9000 hauling ammonia in spring and fall and asphalt in the summer "pays the same as fuel". You can make $20,000 for winter roads!!!

Great, why did I get hopper bottoms and made almost 10 cpm less than what you said I would with ammonia? And have worked barely more than 40 hours a week since starting? And I've asked about fuel several times and nobody seems to want to get me trained up?

I'm not the kind of guy to make waves and sound like a little #####, moaning away about everything. I said I wanted to work hard and you aren't giving me work, so I found something else (and hopefully better).

Another thing I wish I had known before going in was the fact the trucks were under-powered and governed at 100 km/h (apparently several years ago they were governed to 90 km/h), so you essentially make less money per hour because you can't get up to speed quickly enough and sometimes even maintaining that highway speed is hard.

And your point about the "communist joints" kind of rings true, but not for the same reason. The pay scale is universal for all drivers, so it doesn't matter your level of experience, you get paid the same across the board depending on commodity (might be a fuel hauling thing, I don't know). So guys with 4 years seniority get the same as guys with 35 years seniority.

What they don't tell you is that you have to be high on the seniority list to get good runs (or even half decent runs). I'm not here to wait around for years for the good money to kick in, I'm ready to work right now and get paid for it. I hear dispatch #####ing and moaning about not having enough drivers to cover the harder commodities, I offer them my service, they get all excited, but never followed up.

They also over-hired for the asphalt season. Too many drivers covering too little work. But after two months of too little work, and with the busy part of the season about to kick in (I think it seriously is next week), they are going to lose a good driver that could keep up to the pace and not complain. Their loss.

The one big thing I can't stand the most about this place is the fact I don't have a schedule and they expect ME to call them and chase work. I get the next day's assignment the evening before, and in the last two months, about half the loads I've been put on have been cancelled the day of because of rain or over-booking.

--

In the end, this was a positive learning experience. Something I actually needed to really cement what I can and WANT to do in this industry. I work hard every day, give 100% all the time, and always make sure I'm constantly fulfilling my role that I've been assigned by the company I work for.

There's no "half-arseing" it, even when I'm quitting. In fact, every time I've quit a job, I make sure that I'm giving 110% and the employer KNOWS through my performance that me leaving was a mistake on their part and they should never have let it happen.

Being comfortable drinking the Kool-aid and falling "in-line" with company direction isn't for me. I'm constantly trying to find ways to improve myself and my work, innovate new ideas for what I'm doing, and constantly shave off valuable time to make my work that much more efficient.

I'm not nearly as wise as you are Six (or most of the older hands around here), but I'm starting to find I've got a similar attitude, and my patience was largely used up at No Hope, putting up with their #### for years and happily accepting it as the norm. Life is too short to put up with anyone's #### and settle for the status quo.

 

He never completed Plan A. If he’s doing a high risk job, he has a team with him, not his SO. On a slightly important job, there would be a minimum team of FOUR. High risk? 10-20.

Just two? He’s playing some sort of game.

 

Again ??? Lol

 

When I talk about communism, that’s when you get a good paying load (percentage), but your next few loads are garbage. I started at a company running 100k miles staying gone for months at a time. I realized that when I cut back to 40k miles a year, that I actually made the same amount of money. How is that possible? Well, why in the Hell would I stay out and stay gone then? So I started going home.

 

I texted him a month or so ago. Said he was really busy but doing great.

 

My little load for the day.