About driver retention

MikeJ

TB Veteran
Credits
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Here I sit it's 3:00am I was told Friday to be at work at 2:30am.
I get to work at 2:30am all to find out the route that I was supposed to go out on was switched around and I was switched around to work with another driver (I started last week at a new company.) So far I do like the new line of work and it is a step up from where I was.

However this is kind of crappy, to be told oh yeah be in at 2:30am then when you get there uhh you were moved to work on a different route and it starts at some unknown time. Well what can I do I wasn't going to sit by my self at the office for 1.5-2 hours or maybe longer so I went home I only live 15 minutes away from my new job. However what I should have said was "If I have to leave I'm not coming back in."

The driver who I was supposed to go with said to me "They didn't tell you anything did they?"
I said "No" He went "I just learned it when I went to check voice mail right now."

He goes "I'm almost half tempted to take you with me. This is some real crap."

The reason these companies can't keep drivers is because management doesn't care, accountability through communication is nothing management is interested in especially at my old job those people were the absolute worst when it came to communication there were times when I would get more satisfaction out of talking to the wall then my bosses. In fact I think at times the wall would have made a better boss.

Here my new job, I do like it better and while this kind of sucks, big picture wise it's just a glitch. Sooner then later I'll be on my own and none of it will matter so I'm not that upset, but really these people in management at these companies need to be held accountable until these people in management are held accountable driver retention will be through the roof and places will be revolving doors and you know what the people who are in charge of making sure the companies best interests are taken care of (management) are really the ones who are hurting the companies the most.

I mean all these companies have money tied up in training people and this that and the other and then they tick the people off and they leave, well that didn't really accomplish a thing and it can be funneled back to a bad decision that was made by management.

It's like that in a lot of places though heck it's been the Cleveland Brown's football team problem for along time the foot ball team was miss managed at the top of the food chain for a long time and still is and it's all been bad.

You know you always hear "We can't find anyone to work, nobody wants to work." Yes and no. Sure there are tons of lazy people out there, however there are a lot of people though who are not lazy who will work, the problem is though these places are so miss managed that even the hardest workers get turned off and say forget it I'm out. The whole thing is way to one sided and really the bottom line is it's not what there telling you it's what there not telling you that's where you have to watch out. Like I said I don't really care that much everyone makes mistakes, however sometimes though bad practices keep on being repeated and it

no change takes place and you know I'm done waiting on the world to change I know that me alone I don't have a ton of weight that I pull so I'm more of a if I don't like it then I guess I'll quit type person.
 
yeah, someone should have had the sense to call you either at home or on your cell, and leave you a message. the other guy saying, that he was only, "half tempted" to take you, tells me he doesn't like being a trainer. screw him too. i cannot believe he was never trained at any new job he ever had.

hang in there, as you say, you'll get your own truck soon enough.
 
It ended up being okay technically the guy who was tempted to take me isn't really a trainer at all. He's alright really. I worked the second half of the day with a boss and the boss said when we got back in that he was sorry about the miscommunication that happened.



I've been up since 1:00am and I just got home from work at 6:30pm. Had a very long day, we were in a part of Cleveland where I started my beer truck career and I didn't care for it when I was driving a beer truck and I don't care for it now driving a food service truck.



I have a later start tomorrow, and the one boss apologized and said we have way to many guys out on light duty and operating at 50% compacity and it's made things difficult because the new guys like me have to go out with the guys who are running at 50% and tow the line. While were learning bits and pieces here and there were not totally understanding. Management admitted this is a problem and not how it should be. They said they aren't expecting any thing miraculous from anyone. I had a real hit and miss day driving I didn't much care for it. There were times I was floating gears real good nice and smooth and there were other times where I was like a brand new driver with my learners permit. It was one extreme or the other. The boss ended up driving the final 4-5 stops which was fine because I had, had just about enough anyhow. He didn't really ask not that he has to (you're supposed to laugh at that line) he just hopped in the seat and did it and I hoped he would because I needed a break (I am allowed to admit that?).



What's so difficult is acclimating my self to the new equipment, coupled with trying to drive around in an area that I am not familiar with and then delivering to stops that I know nothing about and trying to make sure all the product is gathered together and it's all done correctly. There's a lot going on there and it can wear you down. I've said this now a million times on this forum I am not the greatest with these standard shift trucks, I am slowly getting better with them, but I still have some great weaknesses with them today I learned I can't do hills worth a crap and these bigger longer wheel base trucks back a little differently however that's not as big of a deal. Not that I am a fantastic backer, but shifting for what ever reason has always been a tad harder to me then backing. I know a lot of people it's the other way around, but backing came a little easier.



We were heavy today and covered a lot of ground had some goofy backing at a high school where you literally have to be about an inch away from hitting the dumpster with the trailer in fact one guy did hit the dumpster pulling out and tore the door of the trailer off sometime ago.



I previous to this thought that the beer truck company I worked for was the only company that had trouble like that, but it turns out it's everywhere.



It just takes a lot of gas both mental and physically and by the end of the day I'm starting to run on empty. However it does get better. Towards the end of the day today around 4-5ish we were pulling out of our last stop and I had about a 16th of a tank left ha-ha!
 
I've said this now a million times on this forum I am not the greatest with these standard shift trucks....

Why not request a Autoshift and ease your seeming dilemma?

...but I still have some great weaknesses with them today I learned I can't do hills worth a crap and these bigger longer wheel base trucks back a little differently...
What kind of problematic Hills are in Cincy? I could understand if you were in the Hillbilly (WV). YOU SHOULD HAVE a autoshift!!
Bigger. longer wheel base?
Are you driving a Logging truck or 6 or 10 wheel? 6 and 10 wheel based trucks are standard (except Volvo, Pete, K-Whopper and Logging trucks) and what type (6 or 10 wheel) did you learn on?

Food service is definitely a "I want to do it" venue and while I have done it a few times, it is severely mismanaged in trailer loading.
Having to dig through many pallets of freight for EACH STOP is, to me, the biggest problem with such deliveries while the locations of deliveries are secondary.
WHY cannot each assigned delivery be on ONE PALLET (except of course for the frozen bits)??
Such would be beneficial and would verily ease up on the delivery times, therein giving more time for the drivers to have breaks, fuel, travel, but LOGIC has never and will never play a part in trucking.

I hope you fare well in your newest adventure!
CHEERS!!
 
Welcome to foodservice, LOL. Wait till you come in one day, grab and paper work and then think to yourself, "this isn't my normal route". And when you ask why you got switched, the excuses, reasoning, logic, BS will be so thick, you can cut it with a knife, LOL.
 
GFS doesn't have any automatics so that's out (technically they have a few or had a few in some of the older trucks, because there were guys who ran transit who had bad knees and couldn't work the clutch to good so they would give those guys automatics to drive and I think they were Sterlings too and GFS still has some Sterlings in the fleet, but the majority have been phased out (the Sterling's were not good trucks. the mirrors stuck out to far and the turning radius was real bad on them any how that's all water over the bridge now because Sterling is out of business. However our yard has a Sterling as a spare we also have 2-3 Internationals which I guess GFS bought Internationals in varied quantities the company wasn't thrilled with the Internationals.

Most of the trucks are Volvo and there cool.

The trucks I drove at the beer company were real short base single axle Freightliner M2's.
The trucks I drive now are full size 10 axle Volvo's for the most part. I don't know it's just different the biggest difference is the Volvo's defiantly have a different turning radius then the beer peddlers. It's okay though it's all the same. We did back up driving the beer trucks, but we also did a lot of forward driving as well. A lot of places you could just pull through.
Not that we don't have stops like that at GFS because we do and some of the stops aren't to awful, you can get in and out alright.

Today I drove in the truck all day actually on my own. I wasn't running the route by my self, but I was driving the truck all day on my own made it all day long.

We don't have to many hills where I live, but the trick with the hills we have is you have to slowly let of the clutch and break at the same time and the clutch will catch it will and the trucks powerful enough to where it will get it's self moving and then once it's moving then give it some gas.

Our trucks are floor loaded and usually they try depending on what warehouse you are loaded out of to keep all the stops together.

When I learned it was a day cab like these, but it's been a while is all. Plus I think some of it is, you're in a new job being trained new stops different things so on and so fourth. Once you run a regular route it's all repetitive (when there aren't ad on's and things like that.)

It's not bad I was talking to another driver in the yard today when we were dropping our trailers and he hasn't been with the company to long either and he was also a beer truck driver and told me the same thing said he only drove a stick one time before doing beer and then ended switching to GFS and he had to get used to it too.

Actually I was doing alright today (at least I thought for me ha-ha) I had a few hard shifts and misses, but I had some real good ones as well so it wasn't all bad. I don't mind the job it's just going to take time is all it is. The one boss said you're new you're learning this is the hardest part of the battle, and then the next dip is out on you're own. That's the next dip.
 
Here I sit it's 3:00am I was told Friday to be at work at 2:30am.
I get to work at 2:30am all to find out the route that I was supposed to go out on was switched around and I was switched around to work with another driver (I started last week at a new company.) So far I do like the new line of work and it is a step up from where I was.

However this is kind of crappy, to be told oh yeah be in at 2:30am then when you get there uhh you were moved to work on a different route and it starts at some unknown time. Well what can I do I wasn't going to sit by my self at the office for 1.5-2 hours or maybe longer so I went home I only live 15 minutes away from my new job. However what I should have said was "If I have to leave I'm not coming back in."

The driver who I was supposed to go with said to me "They didn't tell you anything did they?"
I said "No" He went "I just learned it when I went to check voice mail right now."

He goes "I'm almost half tempted to take you with me. This is some real crap."

The reason these companies can't keep drivers is because management doesn't care, accountability through communication is nothing management is interested in especially at my old job those people were the absolute worst when it came to communication there were times when I would get more satisfaction out of talking to the wall then my bosses. In fact I think at times the wall would have made a better boss.

Here my new job, I do like it better and while this kind of sucks, big picture wise it's just a glitch. Sooner then later I'll be on my own and none of it will matter so I'm not that upset, but really these people in management at these companies need to be held accountable until these people in management are held accountable driver retention will be through the roof and places will be revolving doors and you know what the people who are in charge of making sure the companies best interests are taken care of (management) are really the ones who are hurting the companies the most.

I mean all these companies have money tied up in training people and this that and the other and then they tick the people off and they leave, well that didn't really accomplish a thing and it can be funneled back to a bad decision that was made by management.

It's like that in a lot of places though heck it's been the Cleveland Brown's football team problem for along time the foot ball team was miss managed at the top of the food chain for a long time and still is and it's all been bad.

You know you always hear "We can't find anyone to work, nobody wants to work." Yes and no. Sure there are tons of lazy people out there, however there are a lot of people though who are not lazy who will work, the problem is though these places are so miss managed that even the hardest workers get turned off and say forget it I'm out. The whole thing is way to one sided and really the bottom line is it's not what there telling you it's what there not telling you that's where you have to watch out. Like I said I don't really care that much everyone makes mistakes, however sometimes though bad practices keep on being repeated and it

no change takes place and you know I'm done waiting on the world to change I know that me alone I don't have a ton of weight that I pull so I'm more of a if I don't like it then I guess I'll quit type person.
Do you realize thier jobs out thier that when you get your work call. If you are not ready for what ever reason they pay you every minute until you leave, you don't pay for thier mistakes. Don't work thier 20 yrs and look back at all the free money you gave the company.
 
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