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ODFL | Are the Congdon's pulling out on managing the company?

BillyLo

BillyLo

Service 2.0 OD Strong All Time Mastio Champion
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Seeing more & more concerns from drivers lately that this place is slowly coming under control of management from other carriers drivers hated to work for. What are Dave & Earl's current oversight in the company nowadays? Didn't Dave give his position away to someone else a few months ago?

Either way, it's becoming very evident this place is more about numbers than the people being OD.
 
Earl had David or John Jr. Who does David have to take his place. Think that is it in a nut shell. Will continue to do my best til the end
 
I would almost recommend a letter writing campaign to David Congdon telling him to wake up. Do you think it would help?
 
DMT said:
Earl had David or John Jr. Who does David have to take his place. Think that is it in a nut shell. Will continue to do my best til the end
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Mark&Matt Penley.Earl's Grandkids.Things are in place.Mark currently is our Employee Relationship Manager.Mark works at Corp to.Both of them started on the docks cleaning&have drove,Sales,etc.Good Guys .Not saying they will replace David.Earl&David will always be around till they die.
 
It's just the opposite, there are so many Congdon family members I heard the board told them to stop promoting family. Megan Yowell, Mark and Matt Penly, Chris Harrell are all "Congdon". I think there are more but not sure. Hell, if he had another daughter I would marry her! Would be nice to marry my way into a director seat!! Not sure what Megan will do, pretty clear that VP roles at OD are reserved for white males.
 
wildcatdriver15 said:
It's just the opposite, there are so many Congdon family members I heard the board told them to stop promoting family. Megan Yowell, Mark and Matt Penly, Chris Harrell are all "Congdon". I think there are more but not sure. Hell, if he had another daughter I would marry her! Would be nice to marry my way into a director seat!! Not sure what Megan will do, pretty clear that VP roles at OD are reserved for white males.
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Megan has gone back to school to get her master's degree .She still works at Corp last I heard.Something is in the works for sure.
 
Cab Lizzard said:
Growing pains.........
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Some of these gentleman have no idea what's about to happen. New badges have employee #'s and names. Next set will just have the #. Mom and pop work environment no longer exist. This is going to be hard for some of the senior members to accept. But change is coming and like it or not, the drivers take the brunt of that change.
 
Ump said:
Some of these gentleman have no idea what's about to happen. New badges have employee #'s and names. Next set will just have the #. Mom and pop work environment no longer exist. This is going to be hard for some of the senior members to accept. But change is coming and like it or not, the drivers take the brunt of that change.
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What else do you expect? We are a growing corporation with 20,000 employees. You wouldn't have the brand new equipment, good benefits and other perks of a big company if we were still in a mom and pop environment.
 
Freight Guru said:
What else do you expect? We are a growing corporation with 20,000 employees. You wouldn't have the brand new equipment, good benefits and other perks of a big company if we were still in a mom and pop environment.
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Totally agree... We already have the "I've been driving for 30 years and have never had to do that" crowd starting to complain about the little things. Can't wait to see then go off their rockers when it starts to get enforced.
 
Ump said:
Totally agree... We already have the "I've been driving for 30 years and have never had to do that" crowd starting to complain about the little things. Can't wait to see then go off their rockers when it starts to get enforced.
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I agree with this, while at the same time some of the that were done in the past should still be done now. Some of the things i am talking about are the terminal mangers need to know how to manage people and resources instead of having a degree that says they have learned this. dispatchers need to actually know how to dial a phone to ask if a customer can stay late instead of the driver. managers need to treat their people like the people that are working for they as "their team or crew" instead of favorites and not favorites.I just wish they still had common sense
 
DMT said:
I agree with this, while at the same time some of the that were done in the past should still be done now. Some of the things i am talking about are the terminal mangers need to know how to manage people and resources instead of having a degree that says they have learned this. dispatchers need to actually know how to dial a phone to ask if a customer can stay late instead of the driver. managers need to treat their people like the people that are working for they as "their team or crew" instead of favorites and not favorites.I just wish they still had common sense
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These all seem like people issues and not company issues.
 
Freight Guru said:
These all seem like people issues and not company issues.
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Little bit of both. I think the biggest issue with OD is that there really is no set standards from service center to service center. Guys that have been doing "their way"and don't adjust cause problems for the ones who understand they're not the only ones that work here. Common sense is not very common anymore.
Bottom line is drivers need to help drivers and when we can't then management needs to rectify the situation. Much like parenting.
 
Ump said:
Little bit of both. I think the biggest issue with OD is that there really is no set standards from service center to service center. Guys that have been doing "their way"and don't adjust cause problems for the ones who understand they're not the only ones that work here. Common sense is not very common anymore.
Bottom line is drivers need to help drivers and when we can't then management needs to rectify the situation. Much like parenting.
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Having the regional HR presence now should help. I'm a bit out of touch with terminal life -- but you have these same issues anywhere. Blue collar, white collar and in between. That's how people are.
 
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Freight Guru said:
These all seem like people issues and not company issues.
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your right they are people issues but because of the size of the company now, you have regional VP's doing the job of the VP of operations used to do. The regional VP's now only care about numbers and don't care about bad customer service unless a major account is lost. As stated about it is not the way things used to be done when the company was small. If every customer would call into the regional VP when they get poor service it would change.Just as soon as that happens the local driver giving that phone number out goes bye bye
 
DMT said:
your right they are people issues but because of the size of the company now, you have regional VP's doing the job of the VP of operations used to do. The regional VP's now only care about numbers and don't care about bad customer service unless a major account is lost. As stated about it is not the way things used to be done when the company was small. If every customer would call into the regional VP when they get poor service it would change.Just as soon as that happens the local driver giving that phone number out goes bye bye
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Our customers usually only call in to report great service from our drivers. I hear every day how we are the highest priced carrier -- but they give us business because of the service. Something's working out there...
 
DMT said:
I agree with this, while at the same time some of the that were done in the past should still be done now. Some of the things i am talking about are the terminal mangers need to know how to manage people and resources instead of having a degree that says they have learned this. dispatchers need to actually know how to dial a phone to ask if a customer can stay late instead of the driver. managers need to treat their people like the people that are working for they as "their team or crew" instead of favorites and not favorites.I just wish they still had common sense
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Better yet, we get there on time and the driver or dispatcher doesn't need to call and ask them to stay late.
 
that is the way it use to work but (and this sounds like an excuse) when start times are at 930 and half the time the pedal run is not ready and customer closing or cut off time is 300-330 ,things don't always work out. When you ask about start times in the meetings, the answer given is " we can't sent you out half empty" and our response is we don't have enough time. .3 yrs ago start times were 800am so we do what we have time for with deliveries now being more important instead of pickups
 
DMT said:
that is the way it use to work but (and this sounds like an excuse) when start times are at 930 and half the time the pedal run is not ready and customer closing or cut off time is 300-330 ,things don't always work out. When you ask about start times in the meetings, the answer given is " we can't sent you out half empty" and our response is we don't have enough time. .3 yrs ago start times were 800am so we do what we have time for with deliveries now being more important instead of pickups
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This industry thrives on chaos. Just accept that and move on. Our jobs are affected by so many outside factors -- customers, weather, employees, the freight itself. All you can do is your best effort at handling what you can -- when things go wrong as they will -- learn from it and keep trucking. Too many try to point fingers when a lot of the time there's no one to really blame.
 
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