Hey GT!
I hear ya. I don't know how the management bonuses work either, but I know that part of it depends on how many case errors there are, which is a big problem here. When possible, they tell us to change the paperwork on the case errors, so it doesn't reflect badly on them, covering the mistakes, so they get a bigger bonus. A lot of us will draw the line there, as we all signed the ethics paperwork when we were hired, and it doesn't help in solving the case error problem.
A few observations.
1. The management will go to great lengths, including outright lying and falsifications of records, to blame any mistake on the driver. (I know it's that way at many places)
2. The management (and warehouse for that matter) are not held to the same performance standards as the drivers are.
3. When business is slow, the management has nothing better to do than nit-pick. This usually comes in two forms. The first is massive write ups, which sounds like what happened today. The second is when they have it in for a particular driver, and they collectively hound the driver until he/she quits or they get tired or business picks up and they discover they still need the driver.
4. If it is not specifically stated in the contract, management will screw with it, they are sadistic that way.
5. There is evidently a new corporate initiative to reduce the pensions by eliminating the older drivers, I have no evidence, but it certainly seems that way, maybe it works into their bonus system.
Hey, I'm 45 and 100 lbs overweight, I have a hard time keeping up with the young uns. I not really slow, but I fall behind, like a lot of the other drivers. I make damn certain in every other area I dot my i's and cross my t's. And so far I get my route every day, regardless how long it took me the day before. We aren't paid hourly, and by the contract, they can't touch me for falling behind, there are too many factors. For example, it is right at 4 miles from my first stop today to my second, there are four stop lights on the way, my truck is governed at 57 MPH. They give me three minutes to get there. I'm a good worker, I always have been. There are any number of previous employers who would hire me back in a heartbeat if they had an opening. This is the only place I have been made to feel like I wasn't doing a good enough job when I was giving it my best.
Driving is your career, Sysco is just an employer, it's just a job. You can't let yourself get too emotionally invested into it. You could have a hard day, it was amateur night at the warehouse and the trailer was a wreck, you were routed to several stops that weren't going to be open, so you could wait a couple of hours or jump over 150 cases, you've had customers yelling at you all day, because it's lunchtime, or your late, or you skipped them. So you come in and you're boiling, but the supervisor has been yelled at by the same customers and the customers from 50 other drivers as well as being yelled at by the drivers fortunate enough to make it back before you. All the while he's/she's worried about his/her job because deep down he/she knows he's/she's not competent enough to keep it forever, and then there's that bonus thing to worry about...
We have a driver who's been there 35 years, no one really likes him, but he told me "laugh or crack". In other words, if you don't learn to take it lightly it will drive you crazy.
I hate to ask, but have you talked to a shop steward or a senior driver about the pay? It took me a while to catch on to billing the ABC thingy for all it's worth, and I had to ask a lot of questions.
Take care, sorry if I rambled.
