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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsComing out of retirement was much more exciting than I thought it would be
I posted awhile back that I had returned to work for a year at my former employers request to help deal with safety issues that weren't getting resolved at a trucking company he bought. When I got there it was worse than I thought, there were many problems from safety equipment and fail safes missing from trucks to loads being thousands of pounds overweight, they even had planned routes through back roads to avoid weigh stations. I released a memo of all the changes we would be making and got a letter signed by the majority of management saying the company couldn't operate this way and would lose money, they also told me something I didn't know, without the hacked version of the electronic logging devices they couldn't make their deadlines. This means they were running drivers over their hours, tired drivers pushing overloaded trucks. To say I was shocked and mad would be a real understatement plus they admitted breaking the law!
I sent the letter to my boss and he hit the roof, the entire management team is gone, he is also doing a full audit since operating under reasonable safety rules is entirely possible. At this point I am running the company as he sends in people to help. My position has switched to trying to keep this place together and help the new management rebuild focusing on safety, I got a nice bonus and raise for the rest of my year. This isn't exactly what I was expecting, I don't have the background for it being a former truck driver, but it is challenging and only for 11 more months, then I can go back to being retired.
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Scrivener7
(59,522 posts)
lagomorph777
(30,613 posts)
Scrivener7
(59,522 posts)
niyad
(132,446 posts)
dchill
(42,660 posts)
Tanuki
(16,448 posts) localroger
(3,782 posts)I've seen that people get so used to "bending" the rules that they take for granted what they are doing is wrong or even illegal. Thing is, when that shit catches up to you it does it in a big way. Kudos to your boss on recognizing that the problem had to be fixed and congrats on your new role as fixer.
Hekate
(100,133 posts)
Ellipsis
(9,454 posts)FreepFryer
(7,086 posts)Your actions speak volumes for your qualifications.
Siwsan
(27,834 posts)Dad had held about every job position you can in education, from teacher, coach, athletic director, counselor and vice principal.
When they asked him to take over the high school principal position, they made him an 'offer he couldn't refuse', and it didn't involve any decapitated animals, but far more $$ than he'd ever made in the other jobs he'd held. I know he missed the students, and enjoyed his time back in the school, but he was also VERY much ready to return to retirement, once his friend was able to return to work.
genxlib
(6,136 posts)A subpoena that reveled that letter would send a personal injury attorney into fits of orgasm.
That ain't too bright
AllaN01Bear
(29,498 posts)
MineralMan
(151,269 posts)
Native
(7,359 posts)Karadeniz
(24,746 posts)
NNadir
(38,051 posts)
Wounded Bear
(64,328 posts)Lucky Luciano
(11,863 posts)
mchill
(1,188 posts)Wow—how many trucking companies are operating like this? Because I live in a rural area, with an Interstate, I take many trips alongside long haul trucks. I had noticed early on in COVID a general Mad Max feel among the truck drivers as they seemingly no longer had to deal with many cars. It has gotten better recently, but I
keep hearing about regulations being loosened for the trucking industry (minimum ages, shift lengths). Thank you for doing your part in keeping us safer!
To be honest, the worst drivers I encounter are young men—tailgating and excessive speed and worry about the age limit lowering with truck drivers.
Moostache
(11,179 posts)BUT only after they follow the necessary rules and pay their employees fairly while managing to turn a net profit without the usual capitalist BS about "externalities" and "onerous regulations".
I am please to see that your boss reacted in a manner consistent with those conditions - it is paramount that people understand the regulations do not exist to make it hard on owners, in the case of weigh restrictions and driver hour limits, they exist to protect the innocent and the public from dangerous situations. If that costs extra money to be done safely and within the law, then so be it. Shaving a few extra bucks per mile delivered while endangering the employees and potentially the public makes my blood boil.
Like I said...make as much as you can AFTER you pay the costs of generating the revenue legally and safely. I am quite happy to read of a case where that appears to be happening!
Dr. T
(647 posts)Maybe if management took a reasonable pay cut, the company could make a profit and still operate safely. Management is okay with people dying in horrible accidents just as long as it doesn't interfere with their exotic car collection.
burrowowl
(18,494 posts)
Delphinus
(12,522 posts)in some ways you *do* indeed have the background because you WERE a truck driver. You have that experience to guide you in how best to do things.
Best of luck to you!
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)What is great is when you are Teflon.
I did some of that my last two years of work. I kept hoping they would fire me without cause.
sagetea
(1,559 posts)Former truck drivers are EXACTLY who should be running safety protocols in the trucking industry.
My husband has been driving since '84. At one point even running a company with 38 drivers and 28 tractors 40 trailers. He trained me as a safety mgr. and I could only do it with his expertise and knowledge. My (his) endeavors are still used as the protocols for that company.
He's an owner operator now hauling Helium.
Let me just say, thank you!
sage
Nittersing
(8,381 posts)Your former boss was not joking around!!
Thanks for keeping us in the loop.
Pacifist Patriot
(25,212 posts)
calimary
(90,039 posts)Sucha NastyWoman
(3,019 posts)Is it’s own reward ( on a fair playing field).
Nasruddin
(1,258 posts)It does sound like you caught the pickup truck (almost literally), but at least you know what to do with it.
NJCher
(43,167 posts)to put all you've learned about the business to work.
Congratulations!
mwooldri
(10,818 posts)My employer (yeah I'll name drop here - Maverick Transportation) drills into all of us the mantra of "Safety - why risk it?". I'd hesitate to think what your company's CSA scores would be if they continued like this. Our management was upset when our scores took a beating (things like not having the ELD instructions at hand, not certifying logs... i.e. the small stuff but a fair bit of it)... and we found out that we had to enter the weigh station more often.
I certainly like my manager - who ensures I do have enough hours to do my job and I am never forced to drive tired. Overweight loads (except for ones where it's a bit overweight on drives abd truck was full of fuel) on aren't tolerated, definitely encouraged to go back to the plant to be reloaded.
So thank you for instilling safety into this trucking company. You've probably saved a life or two and you didn't know it.
AllaN01Bear
(29,498 posts)or dont they do that anymore ? kudos for u returning.
bluecollar2
(3,622 posts)Sometimes it takes a company veteran to see what's going on.
love_katz
(3,262 posts) Commercial vehicles have a horrendous amount of smashing power if they get out of control. The safety regulations exist for very good reasons. Profits should not have the whip hand over safety. Best of luck and success to you!niyad
(132,446 posts)who killed four people, numerous injuries, wrecked vehicles, traffic nightmare when he lost control coming out of the mountains. Shady company, inexperienced driver. .a disaster just waiting to happen.
love_katz
(3,262 posts)
Too many people get behind the wheel with the belief that driving is a right instead of a privilege. A license to drive is not a license to kill , and that goes double with brass knobs on for those of us who drive a large commercial vehicle. I am really sad to hear that innocent people had to die before that driver was caught. niyad
(132,446 posts)thinking that driving is a right rather than a privilege. Witness that idiot sovereign citizen and his anti-vax tour posted here on DU yesterday. Crazy-making.
Whatthe_Firetruck
(610 posts)...of bananas."🎶
That was a song about a semi going out of control on the downgrade of a hill heading for Scranton, Pennsylvania, and the cargo it was hauling.
Wild blueberry
(8,296 posts)Thank you.
c-rational
(3,203 posts)and his drive for 0 accidents and how it also transformed the work ethic, morale, and profitability. I read this in a book called Habits a few years back. Again, good for you.
electric_blue68
(26,856 posts)your drivers', and those on the road!
I have fond spot for truckers besides the hard work; when I did my first cross country trip by bus from NYC, the South, and California in the NE - NJ, PN area we'd pull into the truck stops at night for a quick stop, and then often we'd pull out with a big rig in front and behind us on the road. It was kinda cool.
Good for you, you did a great thing here.
applegrove
(132,222 posts)When the government wanted to regulate dangerous goods his clients wanted him to stop it or at least minimize the regulations. My dad hit is limit of what he was willing to do and pushed back. They pulled the financial support for the trucking trade association he managed. He hired consultants to write booklets and put together kits on the new regulations. He then sold the kits back to truckers. They decided to keep him on. Thing is he was in the running for becoming the lobbyist for the beer industry in Ottawa when he got into lobbying. He decided to go for Trucking because he would feel guilty selling beer in a recession. Now here he was paying salaries out of his own pocket, I think, because some truckers can be MF***ers. He would have been better off working with the beer industry. We knew the people who got that job with the beer industry and they had free samples. LOL! My dad's background was with the Liberal Party where he was in charge of having teas with rich old Liberal women to fundraise. The Liberals were in power so he had his pick of where to lobby. He mentored a young environmental lobbyist who became the leader of the Green Party in Canada too.
You did a good thing. It is not easy to blow the whistle in a situation like that. Know that you have saved lives. Quite the cap to a long and principled career.
