soberups
Pees in the brown Koolaid
With the company's new push for production, it is more important than ever for us as drivers to keep some sort of a daily log where we document the quality of the load as well as any issues or problems that cost us time. When we get called into the office over a production issue, our management is going to have a clipboard with stacks of Telematics reports and OJS observations and notes, and we need to have our own "stack" of paper so that we can answer specific questions about any delays we might have encountered on a specific day.
I am a big fan of simple. So I designed a "delay card" that, when folded in half, is about the same size as a pad of delivery notices. On this card I put 14 very common delays that every driver tends to encounter, along with 3 columns (8:00AM-noon, noon-4:00, 4:00 and later) where we can count the number of times that particular delay occured using tally strokes. We can make a stroke count while standing at a door, walking back to the car, or sitting in traffic. At the end of the day, we can make whatever notes we want to about overall load condition, miles driven, hours worked etc. on the back side of the card.
The list of delays is by no means complete, and each driver could tailor their own card to the specifics of their route. And I made this card using a ruler and a pencil; a better way to do it would be to make some sort of a spread sheet using Excel, but I lack the necessary computer skills. The size of the card means that you could fit two of them on a single piece of 8x11 copy paper and then cut each sheet in half to make two cards. I have included a picture of the one I made; I also had my wife scan it at her work but scanning creates a file that is too large to upload onto Brown Cafe so my cell-phone pic will have to do. I showed this card to my BA at a recent meeting and he is having a bunch of them printed up on card stock with union letterhead.
I suggest that every driver do this. Its a quick, easy, no-delay method of documenting your day that fits in a shirt pocket. If they are going to call you in the office and shove paper at you, its nice to have some paper of your own to shove back with.
I am a big fan of simple. So I designed a "delay card" that, when folded in half, is about the same size as a pad of delivery notices. On this card I put 14 very common delays that every driver tends to encounter, along with 3 columns (8:00AM-noon, noon-4:00, 4:00 and later) where we can count the number of times that particular delay occured using tally strokes. We can make a stroke count while standing at a door, walking back to the car, or sitting in traffic. At the end of the day, we can make whatever notes we want to about overall load condition, miles driven, hours worked etc. on the back side of the card.
The list of delays is by no means complete, and each driver could tailor their own card to the specifics of their route. And I made this card using a ruler and a pencil; a better way to do it would be to make some sort of a spread sheet using Excel, but I lack the necessary computer skills. The size of the card means that you could fit two of them on a single piece of 8x11 copy paper and then cut each sheet in half to make two cards. I have included a picture of the one I made; I also had my wife scan it at her work but scanning creates a file that is too large to upload onto Brown Cafe so my cell-phone pic will have to do. I showed this card to my BA at a recent meeting and he is having a bunch of them printed up on card stock with union letterhead.
I suggest that every driver do this. Its a quick, easy, no-delay method of documenting your day that fits in a shirt pocket. If they are going to call you in the office and shove paper at you, its nice to have some paper of your own to shove back with.
