We've started hiring drivers off the street for the first time in decades. Gave one an “observation ride” this past week before he gets shipped off to Integrad. Didn’t let him touch a package or the DIAD, just follow and observe. Had him huffing and puffing, and complaining about his legs burning by mid-afternoon. We’re so screwed.
they can say what the want about us veteran drivers but these kids don't want to do thus crap.
We don't have enough people nor will they fix the red tags. We are getting blasted with Amazon, too many people on comp and taking FMLA days. Peak is going to suck.That's so insane...I really thought after the contract was ratified, they would be able to hire and KEEP people. But nope, we just hire, hire, hire and no one ever comes back. It's just a measly 140 degrees inside our Texas hub
The funny thing is I only have 6 years in at FT, so not what I would consider a veteran. We just have a ton of <5 year drivers and not enough on road supes, so proper training is suffering.
In the past few years I've seen a lot of drivers that had between 5-10 years quit
Might be smart actually. Just put in enough time to get out of debt including the house, put a decent amount in savings & then go back to pre driving life. Where you could actually enjoy living to some degree.
I know it sucks sometimes especially when you have a younger family.
We are very fortunate, I can't believe how much we get paid + benefits to deliver boxes.
It gave me an opportunity to have a stay at home wife and not having my kids in daycare
I'm only pointing out why people leave in that 5-10 year range. It's not because the work is too hard (those guys get out in year 1 or 2) its because the brown truck is consuming their lives and affecting their families. So they put in just enough time to clear their debt burdens.
You would have died trying to follow in my footsteps on my route. It was a killer.I will say though that I bet a good majority of todays drivers would go absolutely insane trying to navigate a rural route without the help of a cell phone or GPS or any other electronics---all while driving a POS straight stick. For the first 5 or 10 years I worked the only addresses that were on the rural route packages were like Joe Blow-- RR3. It got better when they switched to Joe Blow RR 3 Box 187 (as long as you knew how the mail carrier ran his route). We spent a lot of time barrowing customers phones trying to locate people.
Strike
