So I work for a fairly large trucking company and have for many years. I used to work teaching new drivers trying to get their CDLs, but transferred due to some absurdly strict safety guidelines and a very hard to avoid brush with another truck (no damage involved but it was on a major roadway with heavy traffic where it wasn't safe to just get out and look more as the company tried to blame me for). I transferred to an account we had with a local retailer, delivering products to their stores. The position paid well, potentially better than my job as a teacher, though not nearly as reliably given that it was paid per mile despite me living in a large city where that is frankly an absurd way to pay truck drivers. When you can't get 5 miles in an hour during rush hour, paying per mile is just an exercise in frustration for everyone. Regardless, I chose nights to avoid that rush hour as much as possible and headed to work.
So my first day, I got strong hints that I might need a backup plan. Truck drivers at this place are not assigned trucks. They take what's available and go. The reason this is a very bad idea that leads to a lot of problems is that truck drivers, lacking incentive to get something fixed, will often use equipment as long as they can then leave it as long as they don't have to drive it later. This is especially true in this case, as the customer does not allow us to fix trucks at their distribution center where we park, we have to drive across town to our yard to fix our trucks. It's a pain.
Especially being a former instructor of this stuff, my general rule of thumb has always been a bit different. I don't like being stuck somewhere in a broken down truck, particularly since I'm in the southern US, weather is usually a bit hot, and the day cabs our local drivers use do not have air conditioners that work when the truck is turned off. Which the truck WILL be turned off because despite the lack of AC while turned off, the day cabs are programmed to turn off after a few minutes to avoid fines (since so many jurisdictions have anti-idling laws). It can take hours to find an appropriate tow truck able to tow an 80,000 lb tractor-trailer across town. So I am particularly careful about checking over my equipment before driving it. That IS what truck drivers are supposed to do, but not all do it.
And let me tell you, I found some real winners. Keep in mind, in the nearly 7 years I've been doing this before this week, I've seen exactly one truck that was so broken it would not couple and lock properly with a trailer. That truck was mine, it had over 400,000 miles on it, and honestly it was due for parts to start breaking at some point. Trucks are built sturdy but they do have limits. This week I had to refer two different trucks, both much newer than the one I had break, to maintenance because they would not couple and lock properly to the trailer. Which is a problem if you're a fan of trailers not coming loose and killing people at 70 mph on the interstate. I had one trailer I had to send for maintenance because the back end was pulling so far to the right that it was trying to drive on the shoulder while I was centered in my lane. I had another trailer whose refrigeration controls inside the trailer wouldn't work at all. I mean, sure, there are controls outside, but the people loading the trailer who know what temperature things are supposed to be can't reach those from inside the warehouse, and I don't know if you noticed, but none of us are really being paid enough to walk half a mile or more around a large warehouse just to make sure temperatures are correct. The last truck I inspected was a real winner that made me go “what the redneck bullshit is this?” Grass all over the passenger side of the engine. Do you know how difficult it is to get grass that high up on a semi truck's engine without ripping off the stupid plastic front bumper of these new trucks? The thing's an inch off the ground, a particularly enthusiastic speed bump will ruin your day, much less the kind of redneck offroad adventure that must have happened to put THAT much grass in the engine. Other side of the engine? OIL. Like. The entire side. How the thing wasn't sitting in a puddle of oil, I do not know, but it there was a lot of it on the engine. I took one look, decided it was my Friday anyway, and went home.
Mind you, I would not have done this if I didn't have a backup plan for a job, because my current company was bound to hate this move. And I was right. My immediate boss called me and basically told me I should have sucked it up and inspected another truck and got moving. He used to take a whole toolkit with him to fix trucks that broke. Honestly, my first job and even when I had my own truck when I went over the road? I was the same way. It's quicker to fix it than wait for it to be fixed. Anymore though? I find myself realizing I'm not being paid enough to be an unqualified diesel mechanic and/or inspect every truck on the yard trying to find the one that's not broke when it's my boss's job to make sure they're all working. That's kind of a trucking company's whole thing. Trucks. That work. And haul freight. Not trucks that are glorified paperweights waiting for a mechanic. So I maybe told him that. Along with the fact that I need to talk to my family to discuss whether this position was going to work out for me.
After that, I got a call from another number at my company that did not leave a message, that I missed because people insist on calling the person working nights at all hours of the day when I'm asleep.
Honestly, at this point, despite the fact that it's been a decent company overall besides the pay, I'm probably going to take the new job I was offered when they call back tomorrow. I would have to go back on the road for weeks at a time, instead of staying local, but oddly enough I get more sleep that way and I have my own truck. Plus my cat can come with me and she's been in trucks before and likes travel with me. Basically the only thing the shoebox I rent now has over a truck is that it has a full kitchen. That I don't use because I work 14 hour shifts and who has time for cooking when sleep is so much more tempting?
It just really boggles my mind how any company would honestly expect me to just…go with their stupid assumption that I'm going to shoot my own paycheck and wellbeing in the foot to find all their broken equipment for them when that is not what I'm being paid to do. I used to do that, and I had to get my Thanksgiving dinner from the local food bank that year because I was making so little at my job in return. I'm not doing that again. Not when I can (and did) have a job in less time than it took me to pack my truck and get home.
I know it's not really a question, just venting. TL;DR, local truck driver with years of experience finally has enough of big trucking company's BS and decides to make good on the common trucker threat to find a better job. The trucker shortage is a myth, it's a trucker turnover problem caused by companies like this that underbid for contracts and make it up by cutting corners and underpaying drivers.