GOOD NEWS / BAD NEWS DEPARTMENT

A few weeks ago, before Craig had home time, there was a fleet message sent about an important conference call, that they wanted all drivers to call in for if possible. As luck would have it, Craig was in a spot where one, our sporadic working QualComm actually received the message, and two, that he was sitting idle at the time of the conference call. With the call being at the end of the work day, on a Friday, at the end of the Month and the end of the fiscal year, one could only be led to think it would be bad news.

When Craig was telling me about this phone call later, he had told me all the things he thought would be said and implemented. None of them sounded too good to me, and with the fact that all the office personnel had taken a 7% cut earlier in the year, so that the drivers would not be effected by the bad economy, I was braced for the worse.

As the conference call started, the Company drivers, such as Craig, were the only ones calling in. They would be addressing the owner operators and team drivers separately. As expected, the economy was blamed for the changes that were happening, and to be honest with you, we have been extremely fortunate, in that we really haven’t felt the crunch like so many others. Craig works for a family owned business, no doubt they have felt the effect as much as anyone else, and if we had to tighten our belts to weather through this storm, so be it, hit us with your best shot, and so they fired away.

First, they would cut the detention pay by 7%. Okay, I can live with that. After all, I don’t know of all that many companies that even pay detention from your appointment time, to the time you get loaded or unloaded. Then they said that the trucks would be governed (a computer on the truck with sets how fast it can go) from 65 mph to 62 mph. Okay, let’s analyze this. We drive 99% of the time in California, Oregon and Washington. Two of those states are 55mph and the other is 60mph. Now granted , that will make it a bit more difficult on the hills, but again, I think we can live with that.

Craig, patiently listening on the phone, was prepared for the other shoe to drop, and was surprised that there were no more cut backs presented. Really???? That was all?? WHEW ……talk about dodging a bullet. It could have been so much worse. So you might be asking yourself, okay we heard the bad news, what is the good news? Craig is still employed ………enough said.