The Rear View

In looking back at my last months with Maverick and the antagonistic relationship that had developed with my Driver Manager, I realize that some of the fault lies with me. During my workers’ comp leave I had become very disillusioned with Maverick, and less tolerant of the shortcomings in others.

I have no doubt that my personel file will label me a difficult employee, with an even more difficult wife. She has a very demanding job herself, but had to make time to help me sort through the maze created by the workers’ comp claim; she had to stay on top of unreturned phone calls, and clean up after the mistakes others made. Had she not taken charge, I would have suffered from the negligence and mistakes of all parties involved.

When I returned to duty, I was less cooperative. I had been treated poorly by Maverick during my workers’ comp leave; and I was tired of putting in 12-15 hour days, simply because so much of the day was spent waiting, either for a work assignment, for a load out of Laurinburg, or at a customer because the scheduling wasn’t handled properly by the CSR’s and Driver Manager.

By the time I returned from leave, the new policy of 48 hours at home every-other weekend had been established. I really don’t understand the purpose behind the change. It would be different if we were only running 8 to 9 hours a day, and the 8th day could roll off. But with an average of 12 hour days, it was necessary to take a reset on the road. Then, get 48 hours at home the next weekend. When you think about it that is actually more time off, but less at home:

• If a 34-hour reset is properly scheduled and honored every weekend, there is 68 hours off in a 2 week period.
  
• But, if a reset must be taken on the road, then there is another 48 hours at home the following weekend, the time off is a total of 82 hours – 14 hours more.

I requested that I only stay out every third weekend, and after I was not paid for border crossing delay, I refused any more loads to Canada.

I became more vocal in my complaints, because I believed it better to express them than just simply quit like I knew so many drivers had done. I naively believed that Maverick couldn’t correct the problems if they weren’t aware of them. So, I took my complaints to Dave C. and Craig B. At their request, I even sent a report with all of the problems detailed. I sent emails with photos of hazardous trailers to Brett G. No one responded, and nothing changed.

I finally realized they preferred to stay in the dark about the safety and liability concerns related to the trailers; and really didn’t want input from drivers. They would rather the driver just quit, than know the reasons why. So, that is what I finally did. I’m sure they were all relieved to see my resignation, which explains why no one asked why I was leaving in my exit interview.

There were some people at Maverick, who took their job and responsibilities seriously. If everyone at Maverick had their attitude, I would still be working there today.

Shirley was wonderful. She worked hard to keep my wait time at a minimum, my miles high, and understood the importance of time at home. I would have done anything for her, and forgiven her any mistakes – but then she made so few of them.

Lindsey in payroll was the one who finally got my Expenses caught up and paid. She returned calls, and followed through on what she promised. The payroll and benefits department needs more people like her.

Tami is who we dealt with about health insurance during my worker comp leave. She always returned calls, responded to emails, and followed through on everything. If everyone I dealt with during my leave were like her, I would not have returned to duty with such a bad taste in my mouth.

I’m sure there are other people at Maverick who are just as competent and responsive as Shirley, Lindsey and Tami. I just never had the pleasure of dealing with them.

So, Shirley, Lindsey and Tami – THANK YOU.

I’ll conclude with my thoughts on these two articles:

From Metal Center News On-Line – June, 2007 – “A Brief Calm in the Metals Hauling Storm”:

Steve Williams, president of Maverick USA, Little Rock, Ark., one of the largest steel transport companies in the U.S., says the market started to turn in August 2006 and nose-dived in the fourth quarter. “There’s been a steady erosion of profits since then,” he adds.

The cause of the freight recession in the transportation sector overall—and the metals industry in specific—is the source of considerable debate. Many analysts point to significant truck purchases at the end of 2006, as fleet owners tried to replace equipment before the expensive new engine emissions standards of 2007 went into effect. Starks says companies may have overbought by as many as 110,000 units in 2006.

But Williams doesn’t believe the overindulgence in truck purchases in 2006 is having much of an impact on the supply-demand balance.

“I keep hearing analysts talking about this fundamental supply-demand change that they attribute to the pre-buy for ’07 engines. That just blows my mind,” Williams says. “It has nothing to do with the number of trucks on the road, because it takes a driver to drive a truck. I can show you where there are 200 trucks right now. If I had drivers for them, they’d be on the road.”

That is 13% of Maverick’s trucks sitting without Drivers. Considering the growing number of empty trucks I saw in the Laurinburg yard, I would venture a guess that most of those empty trucks are in the Specialized Division.


And from Heavy Duty Trucking – May, 2007 – “Exec Views on Drivers”: “The driver shortage was one of the most pressing topics addressed by fleet executives at Newport Communications' annual economic summit, held in conjunction with the Mid-America Trucking Show”.


Steve Williams is quoted as saying:

“I think it's probably a challenge that's been underestimated by the public at large. A lot of the policy decisions that we make within the industry and as citizens should take the microeconomic look at what's going on in regard to demographics – everything from Social Security to how we fight wars to how we're going to put drivers in trucks, find technicians and find nurses. I think we've underestimated the changes that are really going on. I would urge everyone to do their homework. Informed people will make better decisions.

We've been short of drivers for a lot of reasons, and one of the biggest reasons is, it's been a really crummy job. There's only a handful of people that really enjoy doing it, and thank goodness they are still out there. But we're going to have to change the business model that we all thought was a great idea – and certainly was the most efficient model for moving freight in this country in the late 1970s into 1980. You know, the truckload model from point A to point B. Is that sustainable? I don't think so.

Trucking was 15 percent of Gross Domestic Product in the late 1970s and 1980 – it has fallen to 10 percent now. America has benefited from the creativity and productivity of the trucking industry. That creativity and productivity has pretty much been at the expense of the truck driver. We have not done them any service by allowing it to happen. I think that as we see the compensation levels return to what they need to be, we will see that percentage of GDP go back up. We've gone too far, and it's because of economic deregulation, quite frankly. Adjusting for inflation, the drivers that haul steel today in this country – I'll just speak for my own specific circumstance – are working for less money today than they did in 1979. Why in the hell should we be surprised that it's hard to get them to continue to do it?

I don't think we're necessarily in store for a revolution, but I can tell you it would be naive to expect that to keep doing more of the same will give us a different outcome. So I think America is going to have an awakening, and I hope to be one that helps deliver the message, because I think it's going to look a lot different in five to 10 years, or we're going to be in a world of hurt.

The temptation from commercial interests is to go below our standards so that we can put people in trucks because they need them. I don't care. I think it's time for us to say that we're not going to – we're going to stand firm about not lowering our standards. We should be encouraged to raise our standards. I think the test will be whether the industry is actually mature enough to understand that, and not let ego stand in the way. Ego has gotten us a lot of trouble, I think. We all love having more trucks. “

I would tell Mr. Williams that from all accounts, Maverick has held an excellent reputation among drivers, but that is changing with the lack of attention to the problems in the Specialized Division. As he stated above, “Informed people will make better decisions”. I do not believe that he has kept himself completely informed about the problems in that division. If he had, the problem DM’s would be gone, changes would have happened, and there would not be 200 empty trucks.

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