The first major overhaul of the boards the solicited no input from drivers, and ended up with a Charlie Foxtrot that necessitated massive input from drivers, so they made some changes, but still left the boards in fine Charlie Foxtrot fashion. Based on that experience, you would think that driver input in planning this latest overhaul would be on the To-Do List, if not at the very top of it. But, alas, no.
Which pretty much reinforces the theory that carriers view drivers as tools, necessary evils they must pay for to get the job done. Oh, they'll go on and on about how it's "all about you guys" and "we're all about the drivers", but their actions betray them every time. For example, where's the highly detailed PDF that gives us "tools" all the information we need on this new program? If they know the details, there's no reason not to give them to us. Instead of a couple of messages telling us that things are gonna change, and then piecemealing the boards that make no sense when we view them, there should have been from the very beginning a comprehensive report detailing what was to happen. Now it's here and we still don't know what is happening. The highly informative audio file raised far more questions than it answered. Excellent.
There's a new "fleet message" on the Driver Web that will probably be sent out late this afternoon. It says as of 5/18, the final phase of the virtual terminal alignment will take place. I'm not sure of that means it will take place as of today, or merely that it will, eventually, take place. It also says go listen to the recording for more details on how the program will work once fully operational. More details? First thing you hear on the recording is that it's a "brief overview" so we can understand the philosophy behind the changes. There are no details, other than it will become fully operational in mid-June. Meanwhile we're already dealing with a new board system that isn't fully functional which has some pretty glaring issues with their placements, regardless of the philosophy behind it.
They're all about the drivers, they're all about communication, yet we see very little of either. You gotta take a wait and see approach to it, largely because we've received so little information about the details, but based on how things have been implemented thus far, I'm not hopeful or excited about the new and exciting changes. People n the office are clearly aware of the fact that we're in the dark, confused and likely misunderstanding things, yet there has been no attempt to alleviate any of those issues. That's because we're tools. Or they are, one or the other.
Fr8 Shaker:
The truck stop list in on the Driver Web, 5/13/2009 Truck Stop Listing for New Terminals, an Excel file.
