I'd have to do some thinking about how to communicate this in a way that would be truly get through and be fully understood by the policy makers and dispatchers at FedEx Custom Critical. A lot of drivers would have a hard time putting this into words as well but they know it is real.
"This" is the emotional response that drivers have to those Qualcomm (C-Link) beeps and how wearing they can be.
EASYTRADER, it is perfectly understandable to any of us that has experienced a barrage of beeps over the course of a day that you would feel worn out, even if your log book shows you had more than enough sleeper time to drive.
These beeps are not just beeps. And what the beeps are to one driver may be something completely different to another.
For example, Diane and I are not particularly bothered by seeing good loads offered, accepting them, and seeing them go to another truck. Yet another very good White Glove team that had been with the company nearly 20 years found that experience so unbearable that they left the company. That's not just talk. This team was highly praised by the company in company communications. And their very specific and clearly stated reason for leaving was seeing accepted offers go to other trucks.
Two teams...two totally different reactions to the same kind of beeps and the dispatch results that followed.
Now think about the emotional energy this team expended in the months before they quit. These beeps bothered them enough to ultimately leave. Think about what their emotional experience was with each beep and how long it lasted each time they saw a good load that they accepted go to another truck.
The beeps that bother Diane and me the most are those of repeated load offers, made again and again after we have already declined them once, twice, three times and even more in some cases (the record is nine).
We're sitting in the truck waiting for freight. Say four bad offers have already been made and turned down. We have been upset for weeks about repeated load offers. And then it comes, the fifth beep of the day. The first thing that happens is the emotional response. We don't know what the beep is. It might be a fleet message. It might be a question. It might be a good offer. It might be a repeat offer. We don't know.
But we do know how we feel before we even move to pick up the Qualcomm unit and read the screen. We feel tense. We feel irritated. We feel disrespected. We feel sad. We feel uncertain about what will happen next and fear it won't be good. We feel it physically in our guts as the muscles tighten. We feel it in our faces as our lips tighten. We feel it in our breathing as a deep breath is taken to brace ourselves for another disappointing experience. Then we look at the screen and run the emotional scripts that are prompted by whatever is there.
Say you are in the training room at Green and the room is full of drivers. They are on a short break and chatting happily away. If you used a device in a hidden location in that room to sound a single Qualcomm beep, you know what will happen. Everyone will stop whatever they are doing and any number of things may be said or done next.
These beeps are not just beeps. The longer you react to them in this business, the more a part of you they become. Hearing them all day long with negative results following each beep most of the time is not a small thing. It conditions you to dislike the beep. It can indeed drain your energy and it motivates some outstanding contractors to leave the company.
You don't react to a beep like you mute out a TV commercial. Beeps matter to contractors and drivers. The next beep may take you home or put you on a lucrative run that makes your truck payment for the month. If money is short, the beeps become even more important because the next beep can be the difference between keeping your creditors at bay or not.
For people who don't live with the beeps, think of it this way. A beep to a contractor is like a phone call from school to a parent that begins, "I'm calling about Trevor (or whatever your son's or daughter's name may be). What happens next may be good news, neutral news or bad news, but whatever it is, it is important, and you will likely brace yourself emotionally for what is about to come next. That kind of bracing takes energy and we contractors do it with every beep, day and night, sometimes a dozen times in 24 hours.
If you wonder why contractors get so upset with the dispatchers and company that beep them several times a day, think about how you would feel if your school called you several times a day saying, "I'm calling about Trevor." And then think about how you would feel if the news was either meaningless or negative most of the time.
This beep incentive to leave the company was recently confirmed to me in another way. A recruiter from another expediting company that Diane and I recently visited with told us that 75 percent of the incoming calls his department receives now come from FedEx Custom Critical contractors and drivers. The first thing they want to know is how the dispatch system at that company works. They are not asking first about the money. They are asking about the dispatch system.
That's an important message for FedEx Custom Critical people to hear, if anyone is listening.
It's about safety as EASYTRADER correctly suggests. It's also about retention to the extent retention matters to the company.
.....just sayin' 
