RE: Now I'm not sure if expediting is the way to g
>The semantics are killing me. I could be wrong in my
>interpretation but it seems 'firing a fleet owner' is just a
>new way of saying resigning just as 'affirmative action' is
>a new way of saying discrimination.
>Leo
>
>Very good comparison.
>
>I do find it strange that someone would rave about their
>owners over the past year. And through their own admission
>indicating they were great at supplying the right equipment,
>countless hours of mentoring someone into the business, only
>to portray them later as a poor fleet owner. Yes, you can
>bet their interpretation of your performance is quite
>different. As I said earlier, I don't think "firing" them is
>how I would characterize it.
>Davekc
There is no inconsistency at all and the semantics are right on. When we first started with our first fleet owners, their performance was spot on. They provided exactly what we needed at that point in our career. They provided good coaching to us newbies and a truck in working order (almost...there were truck problems from the first day, but we overlooked them because the coaching was more important to us).
Over time, (30 to 60 days) the value of that coaching fell to zero because we learned what we needed to know and needed coaching no longer. Also over time, their failure to maintain the trucks they put us in cost us more and more money in lost run time. After a year of substandard fleet owner performance, and with them showing no interest in improving the quality of their services to us (a truck in good running order), we fired them for that reason.
In essence, the contract was they would provide a functioning truck in return for 40% of the gross we generated with the truck. The coaching was not referenced in the contract at all. That was an unpaid extra provied the fleet owners offered at their discretion and in their own best interests. They coached us so we could make more money, which benefited their bottom line. They don't coach people not under contract to them. When the truck(s) we paid for were not kept in working order, that gave us cause to terminate the contract, or to put it more bluntly, to fire them.
We interviewed over two dozen fleet owners before hiring the ones we did. We hired them (entered into a contract) as we would hire any other contractor in any other business, just as we hired a contractor to fix our roof on the house we used to own, or do payroll for a business I used to own. If a contractors' performance falls below acceptable levels, we fire those contractors.
We did not resign. Employees resign. We were not employees. We were not subordinates to the fleet owners. In the eyes of the law, and in our own eyes, we were peers, contracting for mutual beneficial services (us driving, them providing trucks).
Newbies should know, if you are good, fleet owners will compete for your services. When you enter into a contract with a fleet owner, you are not becoming their employee. While they may know more about expediting than you at that beginning, you will know enough to function on your own in relatively short order.
When you sign on with a fleet owner, you are a contractor that is then entitled to certain performance levels from your fleet owner, in return for compensation you provide, as specified in the contract; just as the fleet owner is entitled to certain perfomrance levels from you.
