The End of the Story
No, thankfully I didn't get fired, although I wouldn't have blamed the company had they decided to do so. I was partially responsible for everything that happened on the beer load from hell. However, thanks to tons of documentation and the fact that the shipper shot themselves in the foot by overloading the trailer in the first place, blame was relieved from me and placed on them. I was so afraid I would end up with what we call a service failure, which basically tarnishes my record and puts me in a position of having to be watched more closely should I make any more screw ups and keeps me from earning the quarterly bonuses.
After stressing out and wondering what would happen, I finally got the answers I needed during a discussion with my manager this morning. He hadn't been in the office during the whole debacle and so I had to tell him the whole story, beginning to end. He asked lots of questions and I gave lots of answers.
In the end it was determined that despite my failure to scale the load at a CAT scale after getting the go ahead to leave the shippers property, the entire situation was the fault of the shipper. They are being held responsible for all costs incurred by our company to relieve some of the product from my trailer and be stored until another company driver could arrive to have it transferred to their trailer and make the rest of the journey.
I am much relieved but I am certainly not less stressed about this. I will be carrying this experience with me for many moons to come as well as every single lesson I've learned throughout it's duration. The fact that I was relying on intuition and naive experiences put me in the spot I was in and I will never forget that. I may have nearly 200K miles under my belt, but in reality I'm still a stoopid rookie.
For those of you who have offered advice and support, I appreciate it. I know that I am only human and that mistakes will come and go. I am always eager to learn new lessons, even when in instances such as this, it makes me bonkers with stress for a few days.
And I hope that through my experience, someone else out there will be able to take a little bit of the knowledge I've gained and shared on here with them should they find themselves in the same sort of situation.
After stressing out and wondering what would happen, I finally got the answers I needed during a discussion with my manager this morning. He hadn't been in the office during the whole debacle and so I had to tell him the whole story, beginning to end. He asked lots of questions and I gave lots of answers.
In the end it was determined that despite my failure to scale the load at a CAT scale after getting the go ahead to leave the shippers property, the entire situation was the fault of the shipper. They are being held responsible for all costs incurred by our company to relieve some of the product from my trailer and be stored until another company driver could arrive to have it transferred to their trailer and make the rest of the journey.
I am much relieved but I am certainly not less stressed about this. I will be carrying this experience with me for many moons to come as well as every single lesson I've learned throughout it's duration. The fact that I was relying on intuition and naive experiences put me in the spot I was in and I will never forget that. I may have nearly 200K miles under my belt, but in reality I'm still a stoopid rookie.
For those of you who have offered advice and support, I appreciate it. I know that I am only human and that mistakes will come and go. I am always eager to learn new lessons, even when in instances such as this, it makes me bonkers with stress for a few days.
And I hope that through my experience, someone else out there will be able to take a little bit of the knowledge I've gained and shared on here with them should they find themselves in the same sort of situation.
Comments
I'm glad it all came out in the end, and you're still gainfully employed. And you're right. All we have are lessons learned. You're still my hero. :)
But you should know by now, weight is driver responsibility, in fact, the whole mish-mash after you are dispatched, is driver responsibility. And,yes, I have goofed up and it cost me dearly. Not everyone will coddle you, I'm more of the 'Drill Sgt' type, firmly believing that "In your face" criticism will stand out in your mind much longer. Barry G., a retired trucker.
If it helps any, I probably would have done the same thing, and maybe some others too, but now we won't because, and I quote, YOU:
"And I hope that through my experience, someone else out there will be able to take a little bit of the knowledge I've gained and shared on here with them should they find themselves in the same sort of situation."
My dreams would have been different though- in mine, I would have given up hope, broke the seal and invited the whole darn truckstop to a impromptu 'free beer' party. With lots of music and dancing. Followed by the firing part. And of course, possible incarceration!
Anyway, thanks for the detailed chronicle of the entire saga. Somewhere in there you needed a hug and hope you got one!
By the way, how do you weigh one of those tractor trailer thingys? (Furniture ain't to heavy, ha ha!)Guess I best learn from your story when picking up my EMPTY bottle backhauls!
I sent you an email. Check it out! And have a good one.
Belledog
Downunder, we call these "numb nut stories" ... although your gender may make that name a little incongruous!!!!!
I am not sure if my comment will be welcomed or not but it is my honest opinion, so you can accept or delete as you see fit! :-)
These comments are not necessarily a reflection on your specific circumstances, but rather a comment on the industry as a whole.
Having said that, I am sure that you've learnt a valuable lesson. Use that lesson to examine your whole work methodology with a degree of lateral thinking and apply the lessons learnt across the board in your work life.
Now ... to get on with my verbose comment!!!!
One of the problems with this industry in your country and mine is that through a whole raft of reasons there has been (and still is here) an extreme driver shortage. The net result is that many, MANY drivers get "fast tracked" into the job without adequate mentoring.
In my case, I have been a truck driver (mostly what you people call OTR) for 30 years. In the early days I was councelled, cajolled, abused, encouraged and above all EDUCATED by my peers and my seniors. It was tough and I didn;t enjoy some of it too much, but it made me a safer and better OPERATOR (as against just a driver) in the end. After 30 years, I still have much to learn and make a point of learning something new about my job each and every day.
To me this is a TRADE or a PROFESSION like any other. There is no possible way to adequately prepare someone with "fast tracking". I think it took about 10 years before I would consider (in hindsight) that I was ALMOST competant. To this day I am working hard to iprove my skills and knowledge.
We all learn by our mistakes (hopefully) but a system that doesn't allow the level of mentoring (due to fast tracking) will always leave people in the first 10 years or so at risk of making quite monumental blunders due to the lack of knowledge, poor attitude, inadequate skilling by companies with semi experienced individuals "training" newcomers and a general over confidence built on lack of exposure to top line operators.
It is a sad indictment of trends within the industry, methinks.
Creating better inducements for people to come into the industy (pay and conditions) and bolstering retention by recognition of the worth of individuals would go a long way to redressing this.
I am certainly no "unionist", or flag waving troglodyte, but I would think it is axiomatic that in order to benefit the industry as a whole it is necessary to get all of the above RIGHT!
For what it's worth, that's my perspective.