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A depressingly common sight in trailer yards: Yard worker lines up their trailer on the door and starts backing up. Suddenly the third party drivers descend upon him much like seagulls who saw a potato chip. -Driver 1 sees their trailer and races for it. -Driver 2 sees their slot and races to back their trailer into it -Driver 3 can't find their trailer so they race into the scrum to do a few circles in the middle of this impromptu ballet before exiting as if they were just another driver in a car commercial. Thankfully it wasn't me in the middle of this headache, but I just sat there watching the chaos and hoping it would clear soon with no injuries or damage. Somehow everyone was okay. Also my site has a whopping 12 yard hostlers. Or it's supposed to. At the start of shift we were down to 3 that are safe/legal to use from various issues like broken mirror, power steering exploded and "recently caught fire". At the end of shift we were down to 2. We had the work for 5 yard drivers tonight. We had 5 yard drivers. We didn't have the vehicles for them.
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Feb 20, 2024 13:16
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:17 |
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Oh yeah, it's the system. Us yard drivers are paid by the hour. Meanwhile the average commercial truck driver is paid by the mile driven. Both of us are limited by federal regulations how many hours we can be recorded as "On Duty" or "Driving" and need so many hours between shifts. So us sitting around for five minutes while someone does something stupid? Yeah, no worries. Average commercial driver? 70% will sit around because it's not worth damaging your load or truck, 30% "RAAAAAGH! NO WAIT, ONLY MOVE! I HAD TO SIT ON MY rear end FOR AN HOUR WAITING FOR THIS LOAD!" Then the second type get to our yard over 2 hours early and the Amazon system goes "Wait, you're not supposed to be here yet." and rejects them and they pop off. Or their load was cancelled or delayed due to issues in the building and they pop off. Or the moon is in retrograde atmospheric re-entry while Mars and Uranus are singing a duet and they pop off. In short, about 1/3 of CDL drivers are the most aggro motherfuckers ever and we just do our best to avoid them when we can or de-escalate when we can't because we never know what's gonna cause them to burst a blood vessel. And a good chunk of why they are so aggressive is because of the system, while another chunk is just the type of people being a driver attracts.
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Feb 21, 2024 00:33
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Amazon's policy is our dock doors have trailer locks that lock onto the DOT bar (the step that has a big sticker that says it's not a step that's supposed to keep people from driving their cars under a trailer and dying when rear-ending it and is woefully inadequate for the job). Door won't open unless the trailer is locked into place, and the driver can't drive off. Also when the trailer is locked the door has a red light to tell the driver not to back up and connect. Basically creates an airlock system of sorts: those dock doors are only open when a trailer is docked to them outside of the occasional time there's maintenance work being done. And yes, I've had to chew out the dock for having someone jump the gun and locking a trailer before I disconnected. Connecting to or disconnecting from a trailer shakes it all about : it's literally best practice to try to raise a trailer a bit when backing up to it to ensure you have a good connection to the kingpin. Note this doesn't stop dumb poo poo from happening, just stops people from being in the trailers when dumb poo poo happens. Discendo Vox posted:I'd be very curious about supplement use among either yard or commercial drivers, if you happen to get any sense of it. Wouldn't have the foggiest.
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Feb 21, 2024 12:48
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It's another Monday night, yet again Security has a hole in their coverage. So I get to chill out in the outbound guard shack. Normally I'm 90% happy I'm being paid to sit around and watch youtube on the clock and 10% guilt watching the work queue fill up. Tonight? About 40% "easy money" glee, 60% "I'm thirsty but the shack's bathroom is clogged." Also had a driver nearly try to come in the outbound gate. Thankfully he parked outside and walked up and asked first. Turns out he was lost and thought this was a Lowe's warehouse. To be fair he did arrive on the side road, approaching from the back of the building where there isn't a giant Amazon sign. My manager: "You should have told him yes. Would have been funny." Me: "You wouldn't have been laughing when I opened the gate and let him loose in the yard."
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Feb 27, 2024 12:46
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Domus posted:Got a weird question for Alky. I work for a company that is involved with vending machines. We also do “micro markets”, where the idea is that people take food from a cooler, scan it on a machine, and then pay for it. It’s on the honor system, although it is recorded. I was in a meeting with the owner, and he mentioned that Amazon warehouses, and only Amazon warehouses, had a 40% theft rate. Why do you think that is? Do people not care because there’s such high turnover it’s not worth the hassle of firing someone? You work for Avenue C? As Purple says, people at Amazon warehouse just are often burnt out. Also, at least in my local area, a lot are literal college students: kids in all but name who have no idea how the world works so they think they can get away with it. So you end up with a mixture of exhaustion, apathy, spite against a bullshit system, and people who think they're beating the system. As you said it's monitored and Amazon sees repeated theft from the break room as bad as theft of our own product, so Loss Prevention will fire a breakroom thief almost as fast as they'd fire a thief in the warehouse. But also as Purple said, no one's gonna really call someone out if they see them stealing. For one: if you see people stealing food, no you didn't. For another: if that person wants to take the risk of stealing from Amazon's break room that's on their head. No one's gonna stick their neck out. Also likely depends on the type of warehouse. I started and spent most of my career here in a Fulfillment Centers. Those are absolutely hellish and they treat everyone like dirt. Gotta walk through a metal detector on the way out to make sure you're not stealing stuff. Meanwhile I've also visited and spent time at both a Sort Center and AMXL center. Sort Centers take the output of other warehouses in the area and sort them to be shipped to customers: super chill and the standard shift is 2x 4 hour days with lots of options to pick up more, so mainly students and retirees. AMXL are where the large items are and everything is done via some sort of forklift, which are expensive and you can't just tell a forklift to get back to work so, again, relaxed because damage to equipment or trained operators from rushing actually costs Amazon money. I imagine the people working at those two facilities are far less stressed and less likely to steal out of frustration and spite. And it's super easy for Amazon to fire people, especially white badge "temporary" workers. It's really the turnover that encourages it. As said, a lot of people have this as their first job and also simply do not work here long enough to figure out that Amazon is always watching. Also their first interaction with HR and Loss Prevention over theft is almost always their last so they come in, steal, get fired and are replaced by the next college kid who doesn't know any better. No real chance to learn a lesson.
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Mar 3, 2024 21:41
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Today in "Dumbass Third Party Driver Moments": Yup. That driver sure did drive off the lot with the doors of his trailer open. Hope they noticed before he got to the highway about 2 blocks away since the primary securement for truck trailer doors to hold them open is usually pretty laughable and just barely enough to keep them secure when putting the trailer on or off a dock door. Doubly so for Intermodal trailers (the big heavy boxes that can be shifted between train and trucks) they drove off with where it's usually a ring on a gently curved piece of metal that one might generously call a "hook". To be fair it shouldn't have been left in the parking spot with the doors open for the idjit to just hook up and go but it's kind of hard to miss the doors being open if you even quarter rear end the inspection.
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Mar 5, 2024 12:45
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It's going to be interesting hearing about the dynamic between management squealing "You HAVE to do this, you're our only driver!" And Cowslips replying "I'm your only driver. I ain't gotta do poo poo unless you want to take these deliveries yourself."
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Mar 9, 2024 14:05
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Sigh I love how much HR just doesn't talk to anyone about schedules. Especially not TOM team (my group). I keep having to have my schedule unfucked when I have training, then unfucked again when my training ends, etc. We will send them the exact dates and then they either don't do it and people have to fight them to claw back lost time off or they do it and do it for an extra 2-3 weeks or months. My Mon-Thurs training during the day ends on this week. I should be going back to regular schedule. They have me scheduled Mon-Thurs days until the 11th. I mean I could show up and basically annoy days and technically be in the right but it's frustrating. Thankfully my manager has the ability, and will, to play with our schedules himself but for CYA reasons we always have to have this fight with HR before he does it for anything major. Anyways on the plus side, with any luck I'll have a class-A CDL on the 12th when I test. Also the Texas DPS put my appointment to pay for my road test as 4:20 April 1st.
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Mar 26, 2024 00:24
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I mean I think that's just most jobs these days.
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Mar 28, 2024 09:17
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The last three weeks have been CDL training which is, let's be honest, training people to pass the test to get their Class-A license. Amazon's paying for this and we're on the clock which is nice. Of the 7 of us, this one woman has been a pile of anxiety and they really haven't let her do too much backing practice until the last week, and only took her out on the road once (which she did amazing on btw) because she's having trouble with the pre-trip inspection test. Mainly because the pre-trip is the first thing the examiners test you on and if you don't pass it, you don't do the backing or on the road tests. Anyways, she's finally calming down and relaxing and we're teaching her how to parallel park with a 53 foot trailer when we go to lunch and everything just goes to poo poo. When she stops at Walmart to grab a bite to eat and a folding chair to sit on, some road raging rear end in a top hat decides to pull a gun on her because she had the gall to stop for pedestrians near the door and block him from speeding through the parking lot. "Good" news: while her car was in a camera blindspot his car was picked up by two cameras: one picked him screeching to a halt and caught his plate, the other caught him pulling a gun and pointing it at someone. There were apparently several people around calling the cops and basically giving a live play by play of this rear end in a top hat threatening some middle aged church lady, telling her to move her car because she "might cause a crash" when she stopped for pedestrians. Actually good news: jackass didn't actually shoot. So local police already had him arrested at his apartment while the responding unit tried to help her calm down and took her statement. Yes she is charging him. Obviously she was like an hour late back from break an absolute traumatized wreck and it was horrible watching her. She'd gone from finally relaxing and figuring things out to a complete wreck for understandable reasons and the instructor sent her home because it was clear she was in a headspace that really needed to be at home, recovering. I really hope the instructors can talk Amazon into scheduling her out there a few more times for extra training because that feels like the sort of thing that might set back her progress conquering her anxiety.
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Mar 29, 2024 02:19
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Yeah, I started the day fighting to not look at the clock/count the hours. Ended the day just kind of going through the motions in a haze after I found out about that.
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Mar 29, 2024 04:09
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hey, shorts and no sales/commission sounds like a dream
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Apr 5, 2024 20:52
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Kilonum posted:Not from what I know. I'm more dealing with getting my team ready for the switchover to the new POS system. Hey, welcome to the browser based future! I'm here from Amazon to tell you that we have the best A.I.* generated systems. Anyways after a month of off site training and vacation I finally get back to the yard. Of course I'm immediately reminded that while many CDL drivers are quite intelligent. They're just not the ones you're going to remember interacting with. My brother in logistics: could your problem with the system showing you not being checked in have something to do with the fact that you didn't stop at the big screen at the entry gate to talk to the people there? And therefore by tailgating the vehicle in front of you, you didn't check in? Mayhaps that's why you're not showing as checked in? *Actually Indians. They're based somewhere near New Delhi
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Apr 8, 2024 11:43
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Cowslips Warren posted:Indians: cheaper than AI, But people would rather talk to pretend robots! Yup. Someone talking about it is where I got the joke. I just found it painfully relatable since instead of letting us locals do the check in they'd rather hire a call center in India.
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Apr 8, 2024 17:45
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LOL, new security guy today. I work in one of the Amazon centers that has security on the way out because we handle poo poo that people keep thinking they can steal. I used to think this was normal until I got promoted/transferred to transportation where I can be sent to entirely separate facilities to cover driver shortages. Anyways, most of the security crew know about us transportation people. Especially the ones that do shifts New guy sees two phones in my bag when it goes through the X-Ray machine. "Sir! Do you have two phones?" "Yes. I'm TOM Team." Normally this would be the end of it: security notices my orange vest (denoting I've been promoted and can have all sorts of odd tasks such as being a good home for an adopted phone) and asks a few questions mainly out of curiosity. This guy was obviously thinking he made it big: he just started and he already caught a thief! One who's using his vaunted position to get away with stealing stuff. "Sir! I'm going to have ask you to unlock these phones to prove that they are yours!" At which point the other guard working the other X-ray machine tuns around, looks at who he's talking to and rolls her eyes. Normally I wouldn't get too worked up about it but the way he was getting all rabid guard dog got to me. As was the disappointed sad face he made when I casually unlocked both and walked away. Dude really thought he had a thief.
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Apr 17, 2024 12:08
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That's basically how I felt.
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Apr 17, 2024 12:35
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Now that I'm a yard dog I no longer get to deal with the bullshit of being labor shared between departments because some corporate jackasses think it's best to scramble people around and piss them off. Instead I get labor shared between buildings! Which is honestly way better and pays mileage. I have building and yard access to three sites. My home Amazon FC site (yard is small and busy), an AMXL site (yard is loving ginormous and there's barely enough work to keep 2 drivers from falling asleep but policy demands those two drivers) and a Sort Center. Despite doing my training at the latter I really haven't driven there much beyond some initial familiarization with the hostlers. I have to say that I dislike this yard. It's tiny and cramped and has hills which just complicates everything. Love trying to park a trailer only you have to get your wheels right up to a 10 foot drop to get the angle you need to back it in. Also fun was disconnecting from a trailer and hearing it wanting to slide sideways because the entire parking spot is tilted. I quickly learned all the absolutely cursed spots in the yard and used my override to move any parking location I didn't like. Which was a lot of them because the system really wanted to put trailers in spots 401 and 402 (the aforementioned "get right up to that drop if you want to have a hope of parking here" spots) or 801/802 (Hey you just came down a hill and the rear end of your trailer is up in the air and really wants to keep going down as you try to maneuver). Though going by lean of some of these trees in the yard, they have some SWIFT winds coming through: 
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Apr 21, 2024 20:22
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Well today has been a day: started at 3 AM to get to the training yard at 4 AM. Why? Because I'm going for take 2 of my CDL test, and to get our retakes the training company couldn't get any slots local so we gotta dravel 2.5 hours to Houston and ideally be there when they open because someone has a testing time then. Long story: I passed! Wooo! Got my CDL! Also holy poo poo bad drivers become even more infuriating when you're driving a big truck. No, I will not pull out in front of you: you're the maniac who came to a full and complete stop on a Houston highway access road to let a truck in. You have the right of way: MOVE! It's now 7 PM and I'm home and I'm absolutely dead tired.
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Apr 26, 2024 01:10
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| # ¿ Apr 28, 2024 06:17 |
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LOL, I don't have my own truck yet. Honestly probably gonna be just driving for Amazon for a few years to get experience before jumping elsewhere. Also holy poo poo are parking maneuver tests maddening when the test field is basically a grid of cones. I had to use both of my get outs during my parallel parking to figure out where the gently caress I was and which cones I should use as a reference:  So yeah, day's over at 6-7 PM and I'm absolutely tired and so glad I have the next two days off. Oh and on the way back, one of the trainers was driving the truck back to the yard and got in a wreck. Apparently some lady pulled over to the edge of the 2-lane highway, let a couple of other vehicles pass her then tried to pull a U-turn in front of the truck. Everyone was alive (if not entirely okay), and apparently there were multiple witnesses including an EMT who was on the way to work that it was entirely the lady's fault. Still it was utterly shocking when we're driving back with our trainer and she accepts a call from her husband (they were/are a very close and loving husband/wife couple) and he calls clearly shaken up about how he was in a bad wreck. Her phone was connected to the SUV's bluetooth so we all got to hear both sides as he's all shook up, in full adrenaline high and going "Oh god, there was a kid in the car!" (Again, kid was okay other than a gash across his forehead). He called a few more times and we got updates about how the truck and car were beyond hosed but everyone was okay.
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Apr 26, 2024 01:45
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