Sometimes Saying NO is The Only Option

This post appears in the June edition of the Truck News

There is no doubt that if you choose driving as a career there will be personal sacrifices you will have to make. Long haul work requires an investment of your time that is necessary to get the job done. Let's face it, I can't drive to Winnipeg and home every week if I'm looking for a job with a 40 hour work week. Common sense dictates that you will never be happy in your work as a professional long haul driver if your mind is constantly craving to be at home or dwelling on the frustrating elements of this work that pop up on a regular basis. There are options of course. You can still drive locally or regionally to reduce or eliminate having to sleep in your workplace. That been said, you don't have to give up all of your personal aspirations and goals on your bucket list just because you drive long haul for a living, nor should you.

You have to be careful in this industry not to allow others to possess total control of your time. A good example of this is the carrier that operates on the basis of maxing out a drivers 70 hour work week. We should always remember, especially if you are new to this industry, that the 70/7 day driving maximum was put in place as a safety standard not an employment standard that employers can force their employees to meet as they see fit. Finding a balance that keeps you fit both mentally and physically while reaping the benefits of the freedom and joy this driving lifestyle can bring you is truly the sole responsibility of the individual driver. There are times when you need to say no to the freight and say yes to some personal time in order to look after yourself. Your employer can benefit from that decision just as much as you will. After all a happy & healthy driver is a productive driver.

This point was driven home to me after working out at my health club the other day. First let me give you a little background. If you visit me in this space with any regularity you know that I stepped on the road to health and fitness a decade ago and it is an important part of my daily life. I put the time I need each day to care for myself at the top of my priority list and it changed my life. But I always struggled in the winter months to maintain my fitness. The cold and snow I encounter on the road to Winnipeg every winter is not conducive to walking or running. So I decided to join a fitness club this past winter to maintain my health. It's a national club with locations in cities I drive through regularly. A perfect solution for the winter months.

I work with a personal trainer at my home club and for the past two sessions we were stepping into the next phase of my training, searching for the perfect resistance on each machine that would see me not quite able to lift the weight on the last couple of repetitions on the last set of exercises for each muscle group. On the squat machine this happened to be 100 lbs of weight. As I was driving to Winnipeg the following day it hit me that I had almost lost 100 lbs of weight off my body since the autumn of 2001. Ten years ago that 100 lbs was a burden that I carried with me everyday. With a family history of heart disease I was a ticking time bomb and it was then that I set a goal of reaching a good state of overall health by age 50. I not only met that goal I surpassed it and continue to reach new highs that ten years ago would have seemed more like fantasy to me than a realistic set of goals. In effect that 100 lb burden I carried on my body has become a level of resistance that is now contributing to my health and well being. What a beautiful example of how taking a little time for yourself can benefit you over the long run. I'll remember this every time the thought “I don't have time” arises in my mind.

So, were the times I've had to say no the the freight in order to have some personal time to fulfill my own personal goals been worth it? You bet they have. Has my employer benefited from these results? Of course they have.

As professional drivers we need to take possession of our time and not allow others to dictate its terms of use. I'm convinced this is the path to a balanced life on the road. Nobody else will do this for us.

Striving For a Better Work-Life Balance

This post appears in the May 2012 edition of the Truck News

Our daughter was married on St. Patrick's Day and she certainly had the luck of the Irish on her side. We enjoyed record breaking temperatures, sunny days and everything came off without a hitch. Our house was filled with joyful merrymaking from morning till night for the better part of a week. It was beautiful, now a memory that will be one of the highlights of my life.

On the last Tuesday of March my day ended at the TA truck stop in Hudson, Wisconsin. It was my fourth day back on the road after the high of my holiday and I felt mentally drained and at an emotional low. The solitude of the trucking life that I enjoy seemed, on this day, more like solitary confinement. I was missing the simple pleasure of a morning coffee with my wife and an afternoon walk with my grandson.The greatest job hazard we face as truck drivers is the free time our mind has to play with as we travel down the road. When our minds latch on to thoughts of family times that we all pass up on on a daily basis, we're in trouble. After squeezing my truck into one of the remaining parking spaces at the Hudson truck stop I found my mind had squeezed itself into a tight space of its own.

Looking for a distraction I grabbed the April edition of the Truck News that was sitting on my passenger seat untouched since I picked it up in Thunder Bay two days before. As always I turned first to the editorial page to get a take on our industry from James and Lou.

James Menzies was was asking if we have seen the end of the trucking tycoon. The fact the industry is moving towards consolidation of ownership by large companies as a result of the financial stresses of the day is something I don't find comforting. I'm reminded of a quote from the Dalai Lama, “We need money to live, but we don't need to live for money”. I'm not aware of any of these big companies today that don't live for money. James noted that so many trucking companies today were built on the same foundation of “one guy with a truck, a vision and a truckload of ambition”. I work for one of those guys and his family. Like me, he doesn't live for money either.

Lou Smyrlis tackled the issue of obesity and driver health asking the question, “Does it make sense to continue ignoring this issue when the answer is so simple?” The topic of health and wellness is close to my heart and I have written much in this space about the great strides I have made improving my own health over the past decade. Lou's commentary reminded me that today was one of my 'run days' and I needed to get off my butt and get out of the truck. A workout always improves my outlook on life and helps to pull me out of the doldrums.

These reflections reminded me that I am blessed with a loving wife and family, I work for a group of people that embody the same family values as myself, I have come to grips with the challenges drivers face when it comes to making healthy lifestyle choices on the road, and my profession provides me with ample money with which to live in comfort and provide for my family. You would think this is a recipe that brings a great deal of ease into my daily life yet I seem to be experiencing increasing amounts of anxiety and frustration each time I head out on the road. After much soul searching I can only attribute this feeling to the lack of balance I face each day.

You only need to look at one of the hot topics facing the trucking industry today to understand what I'm talking about. Many trucking organizations (and drivers) advocate extending available driving time, or to put it another way, allow flexibility in the rules to allow more hours of driving per week. Really? How does extending my work week make it easier for me to spend time with my family? How does extending my work week make it easier for me to care for my own health and well being? How does extending my work week reduce the stress and anxiety in my daily life. The answer, on all counts is, it doesn't.

The beauty of this industry in the past was that it always put people first. As consolidation of ownership moves forward the focus has shifted to the bottom line. As long as we are forced to do more with less the daily frustration and anxiety will continue to build and the issues of the day will remain unresolved. Our personal and work lives are out of balance.

The Many Benefits of Taking Pride in Your Profession

This post appears in the April 2012 edition of the Truck News

I started off the year questioning whether new technology being adapted by the trucking industry can have a positive effect on safety if it increases the amount of stress on a driver. I moved on to the driver shortage and its effect on an aging driver pool. Last month I talked about incentive programs for drivers. The common factor in my columns this year has been the time pressure I feel as a driver and how new technology, heavy workloads, and the actions of others effect it. Add in the time demands of my personal life and it's not surprising that I'm left feeling fatigued and stressed out. So what actions can I take on a daily basis to cope with these time pressures? It's not within my circle of influence to make these time pressures go away but I can find ways to cope with the resulting stress, it's effect on my well being, and have a positive influence on the people that make decisions effecting my time.

The best thing I find that I can do is to take pride in what I do each and everyday. Pride in the sense of the pleasure and satisfaction I take in my profession. Taking pride in my skills and experience is one of the most powerful ways to have a positive influence not only on my own attitude but on the level of respect I receive from my peers, my employer, the general public, and customers. When you earn respect for the level of professionalism, skill, and effort you bring to your work each day the people you deal with place a much higher value on your time as a result. It's a simple and powerful way to increase my influence over others whose decisions or actions have a direct effect on how my days play out.

There are three simple ways I believe you can show off your professionalism as a commercial driver:

• Show pride in your ride and the company you work for
• Show pride in your driving skills
• Show pride in the level of customer service you offer

Showing pride in your ride and speaking in a positive way about the people you work for or the company you represent (that might be yourself) always gets peoples attention in a positive way. This is not a difficult thing to do. Other drivers notice, the company you are signed on with recognizes you as someone with a “positive” attitude as do your customers, and you carry a positive image down the highway in the eyes of the general public and enforcement.

Showing pride in how you drive is the best way to get positive attention from the traveling public. Courtesy is something that is contagious. If pride in driving skill becomes a standard for all drivers within the company you work for pretty soon that big company logo traveling down the road earns a whole new level of respect from all drivers. How you drive determines your safety rating, safety bonuses, and reputation as a professional driver within your own company, again, earning you respect for how you drive. How you drive determines whether the freight gets to the customer in one piece and on time. How you drive is the determining factor in how you are judged by other commercial drivers and all levels of enforcement.

Showing pride in the level of customer service you offer is an area that can have the greatest overall impact on your available time and the value others place on it. Service, after all, is the product that we are actually providing to shippers and receivers. If you do a dedicated run or local work the ability to call on the same businesses repeatedly and deal with the same people week after week is a huge advantage when it comes to using your time efficiently. Stress is reduced when you know where you are going and who you are dealing with. You are able to factor in the knowledge you gain from experience and know when to show up, when not to show up, how to access difficult facilities and so on. There is also a great feeling in getting a pat on the back in the form of a simple and genuine thank you from the people you deal with on a regular basis. That's something I missed when I was doing open board work. If you do open board work your company name will go a long way in getting you looked after when your fellow drivers take the same pride as you do in their daily responsibilities.

So taking pride in what you do may not solve all the day to day problems or eliminate all the obstacles but in the long term it can pay big dividends.

What's Got Me Down? It's a Matter Of Time

This post appears in the March 2012 edition of the Truck News

Last month I closed off my column saying that carriers need to find new and creative ways of attracting and holding on to drivers. Shortly after submitting that column I was asked if I had an interest in participating in a panel discussion regarding driver incentive programs. So I thought I would wade into that topic here while it was still fresh in my mind. It also comes at a time when the Truckload Carriers Association (www.truckload.org) will be recognizing the top fleets to drive for (www.bestfleetstodrivefor.com) as nominated by company drivers and owner operators. Several Canadian companies are in the top 20 group and you can read about them on the web sites above as well as here in the Truck News.

I work for a company that stands shoulder to shoulder with the best in the Canadian trucking industry in the way they care for their drivers and the core values that embody their operations. In fact a new incentive program was put in place January 1 of this year for our drivers. Despite that, I have still been experiencing a feelings of discontent and anxiety over the past several months. Colleagues have commented on the degradation of my outlook of late. A comment from a regular reader stated that although they had enjoyed a recent column they felt it was in a negative tone compared to my usual style. Another comment came from within my dispatch office regarding my negative reaction to a situation that had arisen and the feeling that it was out of character for me to react as I did. Can I identify a single factor within my trucking lifestyle that leads to the daily stress I have been experiencing? Could a driver incentive program reduce my daily stress at the same time as providing me with a financial reward and reduce costs/improve profits for my employer?

Identifying the stressor in my daily life on the road is not difficult. It is time. Time is something I always take for granted but it comes up for me over and over again as the leading cause of tension in my life. The birth of my grandson last year lead to a feeling of deep desire to spend more time with my family. The recognition of my need to obtain regular exercise and rest requires a time commitment each and everyday. My time is my most valuable commodity. When my time is being wasted or taken for granted my immediate emotional response is usually one of anger and frustration leading to the feelings of stress and anxiety. Then the endless hours of driving play their part as my mind locks on to those feelings and replays them over and over building on them and strengthening them. The result is an internal conflict over the time I have available to accommodate my personal life and personal aspirations versus the huge block of time required to fulfill my professional obligations as a driver. I often feel a lack of control over my time because so much of my day is dependent on the actions of others. Specifically operations and dispatch along with the shippers and receivers I deal with.

So I was excited to see that profit sharing programs are on the leading edge of new incentive programs being developed by carriers. Why? Because they have the potential to drive a greater level of cooperation and communication within trucking companies. Too often productivity increases have been equated with a driver doing more within a given time or becoming more efficient with the use of their time. Little attention seems to be payed to the fact that drivers already invest well over 3000 hours a year in their jobs compared to the 2000 hours most full time workers put in. That's before you even consider that a driver also lives in his or her workplace. An incentive program needs to reward every employee within a trucking organization for removing inefficiencies that eat up a drivers time. Working longer and harder is not the answer. Incentive programs should lead to a driver having to spend less time accomplishing more through time savings that are made in areas beyond the drivers control or sphere of influence. Specifically, load planning and dock retention times. This then allows me as a driver to focus on the issues of safety and fuel management (driving!!) as well as free up time for my personal use.

Recognizing that the responsibility for productivity, safety, and profitability spreads far beyond the reach of the driver and is the mark of a good incentive program. Simply plopping a program into place will not resolve all, if any, of the issues at hand. Hard work and a diligent effort is required by all of us. This is a good discussion to have at an opportune time. I hope the panel discussion I mentioned at the opening takes place. I'm already looking forward to it.

Exploring The Real Reasons Behind The Driver Shortage

This post appears in the February 2012 edition of the Truck News

I had breakfast with a buddy a short while ago and he's a guy that is usually upbeat and looking at the sunny side of things. So as we were talking about the state of affairs out here on the road I was a little taken aback when he said that it just wasn't any fun out here anymore. I've heard similar statements from many drivers over the past couple of years and I usually just put it off to a venting of frustrations when a couple of drivers get together. But as I thought about our conversation afterward I realized that these types of comments are coming from drivers that I don't usually associate with a lot of bitching about nothing. They are coming from seasoned drivers with lots of experience. My overall impression is that folks are simply tired out and run down. So naturally I wondered if the driver shortage that gets so much ink in the trucking media these days is showing up in the way of added stress and fatigue to drivers. Lots has been written about attracting new blood to the industry but not so much about what the effects are on the existing pool of drivers that are picking up the slack.

Think of our present drivers as a group of elite athletes. Okay, I know this may be a stretch but bear with me. Your watching game 7 of a Stanley Cup final. More than half of the players on both teams are seasoned veterans well past the halfway point in their careers. But the chips are down and they all have their game on, playing with an intensity of guys half their age. You know when the game is done that there is no way these players could play every game in a long season with that same level of effort. But when called on they get the job done.

So now back to our present team of drivers. More than half of us are well past the halfway point in our careers and many of us are feeling the effects. Those effects are reflected in the general state of our health. For the past few years we've been called on to pick up the slack and put in the extra effort. Most of us have had our game on and risen to the call. But unlike a group of athletes that 'peak' for a playoff series we just keep going with no end in sight. Unlike the hockey players we don't have an off season to recover or someone to substitute for us for a game or two during the regular season.

We have also been handicapped in a number of ways. The referees in our industry are calling a tight game. Despite the greater demands on our time we face harsher penalties if we break the rules. Up until a few years ago our game was open ended allowing us the flexibility to stretch out our duties and rest in between. Now we have to complete many of our jobs within a tighter window of time or face a penalty. Our income has not kept up with inflation over the past couple of decades so the once above average income we enjoyed has shrunk to an average middle class income at best. No longer does a driver have the luxury to take time whenever he or she wants it to recharge with family and friends. Many of us are working paycheck to paycheck, living on the road, and just going home to visit.

In my opinion there is not a driver shortage at all. Drivers now receive an average income for an above average investment of time in an industry where bureaucracy has run amuck. As a result the freedom of the open road does not hold the same attraction to potential drivers and is quickly losing its luster within the existing pool of drivers.

Shrinking incomes and longer work hours are not unique to the trucking industry. It's a story repeated across a broad swath of our society. The message we are getting on the front lines is one of austerity. We are told to do more with less in order for companies to remain competetive and create more jobs. At the same time we receive constant messaging to consume more which fuels economic growth. Earn less but spend more? Maybe I'm getting the wrong message but I don't think so.

The good news is that many of us work for smaller family owned businesses that don't operate by the same rules of austerity as the large public corporations. But they don't have the deep pockets that their large competitors do so they can't keep their drivers happy by throwing money at them. They need to find creative ways to keep and attract drivers. As drivers we can help them do that and in doing so help ourselves. I'll come back to this in future columns.

Coping With Reporting Technology

This post appears in the January 2012 edition of the Truck News

When I switched to electronic logs a couple of years ago I was very keen about the potential going electronic had for making my life easier. The fact I don't have to spend any time filling out log pages and performing manual recaps is reason enough for me to never turn back. But my belief that an electronic system would make managing my time easier and less stressful has proven to be somewhat of a pipe dream. In many regards an electronic log is an unrelenting task master that does not allow you any flexibility. You have to complete your daily tasks within a given time frame regardless of the curves that are routinely thrown your way over the course of any given day. As drivers we see lots of junk thrown our way. Weather, dock delays, equipment failure, border crossings, unforeseen traffic problems, etc. etc.

So rather than relieving stress as I had originally believed it would, electronic logs have added a considerable amount of stress to my day and have become a means of measuring my performance. In fact the trend seems to be towards measuring driver performance through critical incidence reporting via a trucks on board software. Reports are generated automatically and emailed to a drivers safety manager. And it doesn't stop there. Programs have also been developed and rolled out to notify a drivers manager when a driver is showing signs of fatigue so that preventative action can be taken.

I'm not even going to attempt to dispute the fact that all of this information can be beneficial for a carrier in a number of ways. It can reduce costs, assure compliance with legislation, reduce accidents, create learning opportunities for drivers, improve overall safety, and so on. But if these programs are so wonderful why am I left feeling stressed and tired at the end of the day? Shouldn't all of this stuff be helping to make my experience on the road happier, healthier, and give me more time for myself and my family? Where is the efficiency in this system?

The fact is that all of these software solutions designed to provide greater economic efficiencies and a higher degree of safety are often not designed with the driver in mind. At least that's my assumption as an end user of this technology. I think that drivers want the same thing as the carriers and enforcement agency’s when it comes to safety and efficiency, but the parties are miles apart when it comes to methodology and implementation of these tools. Why? Because drivers often view these in cab systems that monitor their performance as big brother watching over you. The nature of the system reporting is a form of constant negative re-enforcement to a driver. It only tells you when you are doing something wrong no matter the gravity, circumstance, or context of the situation at hand. That's irritating, frustrating, and demoralizing. At least that's my personal feeling. There is no accounting for the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of things I do right in the course of my day.

What if an incident reporting system was developed that turned the whole thing around? What if reports were to be generated for all the positive actions that occur in the course of a professional drivers day? There would be so many emails generated to our respective safety departments that we may very well crash the company server. Man, it would be great to get immediate positive feedback in recognition of a job well done.

How about a resolution for 2012 that only allows satellite messages sent to the truck to be positive in nature. In addition to that for every critical incident report generated by on board performance monitoring software that is brought to the drivers attention by a carriers safety department, they have to also discuss two positive incidents generated by the driver on the same day. I think that would go a long way to relieving driver stress, improve driver morale, and improve overall driver health in 2012. Imagine the effects on productivity!

There is no doubt in my mind that you can't go back to the way things were in this life. Life is impermanent in nature and changes continuously. That means that the situation at hand in the present moment is bound to change tomorrow or the next day or the day after that. I also believe we can influence that change. We have monitoring systems that feed drivers with a stream of data highlighting their shortcomings and expect improvement. But if that information isn't framed within a compassionate intention to benefit the driver it will erode performance not enhance it.

I know safety managers have an especially tough job these days. If they want to build trust with their drivers I believe they need to find creative ways to soften this reporting technology, embody it with a little humanity, and frequently reassure their drivers that as long as they are sitting in the wheelhouse the drivers decision is final.

Cheers, and happy new year to all.

Time Is Of The Essence

This post appears in the November 2011 edition of the Truck News

One of the things I enjoy most about trucking is the time you have to spend with yourself. That probably sounds a little strange but that's what I equate with the freedom of the open road. You're free from interference, restrictions, and external authority. You're independent. Many drivers would say that our freedom and independence is under threat from unnecessary rules and interference from government and special interest groups. I wouldn't say all rules are unnecessary and I'm not big on conspiracy theories but I do think our independence has been compromised because of the universal controls placed on our time. By imposing change through legislation rather than effecting change through ongoing training and professional development how can drivers not feel their independence is under threat? Each individual driver needs the flexibility to plan their own time in order to meet all the demands placed on them while obtaining the required rest to operate safely. Drivers wonder amongst themselves why this basic tenet of safety is so difficult to comprehend outside the driver pool.

So as I've been writing about the trucking lifestyle and driver health issues over the course of the past several months I've been searching for the common denominator we all share. What is the key issue that effects the well being of all drivers? It's been in front of me all along and that is the issue of 'time' itself. Within the industry time has morphed into an economic factor over the past few decades to be managed by companies as a means of controlling costs. In fact time is the lifestyle factor that effects every aspect of a drivers health and well being. Time is now the primary stressor that impedes a drivers performance rather than the enabler it should be. Look at just a few examples and it becomes obvious how time impacts driver lifestyle at every turn.

First, look at the issue of income. In the past drivers have enjoyed an above average income for the work they have performed. This has allowed a driver to step away from the truck for a period of time when the demands of family, fatigue, and the simple need for leisure time require it. But that is now a thing of the past. Income has not kept pace with the cost of living and now drivers work continuously to maintain the standard of living they have enjoyed in the past. Drivers now are required to work at their performance peak continuously. The result is a constant state of burnout and low morale. It has become increasingly more difficult to look after ourselves, to put ourselves before the demands of the job.

Second, look at the HoS (Hours of Service) issue and the related issue of EOBR's. (Electronic on Board Recorders) Look at all the research that has been performed in the past and continues today in relation to sleep science and the effects of fatigue on drivers. Drivers get it. This information goes to the core of coping with and managing fatigue as drivers go about their daily duties. But was this data presented as an enabler to improving the lifestyle of the individual driver? No. It has been wrapped in a legislative blanket that stymies performance and in many instances leads to situations that incite fatigue and push drivers beyond their comfort zone.

Third, look at the issue of driver training and retention. In the past independent truckers made up the majority of the driver pool and the development and mentoring of drivers was a part of daily life on the road. Now we have safety departments with a focus on compliance over training. The time that is needed to invest in driver training and mentoring has been cut in the name of cost reduction and the trucking industry has built itself a precarious house of cards. With an aging demographic and a lackluster attitude towards developing professional drivers over Mctruckers it is no wonder that many industry managers and owners now share a genuine concern that the industry is facing a perfect storm when it comes to this issue.

What is the bottom line here? Our industry is all about service. Corporate profitability is dependent on a drivers performance and well being. Drivers need to operate in an environment that feeds their sense of independence and freedom in order to enjoy their work and in order to attract new blood into the industry. Cutting into a drivers time may have showed short term gains on the bottom line of many corporate operating statements but we are now left with a lingering long term malaise as a result. It's time for the industry to reinvest in it's driver pool by providing adequate rest time, taking a fresh approach to fatigue management, and providing ongoing and professional driver training.