Wednesday, July 29, 2009

What Are You Prepared To Do ?

I run a small trucking company as part of my Jukt Micronics shipping manager job.
The biggest challenge is finding good drivers.

It's hard to find people you can trust with a company credit card. It doesn't matter how well they drive, or how well they can find their way around if you can't trust them to go out on the road without blowing the bank. Say you've got a new driver, and the only load you have for him is a long way off, someplace truly horrible like Seattle or Key West or Bangor, and you have no choice but to put him on that load. You're nervous the first couple of days, but then you start to relax.

Then you start getting emails from the credit card company....


Mr. Sepulchre,
Employee number _____ has charged $_____ at Cracker Barrel, The Interstate 20 Beer Barn, Majestic Liquor, Uncle John's House Of Babes, and Larry Flynt's Hustler Club.
Thank you for using American Express, where we charge higher interest rates than the New Jersey Mafia.

So you've got this driver out there 3 days from home. He's spending your money like there's no tomorrow. Unless you bring in The Law (at a huge expense) there's almost no way to get him out of the truck unless he cooperates. You call him and tell him that somebody's gotta pay for all this spending, and it ain't gonna be you. The driver claims that there's no problem. He says that there aren't any unnecessary expenses going on the company credit card.
When the driver gets home in 4 more days, he's going to be fired. You know it, and the driver knows it.

So once he gets unloaded in Seattle, do you find him a backhaul in hopes of breaking even on the trip? What if the backhaul keeps the idiot out on the road for a few days longer than absolutely necessary, and gives him even more chances to blow your money? Or do you bring him back into the barn as soon as possible?

What if, just what if, he arrogantly told several other people how much he planned to spend while he was out of the road? What if it was a staggering amount, an amount equal to years' worth of revenue?

The man has your credit card. He's running wild with something you've let him borrow.

What are you prepared to do?

Pics came from here and here and here. Picture of projected Obama deficits from The Washington Post.

3 comments:

Sew daze said...

The police usually find him at the Texas-Louisiana border whore house.

The Whited Sepulchre said...

Ahhh.....Fembuttx has heard me complain about their habits.

For anyone interested (and who has an entire lunch break to kill), here's my favorite renegade truck driver story:

http://thewhitedsepulchre.blogspot.com/2008/11/quantum-of-solace-and-goldeneye.html

TarrantLibertyGuy said...

Great analogy there Mr. Sepulchre.