Last spring, after getting laid off from the best job EVER (and, I might add, while down to the last 50 bucks in my bank account), I accepted a position as a payroll clerk for one of the top trucking companies in the country. Hated it for the first month - mostly because my previous job was the best job EVER - but it’s grown on me.
The position itself lame and lowly, but it’s not bad as far a lame and lowly jobs go. I make sure drivers are paid correctly. I double check things like fuel surcharge[sup]1[/sup] and detentions[sup]2[/sup] and make sure all sorts of other minutae are correct.
One of the reasons I’ve come to actually enjoy the job is because there are a lot of great people out there making sure that load of granite slabs makes it to your countertop contractor, or that those 110 foot windmill blades for wind generators make it to the GE site in SoDak on time and in three-somes, or that those cranes out of Manitowoc, WI, make it to those job sites on time. There are, of course, a few drivers who think I’m either their dog, wife, or child and treat me as such, but I’m pretty good at letting them know their options are either treating me like they’re a grownup and I’m a sentinent human being or not at all.
I’m smart and a quick learner, the job is easy but just complicated enough to make it interesting but not stressful, and life is good.
Until two weeks ago.
Two weeks ago I told Becky (my boss) I was going back to school and requested an hour change. My normal hours are 8 to 5, and I wanted to work 11 til 8. Then things started going … wrong.
Don’t think I went into this without researching. I talked to dispatchers/fleet managers, I talked to drivers, I talked to settlement clerks. Every time a driver came through town (as of today I have 108 on my “board”) I asked for opinions: “I’m going back to uni this fall. I’m going to ask for an hour change to accommodate my school schedule, and it’s going to be from 11 to 8 or noon to 9. Would you have a problem with that?” As a conservative guess, I’d say I asked 60 people. Only one even hesitated, and that’s only because he was solar powered[sup]3[/sup] and thought I had meant 11 at night to 8 in the morning.
So two weeks before classes started I laid all this on Becky, who took it to the VP for flat-bed operations, who took it to HR, who - one week before class started - said no. Apparently, the entire flatbed operations department will fall apart and collapse if a lowly little payroll clerk changes her start time by three hours.
While all this is happening. . .
Kay, one of the other two payroll clerks, left. “They” (whoever they are) decided to take the new receptionist and put her in payroll. Why “they” thought a slow receptionist would make a fast payroll clerk I do not know, but that’s what they did. So while I’m winding down my career as a payroll clerk I’m also training in Mary. And Mary is nice and sweet and thorough but my GAWD is she slow. SLOW. Around 10 a.m. on Wednesday she is just starting the final part of her weekly job. The final part takes about three hours (for me, the chick who knows what she’s doing) and has to be finished by 11 a.m. Wednesday. Do you see the problem here?
Around noon I told Becky that maybe she should think about keeping me on part time for a while to prevent the entire department from falling into complete and utter disarray. I don’t know who she told or what she did, but I am now a part time employee until they hire a replacement. My hours? 11 a.m. til at least 5 p.m.
I will, at this point, refer the reader to paragraphs six and seven. Where it’s not ok to work from 11 to 8. Despite the fact that no one who is directly affected by the hour change gives a shit.
The thing that gets to me. . .when I thought I was leaving I Qualcommed[sup]4[/sup] the drivers I know best to tell them what was going on. The QCs that came back were just. . .stunning. I mean, I had a whole “See? They don’t ALL hate me” wall going full of cards and notes ‘n’ stuff, and now all these guys are telling me how much the like and appreciate me. What was even more stunning was the response after I told them I wasn’t yet leaving. Never mind the two drivers who told me that if my company made me leave, they were leaving as well.
This isn’t a rant, because I’m not mad, just bewildered.
If anything, I suppose I’m soliciting reasons. I know my boss, fleet managers, and drivers like me (and, by extension, the job I perform). How can the three people in HR decide that it’s better to let an experienced, competent person go rather than keep her and her experience for a couple of years, even if odd hours or part time? Why is it ok to work overtime til 10 p.m. but not ok to work regularly til 8 p.m.?
Ok, so maybe I’m whining a little bit. What kind of input can you give me? Any and all input and suggestions will be entertained.
[sup]1[/sup]Fuel prices are high. My company pays owner/operator drivers 8 cents per loaded mile to assist them. Sometimes customer service gets this right; sometimes they don’t. I would rather this be right before they receive their weekly settlement statement. Because if it’s NOT right, I can guarantee I’m going to get a phone call Thursday afternoon asking for a correction.
[sup]2[/sup]Truckers are paid to drive. They are not paid to sit at the shipper for eight hours to load freight, nor are they paid to sit at the receiver for 10 hours to unload freight. Again, sometimes customer service gets this right. Sometimes they don’t.
[sup]3[/sup]Drivers who won’t drive at night.
[sup]4[/sup]Qualcomm is a sort of primitive, satellite-based, email system. I have no idea how the trucking industry functioned before the existence of either that or cell phones.