The New Manager’s Head Must Be Filled With Concrete

I drive a concrete truck. We deliver ready-mix concrete throughout a fairly large area. Keep in mind that concrete has a shelf life of ninety minutes once water mixes with the cement. This is very important on “spec jobs”.

Our company uses a routing and tracking system I will call the Terrible System. If there is a good route or less than good route, it chooses the worst route of all routes possible. After working with it for a short time, this was noted. During training, new drivers are told to use it for the final part of the route only. The problem is that every time one doesn’t follow a route, an alert is sent to management. Early in using Terrible System, managers found a way to turn off these alerts.

A new manager starts. After a year, he brings up in meetings that drivers are not following Terrible System’s routing. Multiple times we tell him that it gives us the worst and longest routes. He doesn’t listen.

After six months, [New Manager] states that drivers will be written up if we continue to not follow Terrible System routing. Drivers don’t listen. A few days after this pronouncement, a fellow driver is written up. This is talked about.

Cue malicious compliance! The next day, on my second load, I have to take a load to a location I’ve had before. It is fifteen miles east of the plant and then a ten-mile leg north. Following that route takes about forty-five minutes or less. We have been going to this job site for three months now and know that Terrible System gives a much longer route. I am the first truck of four and note on the radio that we need to follow the Terrible System route as directed. Off I go!

The route it takes me is southeast thirteen miles and then north on an interstate highway thirty-five miles, including a chicken coop (a weigh station — trucks are chronically overweight for interstate). Then, it takes me east through a large metro area for twenty miles, followed by the last leg south for about fifteen miles. It takes 125 minutes for me (Terrible System gave an estimated travel time of 140 minutes, so I did well).

I arrive, and I’m timed out. I’m rejected, and that costs the company $1,000 for the concrete, not to mention the twenty gallons of fuel I burned. The second and third trucks are the same. The fourth truck is stopped at the chicken coop and the company has a $500 fine.

The customer is pissed and calls [New Manager] screaming! [New Manager] asks to talk to me.

Me: “We followed [Terrible System]’s routing as directed; you can check that easily.”

The next day, a sign was posted in the break room stating that drivers are to use professional discretion in choosing the best and most expeditious routes to jobs.