Management changed 3 times at my branch since starting 3 years ago. The current management doesn't seem to listen to the employees advice for setting up routes most efficiently, nor do they seem to take our input seriously. One particular manager also tries to micromanage almost everything at the branch, and has stepped on many of my coworkers toes in doing so. Oh yeah, and if you are a driver/guard/tech you don't get overtime until after 48 hours because apparently the job qualifies for the DoT Motor Carrier exemption (which I still fail to understand). Branch is poorly maintained, trucks are poorly maintained, most of the driver/guard/techs don't clean up after themselves. Another thing, the branches are basically franchises in a sense, in that we're restricted to the profits our branch pulls in, thusly contributing to the poor maintenance and overall poor working conditions. Of course, this is mind boggling because even when we were supposedly losing money, or barely making any profit, the management was still trying to hire more new people. They also tend to penalize you if you get overtime, which considering the nature of the driver/guard/tech job is pretty much guaranteed to happen because of the often unpredictable nature of the routes, or due to being switched due to call offs.
Also, you cannot have a life with this job (ie make plans for after work) for several reasons. First off, if you're scheduled on a particular route that has an average timeframe of, for example, 7 1/2 hours, and someone calls off and you get lucky enough to be picked to switch to fill in the call off spot, your timeframe could skyrocket to 9-10 hours, thusly interfering with or completely ruining your plans for after work. I was literally told by management once, after frustratedly confronting them about a change in route that ruined my plans for the day after work, "Why are you making plans in the first place? You shouldn't be making plans, you're supposed to be flexible."
My biggest problem, however, is the fact that the upper management is not taking the advice of the driver guards and techs regarding route safety, in that routes that used to have 3 man crews now have only 2 man crews. They also didn't consider this during the holiday season, when crime rates naturally go up, and their poor decisions regarding this lead to the death of one of our coworkers who was robbed and killed on the job.
