My Own Route

I’m up for two bid routes. All drivers at my company start as floaters—filling in on routes for drivers who are sick, on vacation, or injured. We get a route only when one opens up from a driver who retires or otherwise leaves. When a route opens up, it starts the bidding process. All drivers who think they may want the route, sign the bid list, and then management offers the route to the driver with the highest seniority, if that driver decides not to take the bid, they ask the driver with the next highest seniority, etc.

I don’t have all that much seniority. So the fact that I’m up for two bid routes, means they must both suck. Since I’ve never driven either route, I’m allowed to try them out before I decide, but of course, my management team must assign me to one of those routes for me to try it.

I was told in December that my name was next on the list for these routes. Because it was our peak season, they were entitled to make me wait until January to try the routes. Now it’s January. I was told on Tuesday that I would be trying out the first one on Thursday. It’s Friday, and I haven’t seen either route.

“Staffing is still tight,” was the excuse from my manager. “But I’m committed to getting you onto those routes, so you can look at them.”

Yeah, because the contract says he has to be committed.

Fact of the matter is, they like to be able to bounce us around anywhere they like to cover routes, and they frequently violate seniority to do it. My steward says I should give it till next Tuesday and then file a grievance. Staffing is actually legitimately tight because volume has not dropped even though Christmas is long over. Apparently, there are plenty of people taking advantage of internet sales. Stop it. I’m tired. No more buying until February.

I desperately want my own route. I hate waking up in the morning, not knowing where I’ll be working. Many times, I’m thrown on routes I don’t know very well (like this week), and I end up working 10 or more hours (like this week). They also take advantage of cover drivers and over dispatch them more often than route drivers. We are made to things the route drivers would never put up with. So, stability is the advantage of getting a route, but it also means the end of variety. It also means I’ll stop doing routes that allow me to come home for lunch. That makes me sad.

I’ll profile the routes here when I try them out. Wish me luck.