redrocker7 said:
My hubbie has been a cover driver for a few months now and he's hanging in there. But I'm left with a lot of questions. Yes, the pay is great, but why are the working conditions so bad? The stress is unbelievable. I'm trying to support him the best I can and mgmt. tells him he's doing great. But he gets home at 8:30 every night and he's so stressed it scares me. He hardly eats a bite because he's so tense and it's not until the weekend that he calms down. Now here's my real question -- I thought having a union meant that drivers would be protected from this kind of treatment. Is the union's only job to get better pay? Why can't it keep the load these guys have to carry from going over the top?
It realy is the nature of the beast red. We are getting paid nicely, with some real great benefits. In return we get more work than the average person can handle. We have, over the past few years, gotten better language in our contract to help us with the continuous abuse of forced overtime, but there is still a ways to go. We now have language that gets us the occasional 8 hour day. Notify your manager you will only work 8 hours on a particular day and they must get you off work by 8 hours. We also can request we not be worked over 9.5 hours and if they work you over 9.5 after that they have to pay you double time. These things were negotiated by our union.
I hope the stress level your husband is showing can be reduced as quick as possible. He has a long career ahead of him, if he stays, and will need to find inner peace with the profession he's chosen. As a cover driver the stress is as others have said. He in constantly having to learn new routes, probably doing the occasional route blind. I would think some of what you think is stress may just be his being tired as hell after a long, and hard, days work. Even those of us that have been around a while get stressed out with the job, but we pull through it and move on to the next day.
I don't know you family situation, stay at home mom with kids, work your own job, etc, but my wife is a stay at home mom, with kids, but when they were in school she would meet me on my route for my lunch hour sometimes, maybe pack a picnic basket and meet me, or bring me a jug of cold lemonaid on the real hot days, or just come out and meet me to spend an hour under the shade of a hugh oak tree. Anything to break up the menotiny of a stressful day. If your able to try some of these things I would highly recomend them. It will give you a little prospective of what he goes through each day, and give him a little down time with his loved one. I also had days where the wife would bring the kids with her and it would be an extra hour with the entire family.
Good luck.
