I’m piping hot right now, so be prepared to feel the wrath of Todd. Oh heck. Who am I kidding? I’m about as dangerous as a de-clawed, 3-legged, slightly-retarded, incest kitten… that’s asleep.

So what am I so upset about? Well, half of me is pissed at myself for being a forgetful slob. The other part is cheesed at my company for their seemingly never-ending quest to make me hate them. Yes, I forgot to change my duty status on my e-log again. This is the second time this has happened in the last four days. That equals about two hours of my available working hours shot out of a turd cannon. It actually would’ve been three hours had I not called to beg mercy from the safety Nazis at my company.

Yes, I realize this is all my fault. How hard is it to remember to reach up to my little screen and hit the Off-Duty button? Well, apparently pretty hard if your name starts with a T and ends with a D. You’d think after having these cursed e-logs in my truck for three months, I’d be used to them by now, yet I’m not.

[box]Listen to the audio version above and subscribe to the podcast in iTunes.
Or enter http://abouttruckdriving.com/truckerdump.xml into your favorite podcast app.
Download the intro/outro songs for free! courtesy of Walking On Einstein
Mystery Feedback Song – Only a cheater would click this before listening to the podcast! You aren’t a cheater, are you?[/box]

I’ve tried to like them. I’ve tried to look at the positive aspects (yes, I grudgingly admit there are a few good things). I’ve taken steps to help remind me to change duty status. I’ve even tried to ignore the things that still bug the heck out of me. Still, these latest goofs have reaffirmed to me that e-logs are only as good as they are set up. There are a lot of things that I hate about the way my company sets up their e-logs, but here’s my company’s worst failing.

My e-logs are set up to default to On-Duty. Here’s how it works. Anytime I stop and pull the brake, it waits a few minutes for me to tell it what to do. This is when I should be entering either On-Duty, Off-Duty, or Sleeper Berth. But if I forget, it automatically puts me in the On-Duty status. And that’s the screwy part.

As a truck driver, I only have so many hours in a week to work. I’d kind of like to be in control of those hours. I don’t need a computer wasting my hours for me. Now if the computer can sense that I want to go to work, by all means, put me on the appropriate line. For instance, if I take off driving, after 1/2 mile it automatically puts me on the driving line. Fine. I’m driving, so clearly that’s what I meant to do. Except of course when I don’t. For more on that read my post called, “E-logs: A second look.” But by and large, if I’m driving, that was my intention.

But why does my e-log automatically assume I want to go On-Duty when I stop driving? Sure, I could be fueling, doing a post-trip inspection, or checking in at a customer. But what if I’m stepping out of the truck to grab some lunch or sprinting towards the bathroom with my hand acting as a makeshift cork? Those are Off-Duty activities. At least I’m pretty sure they aren’t paying me to take a dump. You know, that’s an odd phrase. “Take a dump.” Wouldn’t it be more fitting to say, “Leave a dump”? Imagine that. A bathroom humor tangent. Me. Who’d have guessed?

I’d say that when I stop throughout the day, the majority of my activities are of the Off-Duty variety. I don’t pick up a load every day, nor do I fuel. But I guarantee you that I do use the restroom and eat every day. Multiple times at that. So why not set the e-log system to automatically go to Off-Duty instead? That way, when I’m actually ready to work, I’m the one that is telling the e-logs that it’s okay to start eating away at my precious hours. Oh wait, what am I thinking? This might give the driver some control. And we can’t have that sort of nonsense, can we?

I’m going to sleep on this tonight, calm myself, and have a chat with my safety director about this tomorrow. Hey; he was the one that said to keep in touch. I’m just glad he’s not working tonight. I’m pretty sure I’d get fired if I told him to pull his head out of his tailpipe.

To sum up this rant, I’d like to encourage every driver, both current and future, to be extremely careful when you’re job hunting. Gone are the days when you can simply ask a recruiter if their company is on paper or e-logs. Now you’ve got to delve deeper. If they’re using e-logs, you’ve got to ask how they’re set up.

You need to find out what activities you have to log, and how long for each task. Obviously, you need to find out what things are done automatically and how things are defaulted. But perhaps the biggest question of all is how much of the e-logs are editable. That’s the biggie. If you’ve got that, you can fix a lot of the other things.

But there’s one question that’s even more important than that. It’s essential to find out how much the unit weighs. Why? Well, you wouldn’t want to throw out your shoulder when you’re chucking it across the parking lot, would you?

Photo by holeymoon via Flickr