A large delivery company which I work for have gone over to a new system, which plans your route for the next day.
This system generates a start time for the numerous drivers that work there and this can be anywhere between 4am and 6am the following day.
So 5 days a week, during the evening during the daily / weekly rest period, work sends a text message to your personal phone with a start time on it for the following day.
Now, there is nothing in the contract to say, out side of office hours you are required to have your phone switched on, and the sending out of text messages are starting to bug me a little and I am awaiting for an opportunity to bring this up with my management.
I was wondering how others would feel being text by work during your rest periods
If it bothers you just tell them.
A.You do not want to be disturbed during your daily rest, and if you are you will re.start an 11 off when you put phone down…they’ll soon get it
B.It’s unethical,.(and arguably illegal?) for them to do that anyhow.
Where as if it doesn’t bother you, just carry on…
It’s like everything else in this game mate, if the firm is good to you, then you so not mind slightly bending, if they ain’t then you do mind, so you don’t.
It would bug me tbh, if I was on days, it would be like being on tenterhooks waiting (whatever tf ‘tenterhooks’ actually are btw. )
My next day instructions for my first day back/start of my week which is tomorrow, normally come in around the next hour or so, but I’m well over my minimum weekly rest from last Saturday, so it ain’t a problem.
If it came in during my rest period? …simple,.I would not answer the phone, the same as I do not if I’m parked up somewhere, cos you can guarantee they sure as hell ain’t disturbing me to do me any favours.
Uncle_Kim:
I was wondering how others would feel being text by work during your rest periods
My employer does this. I finish work at say 6am, and some time during the morning while I’m sleeping they’ll send my start time for that night (phone’s on silent). It has always bugged me a bit, because I might set my alarm for 3pm expecting a text saying start at 5pm, but it could say 6pm, or 4:30pm, meaning I could have had an extra hour’s precious sleep (once I’ve woken myself up I find it hard to fall back asleep for an hour), or have to rush a bit to get to work. But it’s never bugged me enough to complain.
We used to have the same start time, then as Covid hit they gave us the same lorry, and started texting us our start time to fit in with the lorry. But now we’ve gone back to using 4 different motors in 4 separate nights, they’ve kept their system of ‘flexible start times’.
Nobody is overly bothered by it though, and it never gets raised as an issue. It’s probably because our start times more or less cluster around 1 hour from our old start times. So we know what to expect.
Depends what sort of time these messages arrive, i’m a day man and like to know what i’m doing the next day (so start time and route if known) by around 5pm so can plan our evening and bedtime.
If texts could be arriving at say 8pm for a 4am start then i’d be kicking off it aint reasonable, but if sensibly planned around 12 or more hours in advance, and you know your usual start time anyway then don’t see the problem.
As said, much depends on how the company treat you, as a valued colleague then we all do our best to cooperate, treated like something to be despised then repay in kind with interest.
Uncle_Kim:
I was wondering how others would feel being text by work during your rest periods
Does anyone else on here have a similar scenario.
I’m agency, I get texts for the next day’s work on a daily basis plus one a week asking for my availability and the odd occasional mass text and always during my rest periods as I work nights.
Couldn’t give a toss, don’t care. Is it really worth getting your knickers in a twist and marking your cards over something that takes up a whole 10 seconds of your time, 20 if you send an “OK thanks” reply?
Did I dream it (I have some weird dreams btw ) or did Stobbies in N. Ireland drivers once make a case of this,.and Stobbies got a bit of agg over it from DVSA.
Technically they should not be contacting you on your rest period. However in the real world receiving phone calls would probably irk me but a text, really?
Is it just a case of wanting to be annoyed by it? I probably send or receive 50 WhatsApp’s or texts per day from mates, some during works hours some outside of that. If it bothered me that much I’d turn the phone off.
Uncle_Kim:
I was wondering how others would feel being text by work during your rest periods
Does anyone else on here have a similar scenario.
I’m agency, I get texts for the next day’s work on a daily basis plus one a week asking for my availability and the odd occasional mass text and always during my rest periods as I work nights.
Couldn’t give a toss, don’t care. Is it really worth getting your knickers in a twist and marking your cards over something that takes up a whole 10 seconds of your time, 20 if you send an “OK thanks” reply?
I’m mostly with Conor on this one but probably because I’ve also spent a long time doing agency nights so it just becomes par for the course. The hardest part is conditioning the agency staff to not expect a confirmation reply, as most of them do. When they send my start time for the night at 10-11am in the middle of my sleep then there’s no way I’m waking up to reply to it. The agreement is that they send the start time that needs to be between agreed hours and I will automatically accept the assignment. The phone stays on silent and I see the start time when I wake up in the afternoon. What does ■■■■ me off are the 18 page long text messages they send about timesheets prior to a bank holiday but that’s another tale.
For working days as a full-timer, I’m in agreement with Juddian above. If they’re planning you for 5-6am start times at 8-9pm the night before then I’d have something to say, along the lines of suggesting they employ a better planner. If I’m not starting til mid to late morning, then I wouldn’t mind.
It bothers me that much, that someone didnt use the search function to find answers to a subject thats been discussed many times over the years. But to save the OP the trouble, the consensus is … switch of you phone, or don`t give the company your personnel phone number.
robroy:
Did I dream it (I have some weird dreams btw ) or did Stobbies in N. Ireland drivers once make a case of this,.and Stobbies got a bit of agg over it from DVSA.
It was in the Republic there was a court case and the drivers all got substantial compensation, shortly Stobart left and apart from a greatly reduced tanker operation his dreams of dominating Ireland are over, I believe his words were that he would shake up Ireland’s haulage business, turned out to be a very expensive dream
Sounds like a Trojan Horse to enforce a reduced daily rest regime on demand.
If you’re planned for a 4 am start you’ll obviously need to know no later than 5pm the evening before when you finished if not earlier.
robroy:
Did I dream it (I have some weird dreams btw ) or did Stobbies in N. Ireland drivers once make a case of this,.and Stobbies got a bit of agg over it from DVSA.
It was in the Republic there was a court case and the drivers all got substantial compensation, shortly Stobart left and apart from a greatly reduced tanker operation his dreams of dominating Ireland are over, I believe his words were that he would shake up Ireland’s haulage business, turned out to be a very expensive dream
Yup, I remember it well. Those of involved in Irish transport at the time laughed at his ridiculous hubris and it turned out exactly how most of us expected
OP, you should ask your company to provide you with a pen, whilst your at it as its part of job you wont be able to fill in walk round sheet how about sun glasses too cmon i mean a text message
If they can`t tell you your start time BEFORE you go home at the end of your shift,then you get in the next day at the same time as your last shift.
Get home and switch your phone OFF
TruckDriverBen:
OP, you should ask your company to provide you with a pen, whilst your at it as its part of job you wont be able to fill in walk round sheet how about sun glasses too cmon i mean a text message
That is all well and good to take the ■■■■, but the title is ‘‘Being contacted during daily rest period’’ …ok,.I misread it at first, they are texting him not ringing him, but technically it contravenes the rules,.and they are fully aware of that.
Are they as flexible on all the rules that go to ■■■■ US off, or just the ones that suit them…they can’t have it both ways especially if they are ■■■■ hot on pedantic trivialities like many ‘modern logistic’ outfits are today.
Say he oversleeps or whatever, checks his phone and discovers he has to start off in an hour.
He needs to get them to either tell him what he’s doing within an hour before he gets back home, or at a certain time the same every day…or what lollipop says.
As long as drivers agree with these double standards the job will always be crap, but as I said if they are a good firm you tend to help them and bend a bit.
It’s just not on, they are interupting a rest period, I used to work for a comapany on Merseyside who used to do this, they would ring you up at say 8 o clock at night to tell you that you was starting at 3 o clock in the morning, i left but i was told a few years after i left that they got in bother for this.
i work for a smallish compnay. we normally get a group wassap schedule about 4 pm telling us jobs for next day.
months ago it get coming later and later sometimes 9pm.
we all complained said you cant contact us at 9 10 pm then tell us got 5am or what ever start we need to know so we can plan our bed time n stuff.
kept on for a week. then basically we all used message them around 8 pm saying same thing
am tired off to bed ill check my phone when i wake up only 5 of us work there driving. they soon got the message and returned to normal
)
but that’s another tale.