Want a job, buddy?

I haven’t been on a formal job interview in years. I do, however, conduct them occasionally. I prefer to do my hiring in other ways, for many reasons. I manage a depot for a trucking company. At any given time there are over 40 drivers working under me. I get about 90% of my drivers through word of mouth. It’s just better that way. Recently, a decision was made in my company to terminate a particular driver. This driver had been underperforming, not in any catastrophic way, just enough that it affected other aspects of the company. The truth is, I would have kept the person on and continued trying to make it work but higher-ups overruled me.
Let me back up a little bit here. For a long time my branch of the company concentrated on overnight, routed service. In other words, we delivered many small packages all over Long Island. We were not exactly printing money but we did all right. The niche we occupied was steady and our client base was solid. We were (and still are) growing at a regular rate. I utilized between 25 and 35 drivers at any given time and we had a minimal office staff, really only me and an assistant manager.
About 2 years ago that all changed. A large player in the delivery business was about to become defunct. This particular company served a specific clientele and was pretty much the only game in town for these industries that depended on it. They provided two way service for dentists and opticians as well as a decent amount of traditional trucking and courier work. These dental and optical clients demand a very involved and time-intensive service that they will not move away from. To compare this with what my company did is like comparing apples to toilet brushes. If you want to talk money, a single piece of freight with my company would command about twice the price from the customer with 40-50% of that being profit as opposed to 20-30% profit and three times the paperwork (and headache). Money is money, however and this company made a lot of it. We wanted to take over that niche when they went away.
We decided to start a new company, supported by, but independent of the parent company. We brought the head of the other company on board, along with his top staff. We held brainstorming sessions among our managers. We invested in a large, new facility in Brooklyn, along with a lot of new equipment. We arranged for a fleet of company vehicles (a huge leap for us). Money was spent almost everywhere. Personnel from the other company were emplaced within all of our facilities, except for one. None were placed in mine; we made do with what we had already. At the time, this seemed like a good thing. I am in charge of my office, I do things my way. Unfortunately, the clientele we were taking on were so needy, so demanding; we had to devote 90% of our time to 30% of our business. It was a fundamental change in the way I learned to do things.
I tell you all of this because it is important to this story that the drivers for the new company needed extensive training in order to get this job done right. By comparison, my original drivers had a relatively simple job. The main quality I look for is dependability. If I know what to expect from someone, I can teach him or her to do anything I need them to do. This was the problem with the driver that I was told to terminate. He couldn’t follow all of the procedures necessary to get the job done right.
As I said, it wasn’t my decision to let him go so I made a decision to do the things that the higher ups suggested, maybe they knew what they were doing. It was suggested that we put an ad in Newsday. I don’t usually do this because it is very expensive and I don’t think it’s worth it to hire one or two people. You have to sort through too many frogs before you get a prince. When someone answers an ad, you interview them and are told by them that they are the right person for the job. The problem with that is they are a complete stranger and it is up to you to decide what, if anything, you believe. Word of mouth is different because you are starting with someone who is recommended by someone you know already. That’s a big advantage.
Back to my anecdote: An ad was placed in Newsday, for 600 bucks. We took calls and scheduled interviews. We did interviews for three days. My immediate superior came out from Brooklyn to help conduct them. After the interviews were done, we made a decision. A retired NYPD, ex-marine, in his mid forties. We figured with his background, he would easily grasp the complicated procedures and have the discipline that I like in my people.
We asked him to start one week later, on a Monday. On the Friday before, I took the driver to be terminated into my office and broke the news to him. Not my favorite part of the job. Monday morning came around and where was my new driver? He was a no-show. We tried calling him but got no answer. OK, it happens. On to our second choice, a husband and wife team. They had good experience, came across as very on the ball and had a built in back-up if one of them needed a day off. We called them and asked them if they could start immediately. They were to come in on Tuesday morning. Tuesday came and once again, no-show. What the hell? We went to number three. This one I didn’t like so much. He had lots of experience, was very well spoken and seemed like a very intelligent guy. What I didn’t like was that he told us he was the best driver at his last job. This, in my mind is the surest sign of trouble. These people are going to start out feeling underappreciated. You are already their enemy. Anyway, he was the best candidate we had left so we went with him. We called him and asked him when he could start. He was eager to start immediately so we told him to be in at 8:30 Wednesday morning. He came in at 8:20 (one of my people told me he had been sitting in his truck for an hour in the parking lot, a good sign if you ask me) and I got him started filling out his contract and W-4. Afterwards I set him up with one of my utility people to begin showing him the ropes, with the intention of having a manager take over as soon as the morning freight had been sorted. After about 30 minutes I went to see how things were going, he wasn’t there. I was told he went out to the truck to get his phone. His truck was gone. He had taken off, fled the premises, made like a hockey stick, etc…
Was I in the Twilight Zone? What possesses someone to answer an ad, come in for a formal interview, get yourself hired and then not show up? It’s even worse that the last guy actually went as far as to come in and begin to be trained before making a hasty exit. A waste of my time? Hell, yeah! I decided to do things my way. I divided the route into two, more manageable halves. I then asked a trusted driver if he knew of anyone who might be interested in a route. I now have a driver I know starting on Tuesday. All I have left to do is fill the other half of the route, piece of cake.
My point in telling you this story, none. I just wanted to rant a little. Have a nice day.