Alright it’s a rant but I think it’s pretty readable.

I’m relatively new. Been working for about a month and half including my training week. Whenever I noticed an issue with the van I was in, I would simply make a mental note of it and then report it on the end of day inspection. I don’t bother with small things but several times I’ve reported things like busted headlights, cracked mirrors, faulty turn signals, etc. and the van was grounded by amazon.

On Thursday one of the managers at my DSP approached me before I left the station.

(paraphrasing)

Her: “Hey on Tuesday you grounded one of our vehicles, if you notice a problem with the van just let us know. Don’t report issues on the checklist. The vehicle will be grounded and we can’t use it until our mechanic takes a look at it. The issue you reported on Tuesday was that the back up camera didn’t work. [second-in-command at our dsp] says that if anyone can’t drive a van without a backup camera they probably shouldn’t be driving at all.”

I wasn’t necessarily surprised that I was being told not to report issues on the inspection list, I had heard about that on this sub. But I was a little bit thrown off by the vaguely worded threat on my job.

I just responded: “Yeah I drove that vehicle all day without any problems, I was able to use my mirrors. But it’s a lot safer to have a backup camera.”

Her: “Oh for sure. But just make sure you tell us instead of reporting it on the checklist or we can’t use the vehicle. We’ll make sure it gets fixed.”

I was pretty skeptical and wanted to argue with her but I bit my lip and just said “So you want me to bullshit the end of day inspections?”

Her: “Yes please.”

I need this job. At the moment, I don’t have enough cushion to go a week or two without a paycheck in between jobs. So I’m doing what they tell me. I didn’t report a turn signal issue on thursday, just told the dispatcher when I got back to the station. His response? “Oh yeah it’s been like that. I think it came like that haha.”

I like that dude, and I know he’s not to blame for anything but like come on… he seemed to think I was just sort of shooting the shit with him instead of reporting an issue.

It’s clear they don’t plan to fix anything that they don’t absolutely have to fix. And the more I think about it the more pissed off I start to feel. We as drivers have are essentially voiceless. We don’t have a say about any aspect of our job. We are told what to do and we go do it (not unique to our job). The one little bit of power we are supposed to have is the ability to ground an unsafe vehicle. We are the drivers, we should decide if a vehicle is drivable!

I actually enjoy the work that we do. Delivery driving suits me and I’m good at it. So it wouldn’t be hard for me to just keep my head low and my mouth shut and keep my job.

But I also want this shit to change. As far as I can tell there’s not a single DSP that doesn’t tell it’s drivers not to report issues. These greedy fucks who force us to cut corners so they can save a few bucks don’t deserve to get their way. But we are essentially powerless.