Comment by NullInvictus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by NullInvictus | Hacker News Reader

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> truck drivers are being tracked routinely and nobody makes a big fuss about that.

I know a number of truck drivers and they _hate_ it. Routing software is imperfect, accidents happen that have to be detoured, and every detour is another grilling by management who is staring you down like you're an inbred imbecile and asking "Why did you deviate?" They often well know why, but the procedure is clear. You just don't hear about it from truckers because the job is mercurial - turnover is high because the conditions suck, and its a lower item in a laundry list of grievances that truckers have.

And if I'm frank; A lot of people don't hear about it on this forum because they move in a different economic circle.

Being constantly overwatched and second-guessed is demeaning. It ruins work-place dignity, ensures there is no sense of trust between labor and leadership, and removes any feelings of agency from the laborer. As with any data-collecting system, it will also be relentlessly gamed.

Worse, you can have your cake and eat it too. You almost never need momentary data like this to check-and-balance your workplace. Why track drivers relentlessly when you can do statistical data analysis on order completion, fuel consumption, route times, and other models that allow you to average out all the chaos?

Results will speak for themselves, relationships will pay off. The solution to this 'problem' already exists, it's engaging with your workforce and focusing on results. It is bad. It's dehumanization in the workplace. The system worked just fine when people clocked in, clocked out, and the manager looked and said, "Yep, that hall is clean."

I wouldn't accept a keylogger, or strict grilling of my web history. I wouldn't accept being sleuthed on by my manager either. Humans deserve a base level of dignity in the work-place.

I used to write that sort of software. We would coach the dispatchers on how to use the system. If they used it that way most of the time the drivers would start to vandalize the system in some way pretty much every time. We would then talk to the drivers and make sure the dispatchers would use the system correctly too.

Every group though would go though the 'you are spying on me' to 'love it'. Recover 1 or 2 stolen loads and suddenly that entire terminal would love the thing. Also at the time electronic logs let most drivers get a pass from the cops. The cops would take one look at it and nope out. I doubt it is that way anymore. Most of the time we encouraged the dispatchers to look for deviation of norm and encourage the drivers to note it (most systems have this built in) and it is in the law anyway even when you had to do it by hand. Mostly it caught that one group of dudes who had particular strip joints they would swing by on the clock. Which was a more of 'dont care you go, but I am not paying for it'. This usually made them even more mad. Mostly because of embarrassment, and the loss of income. Your idea of 'average it out' is exactly how it used to be done (and is still in some cases). But the thing is LTL, short, long haul has razor thin margins. If your average is higher than someone else's they will beat you out in the end. You add in more tracking (because your competitor will) as you need to find those spots where the average is not right and skewed because of years of doing it a different way.

If you have dispatchers getting mad for a 20 min deviation then the dispatcher is using the system wrong. The proper way to correct that is for the drivers to talk to them and use the built in messaging systems. If that does not work, document it and take it up with his boss or the shop steward. The dispatcher is probably hot because he had to pay OT to 3 other guys who should have clocked out 2 hours ago because you are late and now they left and no one to unload your stuff. His boss is mad at him because he is 6% overbudget again this month. All because some DOT guy in another state is 6 weeks behind doing their job and has half the interstate down to 1 lane for 30 miles.

Given all of that. I would never be a driver. It is a low trust environment... Hence the tracking.

I have a key logger and some program that takes pictures and captures the clipboard as well. But it’s a work machine and I only use if for work.

One thing is for sure, when we are going to be hacked completely it won’t be solar winds it’ll be all these spyware security programs of the week.

I got to hear about these truck systems from the subject of it and from someone who used to implement it in the same thread once (don't have a link). Everyone eventually sees that it's rotten, and the implementer in this case got out of the business once they realized the harm they were enabling.

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