My Unfortunate Experience with Spee-Dee Delivery, Ankeny Location.

Looking for work, I applied for an assortment of jobs when I finally got a call back from Spee-Dee Delivery.  I went in for an interview and was offered a job as a night driver.  I took it thinking it'd be a perfect job for me.  Working at night, driving on the open road, and having to deal with a minimum of people. I thought right and I should have trusted my intuition. Yet it's hard to trust your gut, especially when people look you right in the face and lie to you, the way Spee-Dee Delivery representative Aaron did.

He called me in the Thursday before the Monday I was supposed to start.  He looked me right in the eye and said to me, "You really enjoy driving positions right?"

I told him that I did.

He proceeded to inform me that the night driver position that I had taken, involved very little driving.  That I would spend most of my time in the warehouse, doing hard physical work.  If I was lucky, I might take a load out on the road once or twice a week. Other than that, my shifts would be spent in the warehouse emptying/loading trucks and sorting packages.

"But I do have an open route in the Carroll area." He said to me. "You'll do a lot of driving there."

I agreed to do the Carroll route, trusting that Aaron was telling me the truth.  A trust that I never should have put in him.

After three months of rough, 11-12 hour days in a vehicle with no air conditioning that often had an assortment of problems, I ran into the guy that they eventually hired to do the night route that I had originally been hired for.

"So you spend most of your time in the warehouse then huh?" I asked him.

"Oh Heavens no." He said to me. "Maybe an hour at the beginning of my shift, if that.  I load my truck, and then drive to Omaha and drop off half my load.  I then take the other half up to Sioux City and then I drive back to the terminal."

That's two hours to Omaha, an hour and a half to Sioux City, three hours back to Ankeny.   6 1/2 hours of driving.  I would like to know how Aaron could justify 6 1/2 hours is "very little driving."

On top of that he was paid $0.25 more an hour than I was.

Nevertheless, even though Aaron had deliberately lied to me, I stuck with the Carroll route.

Hating the route for various reasons, I began looking into other opportunities including possibly going to trucking school to learn to drive semis.  I had submitted an application to a trucking school in Des Moines, that trained in exchange for driving for them for one year.

When I told a fellow coworker of mine, Phil, the semi-truck driver who had the St. Cloud route, he informed me that he was transferring up to St. Cloud and that his route was opening up.  He suggested that I try and get his job. His job paid $150 more per week ($600 a month more) than what I was making.  It involved taking a trailer up to St. Cloud, dropping it off and then taking another trailer back to Des Moines.  I put in an application for it immediately.

Aaron came up to me one morning and informed me that he saw that I had applied for the St. Cloud route. I told him that I had.  He said to me that they were excited to see me show interest in the position and that as long as I was able to obtain a class A CDL that the position would be mine.

If I'm ever made an offer like that again, I vow that I will get it in writing.

I told Aaron that I'd help him to find a replacement for me on the Carroll if he would like.

Aaron informed me that I needed to study for, take and  pass three written examinations, and then my training to drive the semi would begin on Monday July 17th.

I took the time (as well as money) to study for and pass the written examinations of Air Breaks, General Knowledge and Combination Vehicles.

Aaron informed me once again that training would begin on July 17th.  He said most take between 3 to 5 weeks to learn how to drive the truck.

Monday July 17th came, and Aaron informed me that my training had been moved back to July 24th.

July 24th became July 31st.  July 31st became August 7th.

Considering that Phil's last day was August 25th, I saw the writing on the wall.

I told Aaron one morning that I wanted to speak with him in private.  I went into his office and questioned him about what was going on.

He informed that that they were having a difficult time finding someone to fill my position and after some thought they found it more beneficial to the company to hire someone who already had a class A CDL for the St. Cloud position, than to train me.

I asked him why I wasn't informed about their decision earlier. He answered that they had other issues far more important and didn't feel a need to prioritize it.  I told him that I felt I had been treated unfairly and that I felt I was owed an apology.

I didn't receive one, although he did use the word sorry.

"I'm sorry you feel that way, but we are not Stephen Stonebraker company." He said to me. "We're Spee-Dee Delivery and we have done and will continue to do what we feel is best for Spee-Dee Delivery."

I said to him, "Ok. Well thank you for the opportunity to work here but I want to say that I will be leaving as soon as I find something better or by the 18th of August.

He then said, "We may have other CDL positions that eventually open up. Keep that in mind."

Considering that Aaron had already lied to me various times, I decided not to believe it.

I came in the next day and the truck that I normally drove was not in my parking space.  Instead, an older truck. One that was obviously in horrible shape sat in its spot.

I could go into explicit detail on all of the problems the truck had, but I think the fact that it broke down on my four times, will suffice.

The last time it broke down on me,  I was driving in downtown Carroll when suddenly the Truck died.  Luckily I had enough momentum to coast into the Walgreen's parking lot. There I sat for an hour until Spee-Dee finally had a local mechanic in Carroll come to help me. After examining the truck, he said that he couldn't figure out in the Walgreen's parking lot and would have to tow me back to his shop.

Upon examining the truck, he found and assortment of things wrong with the truck.  He had me call Spee-Dee to talk to the mechanic department. He told the mechanic that the truck was in no shape to have been put on the road and that by all means, he should notify the Department of Motor Vehicles of the trucks condition.

The truck didn't have a starter.  It must have fallen off somewhere between Des Moines and Carroll, and that was the main reason I had so much trouble with it.

After fighting with the Spee-Dee Mechanics, he ended up hanging up on them half way in between the conversation and told me that they were some of the dumbest individuals he had ever spoken to.

He informed me that he was going to tow me back to Des Moines because....and I quote...."I've been a mechanic for close to thirty years and that is the most dangerous, unsafe commercial vehicle I have ever laid my hands on." 

He said as bad of shape as the truck was in, I was lucky that I hadn't been seriously injured or worse driving it.

I tried to notify Aaron three times on my way back to the shop, as well as Spee-Dee representatives Nate and Delmer.  None were available to take my call.

The only person I got a hold of, after multiple attempts was Jeremy my route supervisor.  He told me that he'd have Randy and Jeff (fellow co-workers) take care of my pickups, but as for the over 40 deliveries I had left, I was going to have to add them to Wednesday's route.  My route on Wednesday was going to be around 85 stops.  On a good day, with no lunch breaks, not even giving myself time to stop and take a leak, I was lucky if I could get 60 stops done in my 12 hour shift.  There was no way I was going to get 85 done the next day with no help.

I guess feelings without proof are nothing more than accusations. Yet to think that Aaron deliberately put me in that unsafe and dangerous vehicle a day after I told him that I didn't appreciate his dishonesty and unprofessionalism, in the least gives him motive. 

I figured that Aaron had lied to me on three occasions, he had put me into a dangerous and unsafe vehicle. I had put up with enough. 

I went home, threw my work uniforms into the wash, waited for them to dry and then took them all back to the office.  I informed Betty another worker of what had happened to me and that I was leaving.  She shook my hand and said it was about time someone stood up for themselves against this crooked and rotten company.

Aaron has since said, and still says to this day that he never lied to me about the night position.  We simply have a different definition of what "a lot of driving" is and isn't.  I consider 6 1/2 hours of driving in a 9-10 hour shift to be a substantial amount of driving.  He doesn't.   He also says that I was never promised the St. Cloud CDL position. He says that he knew of my interest in the position, and did inform me that there was a possibility that they might select me for the job.  I questioned that if that were the case, why make a priority of me studying for, taking and passing the examinations.  Why give me a training start date of 7-17-2017?   His answer is because CDL positions open up from time to time, and he would like me prepared for when they do.  Funny, as those test scores are only good up to 90 days after you take them. 

Lastly Aaron said that in regards to the vehicle being "the most unsafe and dangerous commercial vehicle" that the mechanic in Carroll had ever seen, that opinions vary, and that was not the opinion of the mechanics at Spee-Dee Delivery in Des Moines.

In the end Spee-Dee Delivery came out on top. They win and I lose.  I don't think that's right.  Regardless of how you feel about my quitting the job or about the way in which I quit, I believe I have a right to have my employer be honest with me and tell the truth.  I know, as it is not a matter of subjective opinion, that I have a right, a legal right to be in a safe environment while working. It was wrong of them to put me in a vehicle that a mechanic of over thirty years experience deemed, "The most dangerous, unsafe commercial vehicle" that he had ever seen.

People like Aaron get away with lying to their employees and intentionally putting them into dangerous situations.  They shouldn't and I feel it my duty as an American citizen, a member of the American labor force, to expose him for his crooked, and unprofessional behavior.