Reasons Truck Drivers Walk Out the Door [video] | Hacker News Reader

Reasons Truck Drivers Walk Out the Door [video]

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119 pointsCaliforniaKarl200 comments

My wife has worked for several logistics companies, and one of the striking things was that she said a lot of them have signs everywhere banning truckdrivers from using their toilets. Quite dehumanizing if you have to defecate in the bushes cause there is no place you are allowed to use a toilet in a rich and highly developed country. And come to think of it, I regularly see delivery drives relieve themselves by the road because we as society fail to provide them with any other option.

Not being able to use toilets is, on the grand scale of things, maybe not the most important thing, but it probably adds to the feeling of being disrespected.

There is, unfortunately, a common pathology amongst white-collar workers, and especially the "managerial class". Of which I am a member, so I get to see this first-hand quite often.

It is incredibly common that my economic peers and betters treat blue-collar workers as filthy meat-robots, tolerated purely out of necessity. Because, after all, if they were worthwhile human beings, they'd have a college degree.

I find this mindset abhorrent. Anybody that works a job well deserves respect, regardless of the job.

>> Anybody that works a job well deserves respect

Everyone deserves respect, even those who do not work "well". Being bad at one's job doesn't means anything in terms of access to basic services. Half the people in any job are below the average. Basic dignities must be provided to all, even those a day away from being fired. I've seen it so many times that the "underperformer" or new guy in the office ends up working through every lunch or pulling the bad shifts because "they deserve it". That isn't a healthy work environment.

One way someone whom you label above as an “underperformer” can make themselves more valuable to the team us by taking work that others don’t want to do. One way they can close some of their performance gap is by working more. Both of those could easily be a perfectly rational and voluntary response to preserve their job.

Society simply sucks as even to view someone as a human being, they have to be a valuable member (means work whole life). Not good enough, just work more. Basically be a cog in the economic system or die.

Well, it’s a little brutal to think about it. But it’s true. Because if the economic system stopped working, we would ALL die

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29041607

Well, you got me. When I’m not making a dead easy million on stocks, I’m lazing about on my various yachts; unless, of course, the mood to crush a few peasants strikes.

Your imagination must be an odd place indeed.

It's way better than hunting for food everyday or facing starvation or predation like most other animals face. We've advanced significantly over the inherently brutal and unforgiving initial conditions of life.

We've built economic and social systems that allow most people to die of what we used to call "old age" and now name as specific diseases that typically manifest in old age [rather than starvation, expousure, or predation].

That people have to contribute in some way to enjoy the fruits of all that aggregate labor doesn't seem so unreasonable to me. All the people required to do all the back-breaking work of farming, transporting, building, cleaning, purifying, and cooking aren't going to do that labor while you enjoy life doing nothing constructive that helps them via some chain of events/transactions.

> back-breaking work of farming, transporting, building, cleaning, purifying, and cooking

Those hard working class are not the most respected or even earning. They are also just doing that for basic needs, minimum wage. This truck driver story itself is about them. Pandemic made it even more clear what society think about them.

Other hand people that are making personal data selling websites, playing stock market, destroying planet for greed are doing great. They can suck millions by unethical means, retire, buy yacht. But goddammit, as soon as someone from lower or middle class wants to slack off, they are told to be useless part of society, work hard, break health. Feels like some kind of capitalist propaganda.

Consider that being "valuable" means contributing to the services that provide for human beings, be it bathroom facilities, medical care or pensions; If being treated as human means being provided these services, why shouldn't there be conditional contribution?

And the people who virtue-signal "Well I think they should be treated humanely!" are rarely the people at low-paid services end, struggling to compete with the status quo.

Have you worked in logistics?

Truck drivers are regularly exposed to the worst possible restroom conditions.

It's not a surprise that they often don't flush the toilet when they come into the office.

It's not an easy situation to deal with, and it has little to do with white-collar vs. blue collar.

It's all about what level of restroom management is appropriate to keep people from dealing with 'surprises'

>It's not an easy situation to deal with, and it has little to do with white-collar vs. blue collar.

>It's all about what level of restroom management is appropriate to keep people from dealing with 'surprises'

And the more fundamental reason is the very different social mechanisms of restroom use by transient drivers vs office workers. Psychology is very different:

- transient user: The restroom belongs to someone else and I can leave a mess for others to deal with after I drive away. Therefore, there is no pride in keeping the toilet somewhat clean because I don't need to care who the next user is. This is what causes public restrooms to become disgusting. (Thankfully, some drivers are considerate but unfortunately, a few inconsiderate ones ruin it for every one else.)

- office worker: The restroom belongs to us that we have to re-visit repeatedly. Usually, we don't embarrass ourselves by leaving disgusting presents for our co-workers. This pride keeps the office restroom relatively clean (compared to public restrooms) -- even without a janitor standing by 24/7.

This is really an idealized view of how office workers view restrooms. BFC I worked in a 5 story office building with 6 bathrooms per floor. Nobody felt ownership of the restrooms, nor treated them particularly well. Some stayed clean (largely because they were either relatively unused) and some were dirty. The idea that we wouldn't allow a vendor or repairman to use them (since in your view they didn't have ownership and would thus soil the restroom) would never enter our minds.

>This is really an idealized view of how office workers view restrooms.

It's not idealized. I linked a video of a business owner and his office workers cleaning their own company bathrooms. The owner of that company includes himself in the rotation of employees to clean the bathrooms.

I can't discount your anecdote about your particular coworkers because your personal experience is what it is. I'm describing population tendencies and not absolutes. In my experience, office workers who are not transients do tend to take better care of their shared bathrooms. The office employees may not be as fastidious as the workers in that Youtube video but they usually don't let it degrade to the level of nasty public restrooms on highways.

In the larger companies, you do have janitorial staff that actually does most of the cleaning and other upkeep, but the employees still don’t want to embarrass themselves in front of their co-workers. If the janitorial staff doesn’t respond quickly enough, then the situation can rapidly deteriorate.

I was always quick to call them if I spotted anything amiss, and I made sure to always thank them if I saw them in person.

But maybe that’s just me.

I agree wholeheartedly with you.

In any organization , tone at the top matters. You talk about managers. I would say we need to look higher up in the chain of command.

I would posit that when you have candidates running for higher office referring to that group as "deplorables" I would say the tone of the top has failed.

I agree that Clinton's "deplorables" speech was a gaffe, but I also just re-read it. She's not talking about blue collar workers in general, but a particular strain of voters who are motivated by racism, sexism, etc. Naturally her opponent fought back, pretending that she was attacking the working class in general.

Today, what she said is considered to be a basic fact of American politics. Part of what makes the Deplorables such a powerful force is that it has become politically incorrect to talk about them openly in plain terms, or to confront them with their own beliefs.

Confront them with their own beliefs? You mean invalidate their policy preferences by just ascribing them to racism?

> ...but a particular strain of voters who are motivated by racism, sexism, etc

It was received quite properly as an attack on any voter who would not vote for her: that is to say, anyone not voting for Clinton herself would by definition be deplorable: racist, sexist, etc.

This was taken as a rather self-serving statement

It was received that way because Republican propaganda is very effective (see the way they reframed "fake news" as an example,) but no reasonable person reading the actual text of the statement would interpret it that way.

And obviously it was self-serving. Hillary Clinton was giving a speech running for political office, not having a casual conversation. Every word coming out of Donald Trump's mouth was self-serving as well, for the same reason. Yet (again, due to the effectiveness of Republican propaganda) it's a sign of arrogance and elitism when a Democrat does it, but virtue and strength of character in a Republican.

Can you address the point without reference to Trump? We were talking about Clinton, not Trump. If it helps, I think they both were self-serving, full stop. But. Whenever a criticism of Clinton hits the mark, a supporter invariably pops up talking about Trump. It comes off as an attempted diversion from Clinton herself.

So, to the point, she was not even implying that those who were on the fence about her were motivated by racism, sexism, Russian manipulation, etc? She acknowledged there could be principled reasons to disagree and not vote for her?

Clinton and Trump were opponents in an election. She was talking about her opponent's supporters. The reaction to Clinton's speech can't be described without reference her opponent's campaign.

She said something like "half" which is essentially a statistic, not an accusation towards any individual, and was not an unfamiliar idea at the time. I used the term "political correctness" for the social habit of leaving some truths unspoken, and "gaffe" for breaking that rule.

Principled reasons could have been articulated by the other half. There were also Democrats who had principled reasons for favoring other candidates, but Clinton won the primary. Knowing that those people were in the minority on both sides was a fact of contemporary political campaigns.

Given that it was essentially a two-way contest, principled objections would need to identify actual principles, and indicate whether her opponent was likely to address those principles.

Trying to discern which opinions are indeed "principled" and which are propaganda driven is a fact and challenge of modern political discourse.

>Can you address the point without reference to Trump?

No, because the point I was making was that both parties were equally self-serving, because they were both politicians running for political office, and making that point requires reference to the other party.

>If it helps, I think they both were self-serving, full stop.

Yes, that was literally my point.

>But. Whenever a criticism of Clinton hits the mark, a supporter invariably pops up talking about Trump.

Neither can one criticize Trump without his supporters deflecting with rants about Democrats, Hillary Clinton, BLM or whatever. Also, I'm not a Clinton supporter.

>So, to the point, she was not even implying that those who were on the fence about her were motivated by racism, sexism, Russian manipulation, etc?

Ok. Let me paste in the entirety of the quote, verbatim:

    "You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters 
    into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? [Laughter/applause]. The racist, 
    sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are 
    people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that 
    used to only have 11,000 people, now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets offensive, 
    hateful, mean-spirited rhetoric. Now some of those folks, they are irredeemable, 
    but thankfully they are not America.

Now first, notice that Hillary admits that what she's saying is "grossly generalistic," so it would be a mistake to assume she's attempting to speak in precise terms - when she says "about half" here, she doesn't mean literally 50% within some margin of error, and she certainly isn't referring to the entirety of Trump supporters, much less the entirety of rural Americans (who are not all Trump supporters) nor the entirety of blue collar workers (also not Trump supporters.)

Continuing:

    "But the other basket, the other basket, and I know because I see friends from all over 
    America here. I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas, as 
    well as you know New York and California. But that other basket of people who are people
    who feel that government has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about
    what happens to their lives and their futures, and they are just desperate for change.

Here, she's referring to the legitimate concerns and fears of Trump supporters, and further in, suggests that these Trump supporters - explicitly not the ones motivated by racism, sexis, etc - are the ones the Democrats need to empathize with, understand and reach:

    It doesn't really even matter where it comes from. They don't buy everything he says but 
    he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won't wake up and 
    see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they're in a dead-end. 
    Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."

So to finally address the points:

   >she was not even implying that those who were on the fence about her were motivated by racism, sexism, Russian manipulation, etc?

No, she was not. She was implying that those people were not on the fence and would never vote for her to begin with.

  >She acknowledged there could be principled reasons to disagree and not vote for her?

No she did not. Obviously no politician would ever do that, even if they believed it. She was arguing that the Democrats need to convince the subset of Trump supporters willing to listen that they have better solutions to their concerns than Trump.

Ok. You convinced me. Clinton's "basket of deplorables" comment was not transmitted charitably. A charitable reading can be criticized, but yes, she was not calling all Trump supporters deplorable

Being able to use a toilet and properly wash your hands is one of the most important things in a job, and in any place. The fact that there is prctically no plague or cholera in developed countries (among other illnesses) is due exactly to that.

Is the rationale behind this liability concerns, cleanliness, drug use concerns or something else?

Cleanliness, for one. The current state is "everyone bans truck drivers", which means that any place accepting truck drivers will be swarmed by truck drivers to a degree it may actually cause traffic jams - because who would not use the only toilet for a hundred miles? - and you simply can't have enough cleaning staff on hand to deal with that.

The obvious solution for that would be to do what is the law in Germany - you can't get a license for a highway rest/gas stop without offering toilets for travellers of all kind.

Wait, the rest stop ban truck drivers? That is fucked up.

From OP I thought it was the logistics companies. As in the place where you deliver to.

Germany has also a truck driver shortage, but the infrastructure has been improved. As in the truck stops and what not. Should be easier to get a shower compared to UK.

> From OP I thought it was the logistics companies. As in the place where you deliver to.

I have read more than enough reports of both happening - and the logistics companies banning truck drivers from toilets is a direct consequence of not being enough toilets and other facilities on the road, because people who have been on the road non-stop for days without a shower, sleeping in their trucks, don't exactly smell good.

> Should be easier to get a shower compared to UK.

It should be, but well... corona has led to massive issues (see e.g. https://www.trucker.de/nachrichten/transport/lkw-fahrer-klag...).

> I have read more than enough reports of both happening

Wow, that is insane.

> (see e.g. https://www.trucker.de/nachrichten/transport/lkw-fahrer-klag...

:S That sucks.

The sad consequences of the combination of a number of causes:

1) ridiculous rat race to the bottom in pricing by customers always going for the cheapest trucking supplier

2) inter-European right of free movement and work - which means that in Germany, there are truck drivers at domestic minimum wage (9.60€/h) and truck drivers from e.g. Romania for a less than a quarter of that - 2€/h (https://www.handelsblatt.com/unternehmen/handel-konsumgueter...).

3) a serious lack of unionization among truck drivers - hard to contact people when they are constantly on the road

Right now, people are actually looking at the plights of truck drivers because of the crunch, but I can guarantee you nothing much will change and especially no one will bat an eye at the situation once the crunch is over.

>>It should be, but well... corona has led to massive issues

Not a truck driver, but I was in the centre of Manchester around February time this year(pretty much peak lockdown in the UK), and it was impossible to use the toilet anywhere. I went from business to business, cofee shop to coffee shop, literally begged to use their toilets as I really had to go, no one agreed, corona restrictions, bathrooms only for employees etc etc. The only public toilet on the main square was out of order too.

So I ended up going behind some bins in a back alley. Absolutely bonkers and stupid.

Not familiar with UK laws, but in most countries, giving customers access to a restroom is a mandatory condition for an F&B license, precisely so that they don't need to go poo behind the bins.

There is the same law in the UK but it was suspended during lockdown, you could walk into a Starbucks to buy a coffee, but their customer toilers were literally taped up and locked from use. I assume staff had their own toilets in the back but they wouldn't let me use them.

I had similar problems in city centres (Manchester included) and petrol stations. I'm definitely of the opinion that it was due to furloughed staff more than a safety aspect. I complained to my MP because our 24-hour train station decided toilets could only be open 7am-7pm due to "lack of staff due to COVID". Absolutely bonkers. They've returned to more sane opening hours now luckily.

Denying people the right to go to the toilet while away from home was one of the many, many lowlights in the response to COVID.

> you can't get a license for a highway rest/gas stop without offering toilets for travellers of all kind.

The province of Ontario is looking at legislation to mandate delivery folks can use a location's facilities:

* https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/windsor/trucking-ontario-wash...

Dehumanization?

Cleanliness. Find a truck stop near you, go use one of the toilets, more often than not the facilities are beyond filthy unless the station cleans them several times a day.

Gotta disagree. I've taken many interstate trips across the U.S. and must have used the bathroom in a truck/travel stop dozens upon dozens of times; I've never once seen a disaster. (No doubt due to heroic efforts by the staff, but still.) 99% of the time they have all three of soap, water, and clean surfaces. Much better luck than with auto-oriented gas stations, which often are as you describe.

I'm also going to say something that is anecdotal, borderline speculation, but I think the diet of truck drivers by virtue of being on the road a lot ...it's not exactly conductive to smooth bowel movements.

This of course will impair cleanliness. That being said I'm not really sure if i have witnessed constraints on toilet use by truckers, other than parking a big rig in a small lot can be a major issue.

The Barnes and Noble store near my home is in a super clean, nice mall. The store itself is awesome, except the bathroom. I guess any toilet open to the public is going to be bad, unless it is some high end establishment with someone full time maintaining it. I guess most businesses are unable or unwilling to spend money doing so, it is easier to simply restrict access, even if it is dehumanizing.

I wonder if it is possible to design trucks with a airplane sized toilet? I don't know how much it would cost or how it would work, but at least it is worth thinking about?

I’ve witnessed the alternative and had to clean it off my shoe. Public bathrooms should be a right, if only for sanitary reasons.

An entitlement, rather than a right, but the problem again is who cleans these things up to a workable standard. Is a public facility worth much if clogged and overflowing with human waste? If antisocial actors spread such waste and other fluids on the walls? It becomes worthless as a public accommodation and so effectively ceases to exist again. Solution for public facilities is probably automated effective sanitation and/or a Singapore model of disincentives for being gross in public.

Or just do what we do when people shit on the sidewalk routinely: we pay people on the city payroll to clean it up. Governments can provide services for the public good; it doesn’t have to all be for profit or have a positive ROI. Governments exist to support the people. Forcing people to shit on the sidewalk is in nobody’s best interest.

Even in private facilities open to the public, the poo bowl isn’t kept very well at all, profit motive be damned. Cities do pay people to do this but either not enough people or not well enough paid cuz the job they do sucks too. I don’t know the answer but I don’t want to do the clean-up work myself, and I’m not sure I want the city paying what I would require to do the work. Robots, baby!

Long haul trucks have very limited space. Many truckers do bring a portable chemical toilet but it wouldn't really be practical to install a flush toilet like in an airliner lavatory.

It's because some minority of truckers will trash the bathrooms ruining it for everyone else.

These guys eat a lot of junk food and a lot of them are from countries with different default bathroom practices so if your facility takes truck deliveries it's going to be an occurrence in proportion to the number of truck deliveries.

>Not being able to use toilets is, [...], but it probably adds to the feeling of being disrespected.

Words like "dehumanizing" and "disrespected" are being used but we also have to remember that truckers are not the only ones that care about bathrooms. It's also the workers in the office who don't want to be dehumanized by cleaning up an inconsiderate trucker's piss and poop.

As someone who used to clean dirty public toilets as part of my first job, this old video showing the owner of the company how to clean his office toilets has always stuck with me. He even cites the common problem of truckers leaving a mess for office workers to clean. Deep link: https://youtu.be/XlHWkdfZmb4?t=2m59s

Sure, many truckers are considerate and clean up after themselves but the few bad apples ruin it for the other truckers. The office workers don't want to deal with disgusting bathrooms. Until we have robots in the future cleaning the toilets, there will be somebody getting dehumanized by cleaning up poop & piss.

What are the office workers' options?

- clean up after drivers (dehumanizing work)

- deny bathrooms to drivers

I feel bad for the good drivers but unfortunately, some disrespect the office workers because someone else's bathroom is not the driver's problem. What's the solution to avoid dehumanizing people?

If office workers were barred from all but one toilet in miles I'd guess the seats and walls would be just as caked in shit and piss.

>If office workers were barred from all but one toilet in miles I'd guess the seats and walls would be just as caked in shit and piss.

Not in my experience where the office workers had only a single bathroom. The feedback mechanism that keeps the single bathroom clean is the embarrassment of leaving a mess for the next coworker. Everybody knows each other. You can't leave an explosion in the bathroom and just walk away.

The difference is that drivers are transient so they don't have the same social pressure. They drive away so they don't face any backlash. Same reason why truckers complain about dirty bathrooms at truck rest stops. Nobody is accountable to the next person and no embarrassment for not cleaning up after one's self. Hence, public bathrooms become disgusting.

How about we put a camera in the stall with some ML and facial recognition? Problem solved if you ask me.

One of the last startups I worked at had 2 bathrooms for roughly 60 people. These were single person bathrooms too. These were reliably in a disgusting, unsanitary state. We all joked about using a restroom at whatever restaurant we chose for lunch.

That sounds like the problem is not enough bathrooms... by OSHA guidelines you should have 4-5 minimum for that # of employees.

that is per sex, so in many cases double that. source: https://www.osha.gov/laws-regs/regulations/standardnumber/19...

Yeah, it was definitely substandard... Typical "startup" mentality in mgmt. At least we weren't using doors for desks.

"I'm never going to see these people again, might as well defecate on the floor and urinate on the toilet paper" is my natural attitude, too </s>

You said that as joke, but really I want to understand how this could even occur. I am in Japan and such behaviour is inconceivable. Even as an extreme outlier.

What has to happen / not happen in someone's life, where that kind of calculus becomes possible?

My naive guess is that this is a problem of socialisation, which allows - even encourages - ass-holery of many kinds. Wherever "Fuck you, buddy" is thought of as a smart way to get ahead, public toilets will not remain clean.

Thesd "robots" exist, there is an hotel chain in Europe that has self cleaning toilets and showers.

It isn't just the self-cleaning toilet that's important but the whole restroom. For that objective, the self-cleaning restrooms I've seen reposted often is this one that also washes the floor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CCI-ysfFr8

But the whole 360-degree spinning mechanism is too big to be retrofitted at existing restrooms in warehouses and offices.

The "robot" I was envisioning was something like Boston Dynamics robots with articulating arms that could clean like a human janitor. This would work at all existing restrooms.

Until that future tech happens, it's the office workers themselves who are stuck cleaning the restrooms because unlike busy airports, they don't have janitors constantly standing next to the restroom door to keep them clean.

There was a documentary on self cleaning ones in New York. From what I recall they got so bad that even drug users didn’t want to use them.

Plus they were extremely expensive. This was 20 years ago.

In civilized countries, public toilets in places like highway rest-stops and train stations get 24 hour maintenance.

The best way to fund that is to have everyone pay a nominal fee to use the facilities.

The US has a good network of public run rest stops on the interstates. The bathrooms aren’t spotless but have always worked in a pinch. There’s one every few hundred miles.

Truckers prefer commercial truck stops but I usually see a few at the public ones when I stop there.

The network of rest stops varies. In Washington State, they recently closed a line of them along the I-5 due to vandalism and a lack of employees to maintain them.

There was a certain small population causing that damage, one attracted by non-enforcement of vagrancy, littering, and hard drug laws in Seattle. Same group which has denied us shared public commons.

  > The best way to fund that is to have everyone pay a nominal fee to use the facilities.

IIRC, pay toilets are not a thing in the US (they are not legal in much of the US). And I don't entirely know where I stand on it, personally[0]. On the one hand, allow everyone to charge for toilet usage and you might eventually see bathrooms becoming a profit-center for suffering retail establishments. On the other hand, retail/restaurants (especially in cities) disallow non-customer usage and it's similar in retail (if they're offered at all where its not required by law). I would have zero problem with "pay toilets" that are free standing, separated from retail/restaurants.

Frankly, I don't see any other way it would work in the US -- free public toilets provided by government/government-related entities (like subways/city buses) are universally terrible where I live (either non-existent, non-functional or so nasty as to be non-existent).

I've heard about a system in Germany where local government pays restaurants to allow the public to use their toilets. It's cheaper for the government than erecting public toilets and covers extra cleaning costs for the restaurants.

https://www.die-nette-toilette.de/

>, public toilets in places like highway rest-stops and train stations get 24 hour maintenance.

Yes that's logical. In any case, I was replying to a specific point by the gp (tda) about workplaces denying bathrooms to truckers and why it happens. It isn't just a random act of cruelty but the fact that office workers don't like being abused by some drivers that leave them with a disgusting mess.

The point is that the dehumanization is a 2-way phenomenon. Truckers don't like to be disrespected by the office banning bathroom use. And likewise, the office workers don't like being disrespected by (a minority of) truckers and be forced to clean after them.

In other words, there's an implied social contract of being considerate to others regarding shared bathroom use, and a minority of truckers break that contract. This is what causes the office to deny bathrooms to drivers. Office workers don't want to be unwilling janitors to clean the toilets because of drivers who don't care. Yes, more public bathrooms on highways that are constantly cleaned would lessen this problem.

The fault in this logic, is that rest stops in many places are on large highways and interstate systems, which is nice for travelers but when truck drivers are making long haul deliveries, when they can drive they want to drive, and not stop at rest areas except for required break time.

The real issue comes in when they have to sit in a shipping yard for 10 hours waiting for their cargo to be loaded, or a bay open to be unloaded. This is where the local facilities issue comes in.

And rest stops are effectively useless for local deliver people (ups/fedex/amazon/etc..) because rarely do their routs take them on the roads to make them accessible.

And lastly, the number of public rest stops in the US has plummeted with the increase in gas stations, and state budget cuts.

On top of all this, its just the way the routing, and time constraints on delivers are set up, they don't allow for going off route for 10 to 20 minutes to find and use a public toilet.

The problem is solvable, but it isn't about available facilities, its about being fair to workers and not making using the rest room cost them money, or penalize them in review.

I think the best thing about the toilet in the video you linked is that there are cleaning supplies in every room!

I don't think there's anything dehumanizing about cleaning up shit and piss. If you've ever cared for children or elderly people you quickly get used to it. But it's hard to clean up a mess with just toilet paper!

It's also natural that toilets get a bit dirty. If lots of people use them, they just get dirty, even if everyone is considerate. You don't deep clean toilets after every use.

But if there are cleaning supplies available, every toilet user can clean the toilet to their own standards before use! I'd love that!

>I don't think there's anything dehumanizing about cleaning up shit and piss. If you've ever cared for children or elderly people you quickly get used to it.

Yes, parents with babies and caring for a bedridden relatives reminds us that human excrement is a natural part of life. But it's not contradictory for those same people to not want their bathroom degrading into dirty public restrooms. Especially when it's caused by strangers who are inconsiderate rather than relatives who are helpless (babies & elderly). Sure, we can all clean up excrement if we have to but the circumstances matter.

Daycare workers clean up the shit of children not their own. There's nothing degrading about cleaning up shit and piss; The degradation comes when you're doing it for minimum wage as a second job.

The degradation might also come from the fact that someone who is capable of steering a truck certainly is capable of wiping his ass and of not leaving an exploded loo behind... but they literally didn't care enough to clean up after themselves.

I mean: someone literally shits over your work area, someone who must be able to handle themselves better. Kind of hard not to take that as dehumanising.

yep, it definitely comes from that situation as well. No dispute here. Many times the mess will be from an asshole, yeah. But not all times, and when you start making assumptions like that... I was raised to think that you're the asshole.

There will always be the need for some people to clean up after others, and that in and of itself isn't degrading.

I take offense to people who make assumptions that just because you have to empty bedpans then your job is unworthy or degrading. When well compensated that sort of work is just as worthy as the bullshit us dipshits toil at.

I cleaned bathrooms (and buffed floors) for a Michael's hobby store many years ago. It was a morning job, every other day, and was a second job on top of my full-time job. I desperately needed more money, and made the choice to do this to assist with that.

I never felt "degraded" by it. I chose to do it to earn much-needed extra income. I eventually went into construction, and never felt "degraded" when I had to dig foundations, which is essentially ditch digging for a different purpose.

This idea that people have no agency in their life and are perpetually victims is itself dehumanizing and disempowering. I'm grateful that nobody was around me telling me I was a victim of an evil system when I was doing these kinds of jobs while working to get into tech and feeding a new family at the same time. I probably would have listened to them, gotten discouraged, and kicked back and waited for someone else to solve my problems.

I'm glad that you didn't feel degraded by it. You are correct -- work environment is more than just the wage and whether its your primary vocation or not. As a counterpoint to your anecdote, I know several women who felt degraded during their times working as home healthcare aids. In their own words, it motivated them to find better opportunities. They still felt degraded.

I don't know where you're getting all that other nonsense. You're putting a lot of words in my mouth it seems.

>There's nothing degrading about cleaning up shit and piss

That fragment emphasizes the feces and urine but not the circumstances.

>The degradation comes when [...]

Yes, now we do get to the particular circumstances in regards to shit & piss and it turns out that it does matter.

For example, on the Apollo 8 spaceflight, astronaut Frank Borman had diarrhea in space. The turds were floating around in the capsule and landed on the instrument panels: https://www.google.com/search?q=Frank+Borman+diarrhea

It is not dehumanizing nor demeaning for his fellow astronauts to help clean up the poop.

But an inconsiderate truck driver leaving behind a shit explosion on the toilet and floor without cleaning it up is treating the office workers as subhuman. It's a different circumstance.

Similar idea to clearing food and dishes off the tables. That act in isolation is not dehumanizing. E.g. many people clear food off the tables whether it's Thanksgiving dinner or everyday occasion. However, leaving behind a table mess like the following pics show for restaurant workers to clean up after you is treating them as subhuman:

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/7igpwh/p...

https://old.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/6pxxqj/p...

That moms around the world willingly clean up dinner tables without feeling dehumanized is irrelevant to mistreating restaurant workers like that. And consider that fast food wrappers and half-eaten food is a much lower level of nastiness than feces and urine on the toilet seat and floor.

"But an inconsiderate truck driver leaving behind a shit explosion on the toilet and floor without cleaning it up is treating the office workers as subhuman. It's a different circumstance."

You're putting the blame solely on the truck driver -- perhaps he couldn't afford or was unable to be considerate -- and not the fucked up situation we've built regarding what should be considered a basic human right (easy access to sanitation). Tantrums are bound to happen. Some people smear shit onto walls I'm not saying they're ok. It doesn't change the fact that everyone deserves access to a toilet and clean water, and some of our fellow citizens aren't getting it.

I specifically take issue with the number of bad assumptions you are baking into your argument.

It's degrading for an office worker to clean up someone else's shit, _unless_ that's the job they've signed up for and they're cool with it. I imagine few offices actually pay their facilities staff well enough to deal with shitsmearing, but as I said -- that's where the actual degredation comes from. shit jobs should give stellar pay, but we don't value things like that around here.

>I specifically take issue with the number of bad assumptions you are baking into your argument.

I see your confusion. To clarify, nowhere did I say that workers who deliberately take jobs to clean up human waste (e.g. janitors, daycare workers, etc) are degrading. I made no assumptions like that.

Your other sentence about office workers who are not janitors is the group I'm talking about:

>It's degrading for an office worker to clean up someone else's shit,

100%

Somewhat offtopic but your story reminded me of the time I went to a KFC to use the facilities and found a huge brown turd on the water tank. Right there on top of it. I wonder how often does something like this happen.

I've seen my fair share of messes but that was clearly intentional for no good reason

> It's also the workers in the office who don't want to be dehumanized by cleaning up an inconsiderate trucker's piss and poop.

There is a crucial difference. For the workers this is their job. For the truck driver, taking a shit is a fundamental human right.

If you don’t want to clean up shit? Don’t take that job. But a truck driver doesn’t get to decide he no longer has to take a monstrous shit.

> It's also the workers in the office who don't want to be dehumanized by cleaning up an inconsiderate trucker's piss and poop.

Just have the maintenance contractor come and clean mid day and at night. What type of business has the regular employees clean the bathroom anyways?

That is why, in Europe and Africa, I follow a simple rule for choosing facilities on highways: do they have many trucker customers? If they do, that usually means they are professionally managed, clean and food is good and plentiful.

This is universal. Eat where the truckers eat was passed on to me by my father in the US decades ago.

Well, TIL.

And here I was thinking those facilities are popular with truckers because they have the cheapest diesel/petrol.

Company pays for gas often right? So that isnt even a factor for many.

A lot of trucks run company cards for fuel. So slightly cheaper fuel isn't a differentiator.

Better food, showers, and restrooms are. ;)

I do this on road trips in the continental US as well. I figure it's for the same reason that I use gaming hardware for office work: if you want to be comfortable, pick what is chosen by those who are doing it for uncounted hours.

This doesn't make any sense......gaming hardware for office work sucks and I used to be an avid gamer. Gaming chairs are garbage. Gaming keyboards do not have much ergonomics in mind, there are much better and comfortable options from logitech and microsoft but they don't light up like a Christmas tree. Gaming mice have many buttons and DPI switches and logitech mx master is much more comfortable than any gaming mouse I used over the years.

If you want to be comfortable you need to research and be willing to drop $1000+ on a chair and peripherals.

Funny enough, I've never gotten on with ergonomic mice/keyboards. Switching from Logitech to mechanical some years ago made wrist pain go away and it never came back.

I agree that many buttons (which appears to be mostly mice intended for MOBAs or MMORPGs) is not good. My current desktop mouse is a Corsair Glaive (https://www.corsair.com/us/en/glaive-rgb-gaming-mouse) which has a very normal button set.

It’s symbolic of the utter lack of respect, appreciation, and understanding of importance we have for working class people. It’s quite disgusting, and I’m pleased to see people finally saying “enough!”.

And the reason the Public Bathroom disappeared from America is because we wouldn't want any place for the homeless to feel human either.

You apparently haven't had to run junkies out of fast food or pharmacy restrooms, as part of your minimum wage job duties before.

Go work a CVS in an urban environment and you'll have to deal with people nodding off with needles in their arms. These same people are highly likely to be thieves as well

Public restrooms have also historically been gay hookup spots, and spots for hookers too.

Bathrooms open to the public always attract garbage humans.

And when those bathrooms are closed, those garbage humans will shit on the sidewalk, instead, to the delight of everyone.

I agree with you 100%. In places with private security such as restaurants, malls, and hotels there are relatively nice facilities and the people there are generally safe.

In "public" places where the only security force is the police such as side walks, that is where people defecate in the open and you are relatively unsafe from violence.

Good, it is a public problem and and the public should deal with the consequences (or fix it), not externalize it to some private individual.

>garbage humans

There will always be people without a place to live, and people with substance abuse disorders. We can both agree that they do exist, even if we are upset by that fact and wish it was not so.

So, what do you think a good plan would be? Turn them into soylent green? Tut tut at them when their suffering mildly inconveniences our day/their presence upsets us(the current situation)? Improve life for everyone by having good public toilets? Something else?

I support social services to help these people. Welfare, housing, medical care, the works. And I feel I'm far to the left of what almost any Democrat would ever propose to help those the worst off.

But i do think society should be designed to minimize where they can do drugs, and where delinquents have sex in public.

And I do not think those who own private property open to the public for commerce should be burdened with their sleep, sex and drug spots. Not their problem. It's not the problem of a small business owner that someone had trauma and then made some bad choices in life and need to mod off in their restroom or sleep in the doorway or their restaurant

No one is a garbage human. You have a garbage opinion, though, if that's what you think of them.

By all means, open the door to your home, hero.

My actions have nothing, zero, nada to do with your garbage attitude.

The subject at hand was whether or not people, even ones who make messes, should have access to public bathrooms, not whether or not you should be expected to have someone over for dinner.

I mean, let's be honest, I'm relatively certain I wouldn't want you as a guest at my home either. I still think you should have access to places to take a dump when you need to.

The question isn't about " hav[ing] someone over for dinner"; but whether you let them use your bathroom.

Sounds like you have a different attitude wrt your own, private facilities compared to the public, common ones. Maybe the difference is you don't have to clean the public toilet?

The difference is home vs not home.

I think you may be overestimating the difference this distinction makes to the minimum wage person who has personally clean the bathroom.

You can highlight any difference to justify it; but what difference does "home" make except it it precious to you vs the commons which are not?

You want your sons and daughter in stalls beside junkies?

For those reading, is there a term for this particular rhetological fallacy?

Same thought process as "if you're in favor of higher taxes [on anybody], you should give all your money to the government"

Is it a fallacy?

They seem to be saying "you want private companies to pay this cost? Ok, would you pay it yourself?"

Which seems entirely a fair comparison, especially for smaller/family owned restaurants

Yes, it is a fallacy, because in both cases it misrepresents the premise.

In the case of taxes, the actual premise is, "I think [set X/behavior Y/product Z] should be taxed", so generalizing it to "I think more taxes should be paid by somebody" misrepresents the premise.

In this case, the actual premise is, "I think this is something publicly-facing businesses should do", so generalizing it to "I think _every_entity_ should do this", again, misrepresents the premise.

As for the restroom access, and the inevitable consequences, is your issue with the provision of the service, or with being obliged to deal with the consequences for less than fair compensation?

I stated above I was for welfare and medical services

This doesn't mean every space open to the public - be it public property or private commerce open to the public, needs to burden themselves with solving the problems of homelessness and drug addiction

That's good, and a fair position, and I don't begrudge you for any of it.

What I replied to was the part where you then switched topics away from any of that, to an assertion that, for some unexplained reason, one of the posters here should invite strangers into their obviously-non-publicly-facing-home's bathroom. I just don't see the connection there.

Have you ever had to work a job where you cleaned public bathrooms?

No, I'm sure it's disgusting. My point is there's a lot of daylight between "some people abuse public bathrooms" and "those people are garbage humans."

Until you’ve had to clean random blood splatter and feces 6ft up a wall for no apparent reason, it’s easy to say that.

Most comfortable middle class kids who get nice tech jobs will have no idea what it's like. None.

You’re absolutely right, no one is a garbage human. Some people, though, treat the people and the environment around them like garbage, and that’s really frustrating to deal with, whether it comes from an arrogant rich man or a homeless addict.

100%

I bet I could name you people you thought were garbage.

go for it

I live in urban environment and it is not hellhole some people like to make it into.

It's where the majority of crime and pollution is. You can have it.

> Bathrooms open to the public always attract garbage humans.

Only people who have hold minimum wage jobs in the service industry know this pain.

Everyone else keeps talking about treating people like humans never having seen the ugly side.

Like, for example, the side where you walk in on these fucks shooting up and then they threaten your life on the spot and leave a mess for you to clean.

Yeah, hard to have any compassion left when you've done that day in and day out while getting paid minimum wage and then going back to shit customers at the counter.

The easiest decision, is therefore, to close your bathrooms to everyone and discriminate equally. And maybe, only let the pregnant women and truckers use them.

And apparently public comment sections have the same "garbage human attracting" quality.

Almost 20 years ago in Romania, I was complaining about the bad showers in my university dormitory, until I saw some homeless women use it and how much joy it brought them.

I'm sure it would be impossible today because of security, but it was common back then.

Well, public bathrooms also attack the dignity of the people who have to clean the restrooms from the 1-in-100 homeless (and non-homeless) who trash them. Some experiments were done with self-cleaning public bathrooms, but they're not a scalable solution due to large physical size and high capex and opex costs.

> because we wouldn't want any place for the homeless to feel human either

I'm sorry, that is nonsense. Who is "we" anyway? Voters? Government? The rich and famous? C'mon.

Nobody cares about who uses a bathroom. The issue is how it is used and cared for.

Public bathrooms, regardless of the venue, tend to suffer from the tragedy of the commons [0] effect. Most people use them as they would their own bathroom at home. All you need is a very small percentage who just don't care, who are absolute pigs, to ruin them for everyone. If you have ever gone to a public restroom at a Los Angeles beach you know exactly what I am talking about. They are nothing less than disgusting and sometimes revolting. And this is so due to a small percentage of animals (1%? Who knows?) who have no concept of social responsibility and consideration towards others.

My guess is you are not aware of what happened this year at schools all over the US [1] (and maybe elsewhere). This, again, was at the hands of a very small number of kids who, for who-knows-what-reason decide it is OK to behave like animals. At our kids school a handful (3 to 5?) actually got arrested. The school had to close all bathrooms except for two. Students had to ask for permission to go and could only go one at a time. They had to post a person outside each bathroom to go inspect it after a student got done. The animals caused tens of thousands of dollars in damages and the inconvenience to well-behaved kids cannot be measured.

And then there's a sense of scale. If you own a small restaurant, you can't have 300 people come in just to use the bathroom. You are not a bathroom facility. These things cost money and upkeep and, yes, they need to be clean and available for customers. At the limit you'd have to hire multiple staff just to clean and maintain the bathrooms --because they will get trashed.

As is always the case, reality isn't driven by a single convenient variable. One has to consider the multiple (tens, hundreds...) of drivers behind any effect. It isn't single-cause -> effect. It's often incomprehensibly-complex-multivariate-problem -> effect.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=kids+trashing+school+bathroo...

I think at some point public-private bathrooms (private owned/maintained bathrooms for public use) will employ ML/CV to identify vandals.

I suspect a camera that either operates outside visible light (or has a filter that operates as such), or that is limited wrt what information it is able to stream out (i.e. it can run ML/CV on raw video, but can only communicate the results rather than any part of the video feed).

Could also be useful in identifying e.g. people who pass out in a toilet cubicle.

totally.

But are they really going to stop you?

I understand undocumented people opting for bushes, but otherwise just march in, find the restroom and don't ask permission.

p.s. for bonus points, leave the place cleaner than you found it and for extra bonus points, donate a roll of TP.

I've worked at truck weight stations.

On multiple occasions we've had truckers come in to get their ticket for overweight trucks, and I've had to leave the room due to the smell.

We're not talking about, "Oh, I forgot to put on deodorant" or "we need to spray air freshener when they leave". It was "If I stay in here I'm going to start gagging".

Painting with a broad brush is bad. The vast majority of truckers were perfectly kind, clean, great people. But I don't think there is any demographic that I've interacted with that has had a higher percentage of offensive smells coming from them. So while I strongly disagree with the "No Truckers" rule, I can understand where the motivation could come from.

It sounds like we also probably both agree that such rules are likely the cause of the problem they are trying to solve.

BO comes from not showering / not being able to reach every part of your body (obesity), not changing clothing and bedsheets often enough, etc. Poor diet doesn't help.

I've literally never seen a sign that says "no truckers allowed" in my life. Truck stops have showers and laundromats. Clothing and sheets don't take up much room in a sleeper cab.

Some people just don't care. Others can't afford it; trucking isn't a lucrative job for most.

IDK, I’ve been back over the road for the majority of the year and the only place I can think of that didn’t let me use the restroom was a secure warehouse that only let you in as far as a little cage… which I still complain about because it was a “high value load” where we couldn’t stop for the first 200 miles so as to not be hijacked. Had to walk a 1/4 mile to a gas station before setting off.

Everywhere else, no problem. Just ask someone and they point out the way. Might have to go through security (twice?) because you’re at a fedex terminal at the airport but nobody has a problem with us dirty truck drivers generally speaking.

Blame junkies.

They have ruined businesses letting customers use the washroom in general.

Yup...

Junkies are destroying a lot of our world unfortunately.

I don't even blame the junkies as humans are just bags of chemicals and meth / fentanyl can override most of the other chemicals we have. My thought is we need to ship them all to an island where they have no chance of getting drugs and let them live their lives out there. And to prevent criminals from bringing them drugs, institute the death penalty like Singapore did for it.

> Quite dehumanizing if you have to defecate in the bushes

I thought you could use one of them tiny portable toilets, then. Is there no place in a truck to put it? One is like 40 cm in size in all dimensions.

US logistics companies who rely heavily on trucking should be providing the sort of restaurants, rest and sanitary services that are routine in mainland europe for drivers. They rely heavily on the truckers in their industry. Treating them like cattle and disrespecting them is a really bad idea.

In Australia, one of the big reasons have been invasive surveillance - They have multiple cameras set up inside, tracking how many seconds you are looking here or there. If it detects your eyes not doing what the AI deems acceptable, then it pings your manager up in his executive chair and they get to yell at you.

Basically takes your attention completely out of driving the truck and doing your job, to deliberately making actions to stay within the allowed parameters of AI.

That sounds like a horrible situation to be in, but I can also understand the safety benefit. From high school, I remember a friend telling me about how they crashed. They glanced at the radio to switch channels (or change volume or something), which was just enough for the situation on the road to change and they hit the car in front of them. Clearly, that wasn't a good time to look away for even a split second, and a mature driver should know that. The empty highway has a lot more "safe" opportunities for glances away from the road, but I'm sure there's friction because the AI isn't lenient in this way. By the time the AI is aware of that, it's probably going to be doing the driving anyway!

I recently used lane keeping assistance and automatic cruise control for a long distance road trip, and it's SO liberating. You actually feel safe taking glances at the landscape. I never felt safe doing that in an old car. The new experience is simply not as exhausting as running the speed check, lane check, distance check loop required in old cars.

Yes, but, as you say, the AI should be looking outside, rather than at the driver.

> You actually feel safe taking glances at the landscape.

Until you discover that the driver aid doesn't work correctly at that time.

Typically these things are not about improving safety but about reducing liability for the company and shifting blame to the employee.

> I recently used lane keeping assistance and automatic cruise control for a long distance road trip, and it's SO liberating. You actually feel safe taking glances at the landscape.

And then you read about Teslas crashing into stationary vehicles because their drivers weren't attentive enough.

Current driver assist tech is dangerous because it is good enough to make you trust it to some extent, but not good enough to actually deal with unexpected situations when your attention isn't 100% on the road.

I don't think all driver assist tech is dangerous. Tesla FSD is dangerous because the name suggests no supervision is needed, and it's good enough that drivers fall asleep at the wheel. My driver assist experience is with a 2020 Honda Insight. The LASK/ACC features make the car a collaborator in the driving process. I can't fall asleep, it requires too much supervision/collaboration. But instead of running the exhausting speed/lane position/follow distance loop as fast as I can, I can do it at some variable fraction of that speed depending on road conditions. I have to monitor for the things I know or suspect cause issues for the automated system. For example, it generally wants to follow exits, so I have to put resistance on the wheel when passing exits to keep it on the highway. On the other hand, it is excellent (better than me) at making fine adjustments to stay between well marked lines on long straight stretches... that's where I feel comfortable stealing a glance out the side window or resting my foot on the floor instead of hovering over the pedals. It doesn't avoid debris sitting in the middle of the road, so I have to watch for that and wrestle LKAS to avoid if I see that coming.

I laughed until i realized that I’ve seen the exact software for this already, so it is unfortunately not an exaggeration.

That's just... inhuman.

But honestly is it much different than these new ultra-fast grocery delivery services? Those drivers aren't given a second to breath

If you want a picture of the future, imagine an AI watching a human — forever.

It's not in-human if you can't trust your drivers to do their job honestly. It won't be used everywhere but if you constantly wonder why some drivers seem to deliver far less than others and then it magically disappears once you install monitoring, it "proves its worth".

It doesn't sound nice but when margins are paper-thin, it is not surprising.

But who's monitoring the monitors - bet margins are not thin enough not to offer cushy non-monitored positions for management.

If margins are paper thin, they should cut costs elsewhere, not human lives. I know a trucker who's stated that if they didn't lie on their timesheets or use amphetamines, there's no way they'd get the driving required done, they'd get canned, and another person would either falsify or use uppers to keep going. This kind of thinking could then be used for anything - office building workers, for instance, why is 0.5% of time mail not being sorted? It's entirely dehumanizing and takes creative process and ingenuity (what little there is in autonomous jobs) down the drain.

> timesheets or use amphetamines

If you're not lying on your timesheets, why would you need to resort to amphetamines?

These companies will say it's illegal to lie in time sheets and they'll fire you if the catch you but then they don't try to catch anything too hard and set up what you have to do so that there is no way to do it without lying on time sheets. That kind of behavior is very common for lower level workers so the company gets to eat the cake of illegal practices while protecting themselves by saying it's against policy. See all the Amazon warehouse bathroom issues.

Many companies are movie to digital timesheets where the truck figures out if you are driving or not. You pretty much just need to say 'on/off/sleeper'. Those are harder to lie on.

The correct action the companies should be doing is reviewing their routes and what is a realistic way to do them. That route from 1970 no longer is the same time frame. The driving rules have changed and so has the road layout.

> It's not in-human if you can't trust your drivers to do their job honestly.

Well, as drivers get paid per mile I’m not sure how they can be “dishonest” and still take home a decent paycheck.

The company I run for will install driver facing cameras for the top (bottom?) 200 drivers, the ones who set off the robotruck unsafe driving algorithm too many times to see what they’re doing wrong. The alternative would be to just fire them so this policy is marginally better I suppose.

It is pretty hard to get the truck to report you AFAICT — only managed to set it off once and that was when a car purposely brake checked me pretty hard, if the truck didn’t have collision avoidance I’d have slammed into the back of them because by the time I realized what they were doing it was already too late. This other time I was about to take everyone out due to another driver unsafely merging and the truck was like “ho hum, nothing to see here, carry on”.

That sounds like a very dangerous case of Goodhart's law. Sheer insanity.

Of course Australia allows road trains, that is a truck tethered to 4 or 5 trailers with a length of over 50 meters.

My father in law has been a trucker in the US for a long time, and really enjoys it, or rather used too. Video cameras being installed in the truck cab are the reason he's changed his opinion. In every way he is an upstanding citizen, employee, and driver, and even though he's passed retirement age he enjoys driving seasonally. I think this will be his last season due to the cameras.

I know that if someone was watching me during all working hours I would also look for the exit.

My father's dream job was always working as a long haul trucker. Once my parents divorced, he hit the road and I'd never seen him happier. I didn't see him as much, but the random phone calls from payphones all over North America were always super interesting. There was always a story of some sort.

The work itself didn't sound great. You basically have to sit around and wait for 2, 3, 4, 5 or 10 hours. You are always managing against the clock because if you time out (maximum working hours in a day) and can't get your load delivered on time, that's on you. Even if the schedule wasn't very realistic to begin with.

For him the lifestyle, seeing weird and interesting places, and getting to meet new people every day was what he loved and it made up for all that downside.

He's retired, but when the pandemic hit and there was a shortage of drivers, he and his buddies relished the chance to get back on the road. I thought he was doing it because he needed the work, so I tried to send him some money to cover rent etc. He happily took the money (he's no fool) but was perplexed as to why I thought that would mean he'd stop driving.

In terms of bathrooms, most of the good truck stop chains in Canada not only have bathrooms for drivers, but "VIP" lounges with TVs, very cheap showers, etc.

I've threatened off and on for years to get out of software work and go drive trucks. I love to drive and go places and I enjoy handling large vehicles.

I understand the realities of time management and that driving has it's own set of work and life challenges. But I'm still tempted.

I always loved mowing lawns. Something about it is so satisfying. I've always dreamed that I would someday quit software and go around trying various jobs. Cut lawns for a bit, be a bartender, drive a truck. Although some jobs require training / licensing, it would be fun to pursue for a few months. Too bad I have kids and responsibilities and bills to pay.

The fantasy can be different from reality. It will either be better than you imagine, or far worse.

My father got married and his wife was excited to come on the road with him (there are many "trucker couples") and for a few years it was great. She loved seeing all the new places, meeting people, etc.

Eventually she did get tired of it, as 99% of us would, and she thought "ok, we will settle down" and even had one of her friends find something nice that they could afford in a town she wanted to be in.

My father went along with it, helped with the downpayment etc but then when she was like "ok, time to find you a job in this town" he basically said "yeah, umm... just get the divorce done and I don't need anything."

... and he hit the road ...

Speaking of “timing out”, I always found it remarkable how commercial drivers have to play by a different set of rules (and enforcement) than we civilians. You and I drive on the highway basically blind to this parallel system.

I experienced this when a company I ran many years ago had to dip its toes into commercial vehicles (we were moving rental cars and had always just driven them, but got a small trailer & pickup truck to help). One of our guys got pulled over by a DOT enforcement officer once (we had no idea that they even existed) and got written a stack of tickets that we didn’t even realize were possible - code violations, stop-work order, etc. etc. etc. It was a fascinatimg (and expensive) lesson and peek into that world.

I applaud you for trying to provide for your parents. I used to do the same, I even gave my dad a lump sum which allowed him to buy an apartment.

Nowadays, I try to ask if he needs money before sending money.

From the video:

10. Poor training

9. The job is not what they thought it would be

8. Industry always changing

7. Bored with job, need a change

6. Junk equipment

5. Time off

4. Dishonesty

3. Unpaid waiting time

2. Pay

1. Lack of respect

0. Walking out the window is kinda cringe

It's interesting that AI is not on this list... </s> AI might be no longer the hyped up presumed cause of the disappearance of trucking jobs but instead a necessary band-aid to the voluntary mass abandonment of these jobs.

We don't have self-driving cars nor trucks yet in the mainstream, but automation has made big impacts on driving already.

In manufacturing, of course, but also behind the wheel.

Think about how eg Anti-lock braking systems replaced some advanced manual braking techniques. ABS is so common now, that we hardly think about it any more. And we definitely don't view it as AI.

Slightly more involved: knowing your way around used to be a big part of cab driving or trucking. The advent of GPS and mapping software has made that skill largely obsolete.

You can think of more example, like cruise control or automatic lane keeping, and systems that brake automatically to avoid a crash.

None of these systems are AI proper, and they don't eliminate the need for a human driver (yet). What they do is to _deskill_ the job of driving.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deskilling for more about that.

Interesting point of view; deskilling is definitely going to be a thing for a lot of these type of jobs.

I've had some fun with the Euro & American Truck Simulator games, which if a laid back style of zoning out style gaming is your thing I can totally recommend. Check it out on Steam, if only to be amazed that people would actually want to play this. I have hundreds of hours in this game and I wonder myself :-).

So, not a trucker but I can sort of appreciate what truckers need to deal with. Basically, the game comes with some automation to make the hard parts easier for beginners. But of course with AI, that's exactly what might become easier in the real world as well. What's left is just enjoying some trucker music and staring out of the window.

What's hard with trucks:

- Mastering all the mechanical and pneumatic systems and preventing damaging the truck by e.g. over torquing, using the wrong gears, and just generally knowing what to use for what situation. A lot of this becomes a lot simpler with electrical engines (no gears, excellent torque) which are much simpler to operate. Simpler here of course also means that autonomous operation becomes much easier if the vehicle is simple to operate.

- Backing up a truck + trailer in a tight space. Half the problem here is simply lack of visibility and situational awareness; which you can partially solve with cameras and mirrors. And this probably is a frequently causing damage to trucks. More a question of when than if it happens. Cars with park assist already exist. So, AI can definitely help out here as well.

- Making turns and navigating narrow roads. This is just largely learned on the job but also something you could assist quite easily.

- Dealing with dangerous / special cargo loads. This requires certifications and knowledge about e.g. regulations, procedures, etc. Unlikely to completely go away with autonomous driving. But still, the driving part might probably done more safely by AI long term.

> We don't have self-driving cars nor trucks yet in the mainstream, but automation has made big impacts on driving already.

And it doesn't even have to be 'full AI' when we do get more automation. Something like Comma's level 2 lane- and distance-keeping system would probably do a lot for fatigue on long-haul routes, even if a human still needs to be behind the wheel.

I'm not sure why you're comparing an very logic driven system like ABS to self-driving ("AI"). ABS follows pretty simple logic, comparing wheel sensors (and in more modern cars, additionally: accelerometers and if the vehicle has stability control, a yaw rate sensor aka gyro.) There's little "fuzzy" or subjective evaluations in ABS, there's no need to "train" it, and so on.

Also, it's a poor example of deskilling, because ABS was designed to do something humans cannot do.

ABS is designed to stop or reduce incidents of uneven-braking-surface induced yaw. Ie, left tire has grip, right tire has less / no grip, which will induce counter-clockwise yaw.

ABS is able to stop a car faster than any human possibly could in cases where there's uneven traction because it allows any wheel with grip to keep braking. Modern ABS systems can outbrake a human; older systems were slow and could be out-braked by a driver trained in threshold braking performing a planned stop.

> Also, it's a poor example of deskilling, because ABS was designed to do something humans cannot do.

Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_braking

Wikipedia> Anti-lock braking system performs these operations automatically many times per second in rapid succession. A human driver can perform one lock-release cycle per second with practice.

Wikipedia> While cadence braking is effective on most surfaces, it is less effective at slowing the vehicle than keeping the tires continually at the optimum braking point which is called threshold braking. The latter is an expert driving technique that is even more difficult to learn than cadence braking, and again has been largely superseded by ABS.

> I'm not sure why you're comparing an very logic driven system like ABS to self-driving ("AI"). ABS follows pretty simple logic, comparing wheel sensors (and in more modern cars, additionally: accelerometers and if the vehicle has stability control, a yaw rate sensor aka gyro.) There's little "fuzzy" or subjective evaluations in ABS, there's no need to "train" it, and so on.

See the larger point I was making about deskilling. ABS was indeed never seen as something that would require much intelligence. Route planning however was.

But thanks to the AI effect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AI_effect), as soon as we understand and implement something, it's no longer seen as AI.

That's just a side-show. My main point was really about deskilling through technology, even without or before AI. So a bit of a tangent to the comment I was replying to.

AI would be a reason for not entering the industry. I can't imagine it's likely someone would "walk out the door" because of something that might happen in a few years.

I saw your "</s>" btw

That’s because AI is hyped up bullshit…

AI isn't on the list, because it's not that big of a threat to what drivers actually have to do. Just driving is the easy/boring part. Without huge changes AI isn't going to manage paperwork, load shifting, securing loads, replacing tires, refueling, and random loading docks.

11. Hostile environment. Well done Boris /s

He’s discussing the US truck driver situation, seems a little unfair to put that on the prime minister of the UK.

The mentioned issues apply to truck drivers everywhere in the world.

The UK just added that 11th bullet point and is now suffering the costs of Brexit.

Ah you’re cruising the internet elbowing brexit into every discussion, I see. Carry on.

I don't know where you live, but for context, the departure of continental European truck drivers from the UK has been in the headlines a lot here of late; for those who live here the point isn't exactly elbowed in. Though I do appreciate our domestic issues are of little interest internationally.

Chiming in from the Continent <popcorn/>

The British media has indeed very successfully spun this to our domestic audience as a problem unique to the UK that's caused primarily by Brexit. I think that says more about the British media than about reality though; the complaints of local truck drivers seem very similar, and the industry here was complaining about driver shortages well before Brexit.

Driver shortages in the rest of Europe / the world aren't causing problems with fuel availability or supermarket stock.

Given similar complains and conditions a few years ago, and that Germany, France etc have since made improvements, but the UK has only added border controls and added barriers to working, it's no surprise that EU drivers left the UK.

I can confirm that it is also a problem here in Spain https://www.elmundotoday.com/2021/10/la-falta-de-camioneros-... and there was a huge backlog in licensing even before the pandemic. (Driver licensing here is a shitshow in any case.)

But then Spain didn't tell drivers from all over Europe that they are undesirable and unwanted, create a "hostile environment" for them and their families, and then dissolve our trading relationship with our most important partners.

Drivers also don't enjoy gambling with uncertain paperwork, peeing in bottles and crapping next to hedgerows as they wait for endless border queues, so why would they choose those routes when instead they can drive somewhere else where they're not hated, resented and officially unwelcome?

Your previous-discussion comment ("If you tag 'because of brexit' onto literally any headline it's instant click fodder at the moment") looks much more like cruising discussions elbowing in Brexit.

Neither person you replied to in this discussion mentioned Brexit in recent comments on other discussions.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28917605

> looks much more like cruising discussions elbowing in Brexit

Except it was a response to a post that already mentioned Brexit; and "elbowing in brexit" to imply brexit has been elbowed in (i.e. is erroneously mentioned) is a bit different.

There were some truck driving reality shows a while ago that centered around shipping app auctions.

The biggest problem was that whether the bid showed who was responsible for loading/unloading or not, whenever the truck pulled up the shipper was like, "Oh, I thought you knew that you had to arrange the loading/unloading." Some of the items were the size of a house, commercial printing presses, etc.

Reason A: The past ten years of people on HN telling everyone that robots will soon be driving all the trucks, that "driver" is a doomed profession.

Reason B: All the young people who believe reason A because they lacked any clear appreciation of the financial incentives behind the people making those statements. Which leads to:

Reason C: All those "tech-savvy" people who think of driving as no more than keeping between the lines without hitting anything.

seconded. Now that we've seen the fragility of self driving cars and the lack of originality in driving, I think it'll be some time before truckers will be replaced.

Maybe they won't be used much anymore to keep the device between two lines. They'll supervise that. But for everything else it seems a human being is required to be present.

He’s taking about over the road driving which is what you need to do to get one of those cushy local driving jobs. Basically any “good” company will require at least a year of experience before they will talk to you so people have to go over the road with one of the training companies where they realize driving a truck isn’t as glamorous as Hollywood makes it out to be. Takes a certain type of person to stick with long haul because it is indeed “a lifestyle”.

Does Hollywood really make truck driving out to be glamorous? I mean since the late '70s?

I cannot think of any other than over the top in 1987.

Funny enough, I worked mainly as a designer 20+ years. A lot of shared problems for truck drivers are present in the designers profession. No proper education, not adequate payment ("Dime a dozen" as someone stated here on HN), no respect.

I have found a way to circumvent all of this by creating my web company in early 2000s, but today find a little to none motivation to work as a designer. In one point in time I offered design services as a package bundled with web-development ( people still treat design as a some decoration with personal preference).

I can bring your company differentiation that will convert in a proven and very quantifiable ways.

But I won't. Living in the design UX journey, fixing things that everybody "wants" but nobody want to pay for, dealing with multiple "stakeholders" with no visual culture and common sense at all, creating thousand versions just to satisfy some subjective preferences.

Nope.

Working as a front-end engineer is way easier and monetary rewarding. You have more value, more respect, less time spend in "subjective" perception land. Things are binary. They work or don't work.

I hope, in the near future Figma, after collecting all the design "collaboration" practices to create Figma AI Designer SaaS and end this madness once for all.

> Things are binary. They work or they don't

Until a calendar view you add needs hotkey support and different calendar types and localization and ... "Oh, wait, that wasn't what was sold? But why would anyone think it would work any other way?? That's how a calendar is supposed to work!"

Still finding the same problems in freelance frontend dev and it makes me never want to do it again

Sorry, I have spend enough time in multiple roles, Design, PM, Management, etc.

I have done very scientific and statistically correct experiments to measure time spend in proper way of designing and proper way of front-end development.

I trust my numbers. When you do front-end development your problems are strictly technical, frustration point is little to none compared with designing something. You have multiple tools to debug and measure and your focus is clear.

Design has no quick debugging tools, you work with your knowledge and experience which you try to communicate most objectively with little to no success, because the engineers are always right and you are always categorized as nobody automatically.

This perception was present even in my case, as a designer who codes and pays engineers a competitive salary.

Just yesterday I saw here a job search with description of: Engineers who are Designers.:)

I fit perfectly the description in reverse: Designer who is Engineer. I can bring my ideas to life in full stack dev way. But never will sell my skills so stupidly.

P.S. Please, down-vote more. This is HN, designers here have little to no voice present. They fear a retribution and stay silent.

>because the engineers are always right and you are always categorized as nobody automatically

Seems like it's a (possibly present a lot) culture issue.

I love when there's a designer around. I don't give a shit about designing front-ends, so not having to double up at doing the how AND deciding the what is great.

But then I'm not particularly fond of front-end work anyway...

Two short videos about trucking in the UK: https://youtu.be/ZT5rQd_q-Eo https://youtu.be/f76q62k1cB0

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