They put A.I. in my truck. It warns me of everything I do wrong verbally. It reports everything to HQ. It is from a company called Solera. I take offense to this. Am I wrong? What can I do? Anything?
Let me explain why companies are doing things like this. They'll make unreasonable demands and when you make mistakes as a result, the AI will capture it and they'll use that in court to blame you as the employee and try to hold you personally liable. This is their way of saying you're nothing more than a liability to them. Fuck this system. I'd start demanding a new employment agreement to protect yourself.
Try to fight your company without organisation and you will be giving up your job. Look up the laws wherever you are and form a union. Be smart about it though and dont get caught in the act of forming it.
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do. "Tattling" programs are quickly becoming a staple of any sort of logistical jobs. Companies will parade it around as if it keeps people safe, or it protects the honest employees. It's designed to give them reasons to get rid of you.
I know it sucks. And corps are playing with the automation line. They don't want to replace too many jobs with automation because that will trigger the need for UBI to off-set the amount of jobless people no longer driving the economy. So, instead they've resorted to "churn and burn" practices. Things that allow them to burn people out and toss them aside and make it the workers fault.
More than that. It's designed first to enrich insurance, AI, and other business interests, to drive down wages and eventually replace humans with autonomous vehicles. Irobot.
Right to work is very misunderstood online. It's not the freebie everyone seems to think it is.
If you terminate sometime without documented cause, you can't deny their unemployment claims and must keep paying them in all 50 states.
The myth that they can fire you with no recourse is something they want everyone to believe so that nobody files for unemployment. when they're entitled to it.
That's definitely going to change in this political climate. There will be states where the head of the unemployment insurance will just stop paying at Trump's direction and ignore court orders. MMW
I program tattling programs for non-logistical industry. It does let us know if people mistreat equipment or even break speed limits. But what pays the bills is predictive maintenance or responding to reactive maintenance needs more quickly. We can reduce scheduled maintenance for longer and prevent failed parts from causing too much damage.
Sure it's a different industry but generally employees are expensive to hire and even more expensive to lose. Losing a job because of a number in an algorithm that decides to tattle is rare unless that employee is a total piece of shit that we were looking to sack for other reasons. Usually its a "Dude samsara told us you blew the speed limit in this town and we're going to get fined out the wazoo and you'll lose your DOT license. Dont do it again". If they do stupid shit again and get caught by the police, they might lose their DOT status for some number of months and be unemployable until it is restored. So really it is a safeguard to prevent that from happening in the first place and helps them KEEP their jobs longer.
Those Solera devices you've got are relatively common automotive IoT fleet trackers. They usually have gps antennas. They talk to the engine and transmission directly over canbus. Then they process that data and report what they see over a cell network. If they see nothing, they report that too with a heartbeat signal and various error codes.
Depending on the model, they sometimes have external cell antennas connected with a mini coaxial cable. Find it and unscrew it all the way, then re-screw it in by only 1 and a half rotations so it'll hang on but barely. Then clip the nearest ziptie so the cable wobbles free. It'll cause the nut on the coax to get a stress fracture in under a year. They will have to replace the gps/cell antenna module and those are like $300 a piece through Samsora. In the meantime you'll get iffy signal responses. Don't let them catch you cutting the zip tie on camera or you WILL lose your job.
Your truck will be in the maintenance shop relatively frequently at the request of whoever reads the reports for repair of that cell module. They won't find anything wrong with it, scratch their butts, then just screw it back down and replace the ziptie.
Hey director of IT for a trucking company here, i just want to reiterate this part!
Don't fucking do this. Any of this advice. You WILL lose your job and we WILL blacklist you from the industry for this shit. Maybe if you drivers could actually mange your fucking log books and follow the safety regulations we wouldn't need to have ELDs and camera and GPS and fucking canbus monitoring and annual inspections and all of the other """invasive nonsense""" the government requires.
I dont want it either. Its all crazy expensive, annoying to manage, and I have to constantly deal with drivers complaining about it.
Sorry. I'm a little upset with this issue because its a constant issue i have at work. But no there is nothing you can do besides just get another job.
I just want to reiterate it again. Do NOT mess with the equipment your company has in your truck. At best you'll just get fired but I've seen my company respond with legal measures in the past.
Maybe if you drivers could actually mange your fucking log books and follow the safety regulations we wouldn't need to have ELDs and camera and GPS and fucking canbus monitoring
Those companies would deploy this shit anyways even if the logs were perfect. Anything to blame the employee can and will be deployed.
Those companies would deploy this shit anyways even if the logs were perfect.
I want to say that businesses are famous for spending enormous amounts of money to fix a solved problem sarcastically but I've been working too long to believe it.
Still, so much of the problem isn't with the monitoring but the annoying middle-management response of stack-ranking all the drivers. Rather than just playing your hand, big employers are constantly trying to reshuffle and "optimize" staff in order to squeeze out an extra ounce of profit. And the end result is everyone being immiserated in order to give someone with a marginal fluctuation in performance a raise.
Anything to blame the employee can and will be deployed.
Same old shit. Companies treat employees like machines and numbers on a spreadsheet and demanding more and more productivity while paying lip service to rules and regs yet knowing that employees will skirt, bend, or break the rules to meet whatever sterile metric the beancounters set within the expected window.
Don’t meet the metric? Get some bad performance reviews. Start referencing the safety rules that slow you down? Not a team player. Get fired for some nebulous problem.
Most of the time it’s ignored, but when something goes wrong the company just blames the employee for failing to follow regs.
Automated system reporting just keeps the costs down by creating a higher turnover of employees.
Look I can tell you that no company wants to spend enormous amounts of money (we spend close to 7-figures per quarter for asset tracking) and pay an entire team of people to micromanage drivers. Plus companies and drivers make less money because they have to actually follow the rules now.
ELDs have been around for a really long time. It didn't become standard until 2017.
Trucking is so funny. There is an adversarial relationship between the drivers and the office, which you can see in this comment.
The industry is trying to solve safety issues caused by the nature of long haul driving and maintenance of profit in logistics by companies that use their services.
Trucking used to be a way a person could provide for their family, remain independent, and feel in control. Now, trucking is an industry where you are trapped in a moving computer designed primarily to reduce the insurance rates of the company that employs them, because their business practices and demands were so dangerous, individuals truckers had to drive more hours, get paid less for those hours, and literally drive themselves, and other motorists around them when they crashed, to death.
Then they blame the truckers as they race to bottom in hiring. Don't even get me started on nafta. Your industry sucks for the employees who are necessary to keep the economy moving.
Trucking used to be a way a person could provide for their family, remain independent, and feel in control.
Still can. There are still owner-operators, and they have significant control over how they do their job, as long as they aren't caught cooking their books (...which is what most drivers used to do before there were crackdowns, because you got paid per mile). They usually get paid a lot more than fleet drivers, because fleet drivers aren't responsible for the maintenance of the truck.
Unions aren't interested in pushing back against the invasive software because they know drivers haven't been following the rules.
Basically nobody in the industry wants this. It makes it harder to do our jobs, it's more annoying, and it's crazy expensive. But it's what you gotta do when drivers run 2 or 3 log books.
Yeah, this is a problem of pushing compliance to a level above the operator in an area where the perfection demanded by policy relies on traffic behaving perfectly, and drivers never experiencing delays or problems, to operate. The only way this goes away is a scarcity of drivers.
Someone who believes they know how to drive will suggest automated trucks, but the accident lawsuits will probably bankrupt the first companies.
If i were a new employee I would see it as a lack of trust. Also as some kind of buy-in to the idea that you must be doing "justifiable" actions every minute of the day.
Well the whole bit about backing out the nut is to cause it to fail in a manner that looks more like a maintenance problem and not a driver problem. Even when stuff like that only happens on one cab, it's not enough to point at a singular driver.
And yeah all of that advice comes with the rider that "you may be unemployable" afterwards.
Eh, that's never true. Some people will be caught. And the typical person who gets their CDL only works a few years before they realize the industry sucks for drivers and burnout.
I'm not going to claim a 100% catch rate, because that's impractical.
But we absolutely do frequently fire drivers for tampering with their trackers. Theres about 15 layers of checks and balances preventing a driver from disconnecting or otherwise disabling it.
I’m a little upset with this issue because its a constant issue i have at work.
maybe find a new job where you don't act like completely garbage manager? or work to find a human centric solution rather than... oppressive digital technologies?
I hope you end up with a neurolink in your skull and are constantly monitored for wrongthink.
you drivers could actually mange your fucking log books and follow the safety regulations
you are part of the reason everyone hates management. the overburden of society by technofascists like you will result in many horrible repercussions down the line.
Hey so it's actually the federal department of transportation that decides we need super invasive tracking! And they decided that after a ton of accidents directly caused by drivers not paying attention and working crazy hours.
I also don't want to pay or manage this crap but here we are.
Counterpoint: I would love to not be run over by a truck driver that decided that when redbull stops working a swig of whiskey will help him be awake after skipping the night sleep. You know how I know that I would love to not be in this situation? Because this exact situation happened to me and it sucks, even though I survived.
If anal probes is something that prevents heavy equipment operators from breaking the rules, so be it. I would prefer them not need that also.
Man i have had drivers i work go full on road rage. No really he reached up and tried to tuen off the camera. Im not sure if had a fake button or he jist pressed the wrong on. Bit he the grabbed a gun and got out. This was after pushing a car in the cement baracade.
Maybe truck drivers should have followed the rules better and drove safer. Drivers cooking their books have caused enormous amounts of harm and death, and that's ignoring the huge loss of money when a driver crashes because they've been driving for 26hrs straight.
Don't fucking damage company property. This is actually my biggest sticking point for this whole thing. I dont care if you like it or not, the hardware is not fucking yours and the hardware being there is part of your employment agreement. Don't like it? Tough shit buddy take it up with the DOT.
That's an awesome sermon from somebody who knows literally fuck all about trucking.
The industry created the problem by demanding that drivers go beyond any form of reasonable work, drive endless unsafe stretches and cook the books or they're the ones getting canned. It's an industry which downloads all the pain onto the drivers.
Shut the fuck up when you don't know what you're talking about. Don't just show up to scold people and make crap up and pull things out of your ass. You know nothing about trucking and that's clear.
The only part required by the govt is the electronic logbook. It doesnt need gps. It doesnt need ai. It doesnt need cell. It only needs the electronic logbook. So yeah - blow it up
Fun fact, ELDs require GPS. It's easy to find public information. There is also this web page which goes into more details about the "why" we have to have ELDs installed in trucks.
And the cell service is to allow the actual device to communicate back to the parent. At my company we use Samsara and Motive.
We do not use any AI features because we don't need them but I have talked to guys at other offices that do use it. Largely it's because of insurance. You can get crazy discounts on insurance for running something with the AI tracking. There are also some AI programs that optimize routing but those are """AI""" features not necessarily AI.
You're the fucking problem. Maybe if you treated people with humanity and worked towards a common solution instead of using technology to drain people's souls, you wouldn't have people that hate the shit you're slinging.
What you do makes the world a worse place to live in.
I appreciate you defending me, but I did say I was director of IT so unfortunately I am management. But it wasn't me deciding to install this stuff on our fleet, it was the federal government.
I’m also a supervisor at work but I don’t always get to decide on things. Often senior management gets an idea in their head and then I have to figure out how to implement it without breaking everything.
I do get to say I’m against something and I told you so. Which is usually followed by a compromise solution.
Eh. OP already told us they had no integrity. Ever met a truck driver? The overwhelming majority of them have no morals or integrity. There's a reason why. It's because they get to get paid for not being around people - it attracts people who suck. Not all truckers suck but the overwhelming majority of them do. I can't post something that will suddenly make some of them read it and go "By gum... I should become a better person!" But I can post some shit that might make their boss's job more difficult and possibly get OP fired which might be funny in a chaotic-evil kind of monday morning shitpost way.
None of that elaborate rationalization you just performed changes anything. You admit you counseled something unethical, but you want to insist that reflects on OP, not on you. So now it's not just a failure of integrity, but it's also sophistry.
Ever met a Lemmy poster? The overwhelming majority of them have no morals or integrity. There’s a reason why. It’s because they get to post while not being around people - it attracts people who suck. Not all posters suck but the overwhelming majority of them do. I can’t post something that will suddenly make some of them read it and go “By gum… I should become a better person!” But I can post some shit that might make their posting more difficult and possibly get OP banned which might be funny in a chaotic-evil kind of monday morning shitpost way.
When i was fed up with the bosses in my cushy job, I made the job more cushy by starting my independent company. Same work, more money, no assholes treating me like shit and i learned from that. Now my colleges also have a cushy job, with a competent, nice boss.
In the end, your mental and physical health should always come before the job. Money isn't that nice if you are stressed wreck. You should still look for other work just so you at least have some options if it ever gets too awful dealing with all the bullshit your current work forces on you. It's probably not going to get much better and any solution regarding disabling/mitigating the current surveillance is likely temporary at best.
Just try to do it in such way your current employer doesn't know about it, just in case they get uppity about it. So use only devices managed by yourself for it and dont talk about it with others working for same employer.
Why is organizing not an option? Seems like you've ignored every reply here regarding unions, when in reality it's the only possible way to ever get rid of the AI (and probably get you better pay and benefits)
Whats wrong with joining a union? Some 50 yrs ago, over 80% of factory workers were unionized, today its more like 30% iirc. Its not because unions dont work, its because they do and companies spend copius anounts to get them discredited.
I love how people talk about joining a union like it's making an order on Amazon.
If it was that easy bro probably wouldn't be asking for help.
The reality is in a lot of cases the easier thing to do is quit and fuck everyone else.
Unions do very little to make it easier to create a new one if you are not part of one already, and even if you have the will, you also need the network, people skills, patience, money and contacts to make it work.
Okay, I have to assume you dont actually know how unions work.
Unions arent employer specific. They can be industry specific but they dont have to be.
You just put your city or the industry you work into your favorite search engine and give the first 5 pages a cursory look. Whatever seems most interesting, you do a little research about. It the impression is net positive, you join them. Most unions also have some kind of solidarity thing where people who dont have a lot dont have to pay a lot.
In return, they help you with work problems, help you find new work in some cases and even strike with you.
I am not, which I realize is a huge privilege at this point in history. I've gone ahead and just searched workers union in atlanta (first city that came to mind) on duckduckgo and found this: https://ufcw1996.org/
You can also join the international version of the union which i am a member of. They're more radical and demand system change and quite large, depending on the country: https://www.iwa-ait.org/
I realize that the us has been completely gutted in terms of unions. That does not excuse not trying to join one and it is exceedingly stupid to blame anyone but the powers that be for this.
Individualizing systemic oppression is one of the largest weapons against an organized population. Making you hate your neighbor, the local soup kitchen etc for some bogus reason is what isolates people an makes them easy to manipulate.
Keep that in mind if you get frustrated with democracy inducing organizations sometimes not being perfect. "Perfection" is another bogus idea of our sick system. "Works" is what we should strive for and noting more because that means more exploitation of life.
I wish you a good read and feel free to contact me if you need help.
You are giving a perfect example of what I'm saying. Zero of your information is useful or applicable and you insist that "just do it bro" is the answer.
You apparently don't even know unions work differently depending on the country, and yet you "educated" me as if you were giving me the secret to catgirls.
This is exactly my point. There is a disconnect between the ideologues and those privileged enough to be able to join an existing union, and the reality of the majority of workers that can't simply "just join a union or make your own" like its ordering a meal of Uber eats.
Unions are a privilege, and we should stop acting like it's something anyone can "just get one bro".
You're aware that you're claiming things and provide no sources or proof for them, right?
Maybe lets start with trying to do the basics in debating other people. If you make a statement that is not unilaterally understandable, you back it up.
That said, your ad hominem shows me you lack the personality to survive in a union. Going after fellow workers gets you kicked out in a heartbeat. We're one class. Divided we fall, united we stand.
Now show respect and explain if you think I'm wrong or gtfo.
"You lack the personality to survive in a union" yikes.
Sometimes I wonder if people like you are actually purposefully bad actors trying to give worker movements a bad rep.
But yeah, blind ideologues like you are exactly what I'm talking about. Sorry you need someone to explain this to you. Don't worry I'm sure you'll find someone who can deal with you.
You seem kinda despairing and dismissive of the obvious answer... talking to your union.
You have no power over your employer, but your union does.
Additionally, and this is kinda wild but, have you spoken to your supervisor? What did they say? Did you explain what it is about it that's so annoying?
I've worked as a consultant for companies that use this type of thing and most disable the verbal warnings and stuff because they're not helpful in any way.
IDK how things roll in the US. In Australia I think most jobs can find a Union.
Even if you don't formally unionise, talking and negotiation is the way to resolve this. If all the drivers express their misgivings to their supervisor in unison they're likely to be heard.
In the US the manager is likely to tell them all to pound sand if they dont like it. We have very few workers rights here sadly.
You are correct that being in a Union would be much better. I wish we had more of that here, but a lot of people believe the BS that they get fed from thier corporate overloards that Unions are bad.
Stick a chewing gum on the thing's speaker and start singing songs with very dirty and explicit lyrics, like gangsta rap and Bloodhound Gang.
All day long, everyday.
Persuade your colleagues to do the same.
They will have an endless string of report notifications they can't do shit about.
Fight smart.
Edit: still the best thing to do is unionize as many others already suggested, but fighting on more than one front is a good tactic, wars are won by exhausting your opponent.
Are you paid by the hour or per delivery? If by hour, malicious compliance. Stay 5mph below speed limit because you don't want to be flagged. AI doesn't recognize the street as such? Take a long detour, it didn't allow me to take that route. It complains about overtaking? Never overtake ever again someone was to close to the truck when you tried to back in? Never back in again unless the premises is completely clear of people.
Oh and find a better employer. An employer that doesn't trusts its employees is never worth it.
It's usually per mile if its long haul, which is the root of all the problems because that incentivizes the driver to go faster and spend less time on other things. And it fucks the driver over because they don't get paid if they're not moving, even if they're waiting on someone else.
They don't care until they don't have any truckers. Then they care.
If its a big company like old dominion, they likely wont give a fuck ever, but my company always has trouble keeping hold of truckers and they really do give a shit about the churn.
This is becoming more common in a variety of jobs. I work in tech, and have heard from colleagues about their experiences with nanny software. Without a union, your best bet is malicious compliance. I would start looking for hacker communities and posting there, because there can be simple but non-obvious ways to circumvent controls while still seeming to comply, which protects your job.
Alright, so you probably can't get rid of it, but you can make it look like it's defective. Make it look like it's sending way too many false positives. Find somewhere where you can get away with making obvious mistakes and then make like fifty of them in a row. "Why would I, an intelligent human being, just sit in the middle of an empty street doing donuts in an 18-wheeler for 10 straight minutes? I have a job to do," you say. If you got one of those "constantly monitoring everything you say" things Amazon tried rolling out, just start spouting random gibberish. Some pencil-pusher at HQ sees a transcript come back that just says "reptile shoestring meridian front sawdust henway ball Amtrak septuagint ladder correct horse battery staple java thorpe 2 Chainz" over and over for like 40 pages, worst-case scenario he's not gonna read it, best-case scenario he's gonna think the company's paying way too much for shit that don't work.
I’d honestly just put on some Scandinavian death metal and let the voice recognition software pick up gibberish English trying to anglify Norwegian and Swedish.
Here emergency vehicles only put their sirens on for a few seconds when they're stuck behind some oblivious idiot who hasn't seen them coming and pulled over.
How's are rarely used to alert you to something you need to be aware of.
Even so, noise cancelling headphones suck at blocking that type of sound. It mitigates ongoing noises like engine sound, but not something with changing pitch like a horn or siren.
Horns are ABSOLUTELY used to alert you to something you need to be aware and prevent accidents all the time. Just because assholes like to misuse them doesn't change the reasoning on why they are required on all vehicles.
Sirens are specifically useful when you are around a blind corner and an emergency vehicle is coming toward you. Or when you otherwise don't have line of sight with the stoving lights.
Earplugs don't descriminate they just dull your senses. Noise canceling headphones are to a lesser extent a handicap.
You'd have to get everyone with the system to do the same, otherwise it looks like 1 unit is bad. After replacing it, they'll know something's up if one dudes unit is putting out gibberish
These things are smarter / dumber than that. They talk directly to the engine and transmission with canbus to record operating conditions. And they have a dedicated GPS antenna. Then they generate a live report from that data that is sent over a dedicated cell connection.
Talking nonsense to it or driving in circles wont fool it. I recommend physical sabotage that mimics installation failure.
While looking for a new job. Be slow and careful about everything. If the tattler is snitching on you, take your time to make sure everything is correct.
Painfully, extra-slowly correct, keep slowing it down until management notices and asks. Tell them you're just doing what's needed to keep the AI off your back
Its understandable though. Even though its also understandable the company would want to know where the trucks are, its also telling the drivers that they dont really trust them to do their job without surveillance. It should be enough that the freight gets delivered within agreed time and not too much fuel is used up in the process.
Personally i would compare the gps to office having sensors that record constantly which room you are occupying. With the ai its like having a camera constantly monitor exactly what are you doing at every given moment. And if you do anything company doesn't like you will be punished. Not only is it insulting, its exhausting having to ceaselessly consider is everything you are doing acceptable to whatever sensible or insensible rules the corporate executives have decided.
People who want to be truckers most likely are kind of people who like working by themselves and not having to answer for every single thing they do at every moment and now even that is being taken away from them.
Of COURSE they don't 100% trust fallible human beings with their multi million dollar assets and consignments. It's not insulting unless you are all up in your ego, any more than having to sign something saying that you've inspected the cargo is.
And if you do anything company doesn’t like you will be punished.
Doesn't change anything. You don't have to swim faster than the shark, you just have to swim faster than the worst trucker on staff. Just means that they have better data to make the same decisions they were already making. It's all zero-sum and if it's bad for one trucker, it's good for another who was until now going without recognition.
My company has their own llm now meant for internal employees, what baffles me is they exposed the domain to the internet. Can’t wait for this to backfire.
You're looking for anything related to radio or telemetry.
Push the fuse back in when you're done working for the day.
If they ask what was wrong, pretend you don't know what they mean. It's not your truck. Maybe they should have their technician look into it, everything seemed fine on your end.
Do you have to violate laws/regulations laws to meet schedules? Perhaps malicious compliance and adhere to all laws. As some have said, a union could help.
If you don't have to violate laws/regulations to meet schedule, perhaps consider adhering to laws/regulations.
Btw these little DIY 2.4 GHz jammers are also very handy to have just in case. As long as you get them out the way before you set off the EMP generator 😅
radio jammers like this are federally illegal in the US and possession of one is a massive felony. That's if anyone notices and you get caught, but just a heads up.
yeah owning one alone is unlikely to get you caught, and you can probably come up with excuses ("it's just an SDR not a jammer!") but they're extremely heavily restricted over here.
A lifehack that might wind you up in federal prison. Breaking company equipment is one thing and it might cost you your job and a small settlement. That's the kind of advice I don't mind giving. I do generally try not to tell people to commit felonies.
This is for emergencies, during riots and such because it can take down drones and disrupt communication. I think people should figure out for themselves if their use case is morally permissible and worth the risk. I'm just sharing info that's readily available. Also owning this is legal where I live and I'm not even sure we have a word for felony.
You can of course quit now, but that will mean you're job hunting while unemployed, which is a far worse scenario. You can also just put up with it, but it sounds like that's a shit scenario too.
So the best course of action you can immediately take right now is go window shopping for a new job until you find something you like. Whether it comes by this week or six months from now, you have the luxury of having nothing to lose here and you have the best hand.
Even look at getting a new certification if you feel like it and if you can—ball's in your court. Every time that little bastard undermines you, let it be the fuel that's encouraging you off to greener pastures. Explain that in your exit interview, and remark on how they've come up with an interesting employee retention strategy.
Hi. 3F Copenhagen member here. I believe the scaffolders club are organising something over a similar situation that is, however, less intrusive than yours. Your situation is like a horror story version of what the scaffolders are getting (GPS tracking, logging of their company vehicles. They don't have AI... Yet...).
I feel ya, mate. I've got the same thing in my company vehicle. It absolutely irritates the shit out of me that anyone above my level of the hierarchy can look at me any time they want.
Ha, I wish! They've fired people already for merely obscuring the camera for a few seconds. There is a hilarious clip of someone reaching up with a pair of scissors and getting the wire, but I like having a steady job with insurance too much. Maybe when I get tired of this shit and get hired somewhere else.
That's going to be incredibly illegal to use outdoors. Make sure you know what the regulations are before engaging in any kind of jamming, you might block someone else's emergency transmissions.
Yes this problem likely won't be solved without someone taking apart the telemetry software. Spoofing the sensor data is an option if you understand how the data is collected but hardly a good option for someone without a specific skillset
Hm. Im not in your position so take what I say with a grain of salt, but, malicious compliance. Do everything right. Sit at red lights. Miss exits. Etc.
Lol I also didn't understand wtf OP was talking about and thought he this was a schizo thing. The context missing from the title is apparently that it's a company vehicle.
Holy fuck you all are a bunch of callous assholes. Telling someone to "join a union" or "ask your union" about it are fucking mental. Do you really think OP is working a union gig or are you really that stupid to think you just go out to the union store and ask for one union card? How is this helpful to anyone who is in a non-union job working for a non-union company. I'll bet you all are the same people that tell depressed people to "just be happy." It's just useless, if not ourtright malicious, advice to give someone.
It's really not even advice. It's just self aggrandizement and dumbass people looking for a circle jerk to join. It doesn't address the issue that OP has in the slightest practical way, and is kind of callus to their actual problem.
There are two camps in this thread. On one side you have people saying to move to a workplace with a union. On the other hand you have people advising criminal retaliation, vandalism, sabotage, and fraud. And you have a problem with the unionists.
I have no problem with unions and I'm extremely pro-union. I'm also practical and not naive enough to think that you can join a union in every job. They don't exist for a lot of jobs at all and you have to be very diligent to be able to form one without losing your job from unjustly being fired.
What I hate is people giving shitty advice so they can feel superior. "Join a union" is great advice if your job/field already has one. "Join a union" when someone has a work dispute with their clearly non-union employer is idiocy and belittling to the person that is asking the question. I made the analogy above, so I'll turn your question on its head, do you think depressed people should just try to be happy? Because it's the same level of advice as, "Join a union" in this instance.
No, it's on the same level as "make major life changes" to either a depressed person, or someone working in a non-union environment. There is no analogy needed. Sometimes you cannot make major life changes, even if it might help with significant problems. But we don't know that. It's valid advice. Unlike everything else said in this thread.
Idk why you're getting downvoted. You're right. It's insane that for some people "create a union" seems to be a magic solution that anyone can just magically do on their own.
There is a lot of magical thinking and ideology in this thread, very little grounded, human to human advice.
I know most of the comments here are from ignorant disinterested observers who aren't really thinking through what they are saying, but man. If the first thing you think of is fraud and sabotage when your employer acts within the boundaries of your contract, you're a bad person.
Okay... Bootlicker: A person who behaves in a servile or obsequious manner.
You seem to be an ardent defender of the ownership/elite/capital class's controlling behaviors. If you're not a member of that class and say what you have been saying, then you are a bootlicker of said class.
I don't believe me calling you a bootlicker is an endorsement of fraud or sabotage, although I hope things work out for OP. That would be such a demeaning situation to be in.
Crazy idea I haven't seen posted here, but hear me out:
Stop driving like a dick. Follow the rules of the road. Stop speeding. Stop swerving. Stop going over the lines at stop signs and traffic lights. ETC...
This will slow down the route by hours. That's the only way that they'll discontinue it, when they realize that it's making the delivery routes slower.
and stop driving like a dick, you're driving a fucking truck.
Meh, these systems are ripe for false positives, all it does is weed out riskier drivers, or provide incentive to encourage reduction in pay and benefits in order to mitigate said "risk." These systems are cancerous.
You trust some POS computer over a human driver? I don't. If the damn computer is so correct in its assessment, it should be driving. And, obviously, I know that's coming, but it's not here yet. It should be one, or the other, not a computer back-seat driver.
Usually they just flag events like really hard braking or other high-g events, speeding, travelling off-route if you pay for that module, and operating hours. At least that's the easy to tattle stuff. They're not smart enough to do anything like drive for you.
But some operators DO need to calm the fuck down and just obey the speed limit. These things usually let their manager know they're shitty drivers before the police let them know they're shitty drivers and they subsequently lose their DOT certification.
It exists in some cars, but it's clunky and anyone with used car experience gets a jump scare every time it happens. It's really only well implemented in hybrids.
You form a union and bargain with your employer. Thats about it though
Let me explain why companies are doing things like this. They'll make unreasonable demands and when you make mistakes as a result, the AI will capture it and they'll use that in court to blame you as the employee and try to hold you personally liable. This is their way of saying you're nothing more than a liability to them. Fuck this system. I'd start demanding a new employment agreement to protect yourself.
Or seek greener non-ai-infested pastures
Yea give up to A.I. that's the only choice.
I think you misunderstand what a union does.
Try to fight your company without organisation and you will be giving up your job. Look up the laws wherever you are and form a union. Be smart about it though and dont get caught in the act of forming it.
Pretty sure literally nobody here said that
Nope, refuse.
that's what your company wants you to believe
Don't be a pussy.
https://generalstrikeus.com/
Unfortunately, there is nothing you can do. "Tattling" programs are quickly becoming a staple of any sort of logistical jobs. Companies will parade it around as if it keeps people safe, or it protects the honest employees. It's designed to give them reasons to get rid of you.
You speak the truth.
I know it sucks. And corps are playing with the automation line. They don't want to replace too many jobs with automation because that will trigger the need for UBI to off-set the amount of jobless people no longer driving the economy. So, instead they've resorted to "churn and burn" practices. Things that allow them to burn people out and toss them aside and make it the workers fault.
More than that. It's designed first to enrich insurance, AI, and other business interests, to drive down wages and eventually replace humans with autonomous vehicles. Irobot.
Yeah, in a world where we are short of drivers and they are hiring questionable people, they are looking for reasons to fire you.
Doubly funny if OP is American, where you simply don't need reasons to fire people.
Right to work is very misunderstood online. It's not the freebie everyone seems to think it is.
If you terminate sometime without documented cause, you can't deny their unemployment claims and must keep paying them in all 50 states.
The myth that they can fire you with no recourse is something they want everyone to believe so that nobody files for unemployment. when they're entitled to it.
That's definitely going to change in this political climate. There will be states where the head of the unemployment insurance will just stop paying at Trump's direction and ignore court orders. MMW
This is true in every state but Montana.
I program tattling programs for non-logistical industry. It does let us know if people mistreat equipment or even break speed limits. But what pays the bills is predictive maintenance or responding to reactive maintenance needs more quickly. We can reduce scheduled maintenance for longer and prevent failed parts from causing too much damage.
Sure it's a different industry but generally employees are expensive to hire and even more expensive to lose. Losing a job because of a number in an algorithm that decides to tattle is rare unless that employee is a total piece of shit that we were looking to sack for other reasons. Usually its a "Dude samsara told us you blew the speed limit in this town and we're going to get fined out the wazoo and you'll lose your DOT license. Dont do it again". If they do stupid shit again and get caught by the police, they might lose their DOT status for some number of months and be unemployable until it is restored. So really it is a safeguard to prevent that from happening in the first place and helps them KEEP their jobs longer.
This is the reason Unions exist.
Individually you have no power. As a group you do have power to force them to revoke these decisions.
Your choice is joining a Union or not.
Pretty much it. Unless there's an infringement of labor law. I don't know where they work or much about other countries labor laws.
They would probably need to hire a lawyer in this case. Unions usually also help in these cases.
Also of you try to get your peers to unionize they "find a reason" to fire you for something totally unrelated
Quit and work on a jobsite somewhere with a motley crew of blue collar misfits?
.
Another comment said unions aren't interested in getting rid of this.
Not my experience.
In my job they are trying to do something similar (AI driven productivity control) and unions are fighting against it.
Those Solera devices you've got are relatively common automotive IoT fleet trackers. They usually have gps antennas. They talk to the engine and transmission directly over canbus. Then they process that data and report what they see over a cell network. If they see nothing, they report that too with a heartbeat signal and various error codes.
Depending on the model, they sometimes have external cell antennas connected with a mini coaxial cable. Find it and unscrew it all the way, then re-screw it in by only 1 and a half rotations so it'll hang on but barely. Then clip the nearest ziptie so the cable wobbles free. It'll cause the nut on the coax to get a stress fracture in under a year. They will have to replace the gps/cell antenna module and those are like $300 a piece through Samsora. In the meantime you'll get iffy signal responses. Don't let them catch you cutting the zip tie on camera or you WILL lose your job.
Your truck will be in the maintenance shop relatively frequently at the request of whoever reads the reports for repair of that cell module. They won't find anything wrong with it, scratch their butts, then just screw it back down and replace the ziptie.
Unscrew it and clip it again.
Hey director of IT for a trucking company here, i just want to reiterate this part!
Don't fucking do this. Any of this advice. You WILL lose your job and we WILL blacklist you from the industry for this shit. Maybe if you drivers could actually mange your fucking log books and follow the safety regulations we wouldn't need to have ELDs and camera and GPS and fucking canbus monitoring and annual inspections and all of the other """invasive nonsense""" the government requires.
I dont want it either. Its all crazy expensive, annoying to manage, and I have to constantly deal with drivers complaining about it.
Sorry. I'm a little upset with this issue because its a constant issue i have at work. But no there is nothing you can do besides just get another job.
I just want to reiterate it again. Do NOT mess with the equipment your company has in your truck. At best you'll just get fired but I've seen my company respond with legal measures in the past.
Those companies would deploy this shit anyways even if the logs were perfect. Anything to blame the employee can and will be deployed.
I want to say that businesses are famous for spending enormous amounts of money to fix a solved problem sarcastically but I've been working too long to believe it.
Still, so much of the problem isn't with the monitoring but the annoying middle-management response of stack-ranking all the drivers. Rather than just playing your hand, big employers are constantly trying to reshuffle and "optimize" staff in order to squeeze out an extra ounce of profit. And the end result is everyone being immiserated in order to give someone with a marginal fluctuation in performance a raise.
Shit rolls downhill.
Same old shit. Companies treat employees like machines and numbers on a spreadsheet and demanding more and more productivity while paying lip service to rules and regs yet knowing that employees will skirt, bend, or break the rules to meet whatever sterile metric the beancounters set within the expected window.
Don’t meet the metric? Get some bad performance reviews. Start referencing the safety rules that slow you down? Not a team player. Get fired for some nebulous problem.
Most of the time it’s ignored, but when something goes wrong the company just blames the employee for failing to follow regs.
Automated system reporting just keeps the costs down by creating a higher turnover of employees.
Look I can tell you that no company wants to spend enormous amounts of money (we spend close to 7-figures per quarter for asset tracking) and pay an entire team of people to micromanage drivers. Plus companies and drivers make less money because they have to actually follow the rules now.
ELDs have been around for a really long time. It didn't become standard until 2017.
Trucking is so funny. There is an adversarial relationship between the drivers and the office, which you can see in this comment.
The industry is trying to solve safety issues caused by the nature of long haul driving and maintenance of profit in logistics by companies that use their services.
Trucking used to be a way a person could provide for their family, remain independent, and feel in control. Now, trucking is an industry where you are trapped in a moving computer designed primarily to reduce the insurance rates of the company that employs them, because their business practices and demands were so dangerous, individuals truckers had to drive more hours, get paid less for those hours, and literally drive themselves, and other motorists around them when they crashed, to death.
Then they blame the truckers as they race to bottom in hiring. Don't even get me started on nafta. Your industry sucks for the employees who are necessary to keep the economy moving.
Still can. There are still owner-operators, and they have significant control over how they do their job, as long as they aren't caught cooking their books (...which is what most drivers used to do before there were crackdowns, because you got paid per mile). They usually get paid a lot more than fleet drivers, because fleet drivers aren't responsible for the maintenance of the truck.
The safe way to fight back is through the trucking unions, which don't seem interested in getting rid of this invasive software.
But if every trucker did this they couldn't blacklist them all.
Unions aren't interested in pushing back against the invasive software because they know drivers haven't been following the rules.
Basically nobody in the industry wants this. It makes it harder to do our jobs, it's more annoying, and it's crazy expensive. But it's what you gotta do when drivers run 2 or 3 log books.
Yeah, this is a problem of pushing compliance to a level above the operator in an area where the perfection demanded by policy relies on traffic behaving perfectly, and drivers never experiencing delays or problems, to operate. The only way this goes away is a scarcity of drivers.
Someone who believes they know how to drive will suggest automated trucks, but the accident lawsuits will probably bankrupt the first companies.
It would work if you made lanes for self driving trucks.
You could then tie a bunch of trucks together, and have them run on this special lane.
This is brilliant! You can even let the front truck pull all the others tied behind it so you need fewer working engines.
What if you added guide rails to the lane so the trucks didn’t have to steer?
I dunno, companies would start cutting costs by firing all but the front driver. Need strong unions in place before that.
And we could manage traffic stops when one is going to cross another street so it can save on fuel for not having to stop!
End result? We turn into crabs. 🦀
Woah buddy, you're just talking crazy now.
Because no one would drive in them ever, they would respect the sanctity of the truckpool lane.
Yeah, and you assume other drivers won't drive in the wrong lane
My dude. How would you like a camera over your shoulder every minute of your workday, recording your every move? What might you do faced with that?
shown it my nuts
Name checks out
Nice
I work in an office with cameras ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"I'm oppressed so I must also oppress those I have power over"
What's their justification for needing them?
I sure hope they don't use the word "team." Because that ain't it.
Its an office space we lease. I am not sure who originally installed them as they were there when we moved in.
We do manage them and retain the recordings though.
If i were a new employee I would see it as a lack of trust. Also as some kind of buy-in to the idea that you must be doing "justifiable" actions every minute of the day.
And that's completely understandable.
But I know, at least in our case, it's just there for insurance purposes in case something happens. Which, thankfully nothing has.
..and you're okay with being recorded all day long, just like that?
I understand the practical limitations of privacy. But as the IT admin i am also the one who manages the cameras and access to them so that helps.
Well the whole bit about backing out the nut is to cause it to fail in a manner that looks more like a maintenance problem and not a driver problem. Even when stuff like that only happens on one cab, it's not enough to point at a singular driver.
And yeah all of that advice comes with the rider that "you may be unemployable" afterwards.
Yeah I get that. But you aren't clever and you aren't the first one to think about that.
We will catch you
Eh, that's never true. Some people will be caught. And the typical person who gets their CDL only works a few years before they realize the industry sucks for drivers and burnout.
I'm not going to claim a 100% catch rate, because that's impractical.
But we absolutely do frequently fire drivers for tampering with their trackers. Theres about 15 layers of checks and balances preventing a driver from disconnecting or otherwise disabling it.
Man getting unemployment sounds like heaven.
Doubt it
Lol I don't care about OP getting caught. This isnt the r/goodlifeadvice
truckgpt will be here soon, unfortunately
That’s the idea. Replace them with driverless vehicles.
The IT lackey just trying to make ends meet has no say in this process.
ah, the just following orders guy
this is a similar argument to the nazis. this is how bureaucracy and management normalize oppressive conditions. a bunch of weak yes-men
Reductio ad Hitlerum is a really weird thing to pull out of your ass on this particular discussion.
idk man, it only happened like 80 years ago. seems to be more relevant than ever.
You know there's plenty of control freaks micromanaging everything underneath them even if it pisses off their best people to the point of quitting.
Especially those 1 or 2 rungs higher up the chain who need to make up problems to solve so they can justify their existence.
you're confabulating
Who tf references a truck driver blacklist?
This is gonna blow your mind... But other transportation companies...
Truck driving companies.....??
HR, always.
This is literally 90% of what they're paid to do.
maybe find a new job where you don't act like completely garbage manager? or work to find a human centric solution rather than... oppressive digital technologies?
I hope you end up with a neurolink in your skull and are constantly monitored for wrongthink.
you are part of the reason everyone hates management. the overburden of society by technofascists like you will result in many horrible repercussions down the line.
giving nerds any power over workers was a mistake
Hey so it's actually the federal department of transportation that decides we need super invasive tracking! And they decided that after a ton of accidents directly caused by drivers not paying attention and working crazy hours.
I also don't want to pay or manage this crap but here we are.
Counterpoint: I would love to not be run over by a truck driver that decided that when redbull stops working a swig of whiskey will help him be awake after skipping the night sleep. You know how I know that I would love to not be in this situation? Because this exact situation happened to me and it sucks, even though I survived.
If anal probes is something that prevents heavy equipment operators from breaking the rules, so be it. I would prefer them not need that also.
Personally I'm very pro-probe. All the probes, all the time.
Man i have had drivers i work go full on road rage. No really he reached up and tried to tuen off the camera. Im not sure if had a fake button or he jist pressed the wrong on. Bit he the grabbed a gun and got out. This was after pushing a car in the cement baracade.
Its crqzy what some people do in cars
So, what I'm hearing is "don't struggle or it's gonna hurt more". I think this advice is horrible.
No. It's two things.
Maybe truck drivers should have followed the rules better and drove safer. Drivers cooking their books have caused enormous amounts of harm and death, and that's ignoring the huge loss of money when a driver crashes because they've been driving for 26hrs straight.
Don't fucking damage company property. This is actually my biggest sticking point for this whole thing. I dont care if you like it or not, the hardware is not fucking yours and the hardware being there is part of your employment agreement. Don't like it? Tough shit buddy take it up with the DOT.
That's an awesome sermon from somebody who knows literally fuck all about trucking.
The industry created the problem by demanding that drivers go beyond any form of reasonable work, drive endless unsafe stretches and cook the books or they're the ones getting canned. It's an industry which downloads all the pain onto the drivers.
Shut the fuck up when you don't know what you're talking about. Don't just show up to scold people and make crap up and pull things out of your ass. You know nothing about trucking and that's clear.
I like how you ignored the part that actually upsets me about this.
Don't fucking damage company property
-you
No its more
But yeah blow it up to an unreasonable level and anything sounds crazy.
The only part required by the govt is the electronic logbook. It doesnt need gps. It doesnt need ai. It doesnt need cell. It only needs the electronic logbook. So yeah - blow it up
Fun fact, ELDs require GPS. It's easy to find public information. There is also this web page which goes into more details about the "why" we have to have ELDs installed in trucks.
And the cell service is to allow the actual device to communicate back to the parent. At my company we use Samsara and Motive.
We do not use any AI features because we don't need them but I have talked to guys at other offices that do use it. Largely it's because of insurance. You can get crazy discounts on insurance for running something with the AI tracking. There are also some AI programs that optimize routing but those are """AI""" features not necessarily AI.
You're the fucking problem. Maybe if you treated people with humanity and worked towards a common solution instead of using technology to drain people's souls, you wouldn't have people that hate the shit you're slinging.
What you do makes the world a worse place to live in.
He didn’t say he was management and bought the stuff. He said he worked in IT. So with any power to make decision across a fleet.
I appreciate you defending me, but I did say I was director of IT so unfortunately I am management. But it wasn't me deciding to install this stuff on our fleet, it was the federal government.
I’m also a supervisor at work but I don’t always get to decide on things. Often senior management gets an idea in their head and then I have to figure out how to implement it without breaking everything.
I do get to say I’m against something and I told you so. Which is usually followed by a compromise solution.
The director of IT at a trucking company absolutely would have power over the devices used by said company.
Or, conduct yourself with integrity. Advising someone to compromise their integrity is pretty shitty.
Eh. OP already told us they had no integrity. Ever met a truck driver? The overwhelming majority of them have no morals or integrity. There's a reason why. It's because they get to get paid for not being around people - it attracts people who suck. Not all truckers suck but the overwhelming majority of them do. I can't post something that will suddenly make some of them read it and go "By gum... I should become a better person!" But I can post some shit that might make their boss's job more difficult and possibly get OP fired which might be funny in a chaotic-evil kind of monday morning shitpost way.
None of that elaborate rationalization you just performed changes anything. You admit you counseled something unethical, but you want to insist that reflects on OP, not on you. So now it's not just a failure of integrity, but it's also sophistry.
its unethical to ... not listen to your shitty boss. gotcha.
I like that you think I care. Like I said. Chaotic-evil monday morning shitpost.
Ever met a Lemmy poster? The overwhelming majority of them have no morals or integrity. There’s a reason why. It’s because they get to post while not being around people - it attracts people who suck. Not all posters suck but the overwhelming majority of them do. I can’t post something that will suddenly make some of them read it and go “By gum… I should become a better person!” But I can post some shit that might make their posting more difficult and possibly get OP banned which might be funny in a chaotic-evil kind of monday morning shitpost way.
You do me proud by copypastaing my shitpost
Your options (pick any combination you please):
Those are good options but I get paid 32.75 per hour during the week and 40.75 on weekends and its a pretty cushy job. Hard to just get new job.
When i was fed up with the bosses in my cushy job, I made the job more cushy by starting my independent company. Same work, more money, no assholes treating me like shit and i learned from that. Now my colleges also have a cushy job, with a competent, nice boss.
You hiring? 😎
Not currently but it's a software dev company anyways. We have to logistics software though. And not the asshole kind.
In the end, your mental and physical health should always come before the job. Money isn't that nice if you are stressed wreck. You should still look for other work just so you at least have some options if it ever gets too awful dealing with all the bullshit your current work forces on you. It's probably not going to get much better and any solution regarding disabling/mitigating the current surveillance is likely temporary at best.
Just try to do it in such way your current employer doesn't know about it, just in case they get uppity about it. So use only devices managed by yourself for it and dont talk about it with others working for same employer.
Why is organizing not an option? Seems like you've ignored every reply here regarding unions, when in reality it's the only possible way to ever get rid of the AI (and probably get you better pay and benefits)
Whats wrong with joining a union? Some 50 yrs ago, over 80% of factory workers were unionized, today its more like 30% iirc. Its not because unions dont work, its because they do and companies spend copius anounts to get them discredited.
JOIN A UNION.
I love how people talk about joining a union like it's making an order on Amazon.
If it was that easy bro probably wouldn't be asking for help.
The reality is in a lot of cases the easier thing to do is quit and fuck everyone else.
Unions do very little to make it easier to create a new one if you are not part of one already, and even if you have the will, you also need the network, people skills, patience, money and contacts to make it work.
Okay, I have to assume you dont actually know how unions work.
Unions arent employer specific. They can be industry specific but they dont have to be.
You just put your city or the industry you work into your favorite search engine and give the first 5 pages a cursory look. Whatever seems most interesting, you do a little research about. It the impression is net positive, you join them. Most unions also have some kind of solidarity thing where people who dont have a lot dont have to pay a lot.
In return, they help you with work problems, help you find new work in some cases and even strike with you.
Please join unions.
Are you in the US? I just tried that for my job and found exactly as many options as expected. I'll give you 0 guesses how many it was.
I am not, which I realize is a huge privilege at this point in history. I've gone ahead and just searched workers union in atlanta (first city that came to mind) on duckduckgo and found this: https://ufcw1996.org/
You can also join the international version of the union which i am a member of. They're more radical and demand system change and quite large, depending on the country: https://www.iwa-ait.org/
I realize that the us has been completely gutted in terms of unions. That does not excuse not trying to join one and it is exceedingly stupid to blame anyone but the powers that be for this.
Individualizing systemic oppression is one of the largest weapons against an organized population. Making you hate your neighbor, the local soup kitchen etc for some bogus reason is what isolates people an makes them easy to manipulate.
Keep that in mind if you get frustrated with democracy inducing organizations sometimes not being perfect. "Perfection" is another bogus idea of our sick system. "Works" is what we should strive for and noting more because that means more exploitation of life.
I wish you a good read and feel free to contact me if you need help.
You are giving a perfect example of what I'm saying. Zero of your information is useful or applicable and you insist that "just do it bro" is the answer.
You apparently don't even know unions work differently depending on the country, and yet you "educated" me as if you were giving me the secret to catgirls.
This is exactly my point. There is a disconnect between the ideologues and those privileged enough to be able to join an existing union, and the reality of the majority of workers that can't simply "just join a union or make your own" like its ordering a meal of Uber eats.
Unions are a privilege, and we should stop acting like it's something anyone can "just get one bro".
You're aware that you're claiming things and provide no sources or proof for them, right?
Maybe lets start with trying to do the basics in debating other people. If you make a statement that is not unilaterally understandable, you back it up.
That said, your ad hominem shows me you lack the personality to survive in a union. Going after fellow workers gets you kicked out in a heartbeat. We're one class. Divided we fall, united we stand.
Now show respect and explain if you think I'm wrong or gtfo.
"You lack the personality to survive in a union" yikes.
Sometimes I wonder if people like you are actually purposefully bad actors trying to give worker movements a bad rep.
But yeah, blind ideologues like you are exactly what I'm talking about. Sorry you need someone to explain this to you. Don't worry I'm sure you'll find someone who can deal with you.
Cheers buddy.
As much as others may hate it, hexbear has actually pinned great sources to start your own union.
Hexbear has a lot of good things, it's just it's users are sometimes a pain.
You seem kinda despairing and dismissive of the obvious answer... talking to your union.
You have no power over your employer, but your union does.
Additionally, and this is kinda wild but, have you spoken to your supervisor? What did they say? Did you explain what it is about it that's so annoying?
I've worked as a consultant for companies that use this type of thing and most disable the verbal warnings and stuff because they're not helpful in any way.
Not all of us have Unions..... Just saying
Sure ok.
IDK how things roll in the US. In Australia I think most jobs can find a Union.
Even if you don't formally unionise, talking and negotiation is the way to resolve this. If all the drivers express their misgivings to their supervisor in unison they're likely to be heard.
In the US the manager is likely to tell them all to pound sand if they dont like it. We have very few workers rights here sadly. You are correct that being in a Union would be much better. I wish we had more of that here, but a lot of people believe the BS that they get fed from thier corporate overloards that Unions are bad.
Stick a chewing gum on the thing's speaker and start singing songs with very dirty and explicit lyrics, like gangsta rap and Bloodhound Gang.
All day long, everyday.
Persuade your colleagues to do the same.
They will have an endless string of report notifications they can't do shit about.
Fight smart.
Edit: still the best thing to do is unionize as many others already suggested, but fighting on more than one front is a good tactic, wars are won by exhausting your opponent.
Weird, what does your union has to say about it?
"You forgot your wife's birthday again. Why can't you be more like your cousin Jeffery? You need to lose weight."
"Shut up!!"
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."
Yeah, this guy got AI when the rest of us have to settle for parents or in-laws!
Are you paid by the hour or per delivery? If by hour, malicious compliance. Stay 5mph below speed limit because you don't want to be flagged. AI doesn't recognize the street as such? Take a long detour, it didn't allow me to take that route. It complains about overtaking? Never overtake ever again someone was to close to the truck when you tried to back in? Never back in again unless the premises is completely clear of people. Oh and find a better employer. An employer that doesn't trusts its employees is never worth it.
It's usually per mile if its long haul, which is the root of all the problems because that incentivizes the driver to go faster and spend less time on other things. And it fucks the driver over because they don't get paid if they're not moving, even if they're waiting on someone else.
I would get another job. During your exit interview, make sure they know this is the sole reason you are leaving.
its trucking they dont care (:
They don't care until they don't have any truckers. Then they care.
If its a big company like old dominion, they likely wont give a fuck ever, but my company always has trouble keeping hold of truckers and they really do give a shit about the churn.
It’s trucking, you should stop dismissing a union
The lady has sung.
I know people at a freightline company. They have retirement parties for 25-year workers about 2-3 times a year that I hear about.
There are good trucking outfits out there. you Canadian?
D'ya wanna be?
Don't threaten me with a good time.
There's an oversupply of ununionized trucker labor, so they'll likely just replace you until union strikes cause a labor shortage.
Yeah, talk to your union about this.
This is becoming more common in a variety of jobs. I work in tech, and have heard from colleagues about their experiences with nanny software. Without a union, your best bet is malicious compliance. I would start looking for hacker communities and posting there, because there can be simple but non-obvious ways to circumvent controls while still seeming to comply, which protects your job.
This is the best option as I see it..
Cup holders are just cups to hold your cups....piss in them.
Alright, so you probably can't get rid of it, but you can make it look like it's defective. Make it look like it's sending way too many false positives. Find somewhere where you can get away with making obvious mistakes and then make like fifty of them in a row. "Why would I, an intelligent human being, just sit in the middle of an empty street doing donuts in an 18-wheeler for 10 straight minutes? I have a job to do," you say. If you got one of those "constantly monitoring everything you say" things Amazon tried rolling out, just start spouting random gibberish. Some pencil-pusher at HQ sees a transcript come back that just says "reptile shoestring meridian front sawdust henway ball Amtrak septuagint ladder correct horse battery staple java thorpe 2 Chainz" over and over for like 40 pages, worst-case scenario he's not gonna read it, best-case scenario he's gonna think the company's paying way too much for shit that don't work.
Find/make a recording the equivalent of lorem ipsum. Turn it on just loud enough for the system to hear.
Also, play death metal at a low volume. Or Barney.
Death Metal at low volume… how?
I’d honestly just put on some Scandinavian death metal and let the voice recognition software pick up gibberish English trying to anglify Norwegian and Swedish.
Get some earplugs, then out this on repeat for hours:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:1-16_The_Elements.mp3
Fuck dangerously earplugged or headphoned drivers.
Deaf people drive just fine
Trucks are much more dangerous, having all senses available becomes much more important. There's a reason why cars must have working horns
Deaf people compensate with a lifetime of experience.
They drive well enough, but less well. Why be hard of hearing if you don't have to be? With no slight of the (big-D) Deaf intended.
Fuck drivers that rely on hearing to drive safely.
I suppose sirens and horns are irrelevant to you?
Not really.
Here emergency vehicles only put their sirens on for a few seconds when they're stuck behind some oblivious idiot who hasn't seen them coming and pulled over.
How's are rarely used to alert you to something you need to be aware of.
Even so, noise cancelling headphones suck at blocking that type of sound. It mitigates ongoing noises like engine sound, but not something with changing pitch like a horn or siren.
Horns are ABSOLUTELY used to alert you to something you need to be aware and prevent accidents all the time. Just because assholes like to misuse them doesn't change the reasoning on why they are required on all vehicles.
Sirens are specifically useful when you are around a blind corner and an emergency vehicle is coming toward you. Or when you otherwise don't have line of sight with the stoving lights.
Earplugs don't descriminate they just dull your senses. Noise canceling headphones are to a lesser extent a handicap.
Correct horse battery staple.... I see you xkcd reference.
https://xkcd.com/936
You'd have to get everyone with the system to do the same, otherwise it looks like 1 unit is bad. After replacing it, they'll know something's up if one dudes unit is putting out gibberish
Wait. What's a henway? #bout5lbs
These things are smarter / dumber than that. They talk directly to the engine and transmission with canbus to record operating conditions. And they have a dedicated GPS antenna. Then they generate a live report from that data that is sent over a dedicated cell connection.
Talking nonsense to it or driving in circles wont fool it. I recommend physical sabotage that mimics installation failure.
so your recommendation is sabotage of company resources and negligent operation of a transport truck
While looking for a new job. Be slow and careful about everything. If the tattler is snitching on you, take your time to make sure everything is correct.
Painfully, extra-slowly correct, keep slowing it down until management notices and asks. Tell them you're just doing what's needed to keep the AI off your back
Do you know what kind of sensors it relies on to observe its surroundings?
It's probably more than just this, but if anything audio related, you could try to come up with a poisonify device to fuck with it.
https://youtu.be/xMYm2d9bmEA
Might be more trouble than it's worth if you're not tech savvy, wish there was more stuff like this I could recommend.
ETA: Also wondering if something like a Flipper Zero or HackRF One could help create some convincing false-positives.
ETA2: read the replies to my comment, valid concerns regarding getting fired and/or throwing off the scent from yourself
Messing with company property is the fast track to getting fired.
100% it'll show up on record either IT or management will see the red flag reported by the vendor of the software
Poison multiple people's trucks at the same time and not yours in the first wave certainly
No. If you want privacy, transportation is the wrong career. Trains are much the same.
company truck
no
Why the fuck not?
not everyone has that option
If you build it... They will come...
See previous comment.
20 years ago truckers were offended by GPS tracking
Its understandable though. Even though its also understandable the company would want to know where the trucks are, its also telling the drivers that they dont really trust them to do their job without surveillance. It should be enough that the freight gets delivered within agreed time and not too much fuel is used up in the process.
Personally i would compare the gps to office having sensors that record constantly which room you are occupying. With the ai its like having a camera constantly monitor exactly what are you doing at every given moment. And if you do anything company doesn't like you will be punished. Not only is it insulting, its exhausting having to ceaselessly consider is everything you are doing acceptable to whatever sensible or insensible rules the corporate executives have decided.
People who want to be truckers most likely are kind of people who like working by themselves and not having to answer for every single thing they do at every moment and now even that is being taken away from them.
Of COURSE they don't 100% trust fallible human beings with their multi million dollar assets and consignments. It's not insulting unless you are all up in your ego, any more than having to sign something saying that you've inspected the cargo is.
Doesn't change anything. You don't have to swim faster than the shark, you just have to swim faster than the worst trucker on staff. Just means that they have better data to make the same decisions they were already making. It's all zero-sum and if it's bad for one trucker, it's good for another who was until now going without recognition.
i love pitting the rats against each other to see who can get the crumb first
My company has their own llm now meant for internal employees, what baffles me is they exposed the domain to the internet. Can’t wait for this to backfire.
LMAO okay then
Try to find the fuse which powers the device.
You're looking for anything related to radio or telemetry.
Push the fuse back in when you're done working for the day.
If they ask what was wrong, pretend you don't know what they mean. It's not your truck. Maybe they should have their technician look into it, everything seemed fine on your end.
This works until they swap his truck so he can keep working while it goes back into the shop.
Keep doing it. Do it to every truck. If they put a camera in, unplug that too.
Do you have to violate laws/regulations laws to meet schedules? Perhaps malicious compliance and adhere to all laws. As some have said, a union could help. If you don't have to violate laws/regulations to meet schedule, perhaps consider adhering to laws/regulations.
A well placed magnet might help...
Ive been saying we need to be developing consumer grade emps before its too late
There ya go
Btw these little DIY 2.4 GHz jammers are also very handy to have just in case. As long as you get them out the way before you set off the EMP generator 😅
radio jammers like this are federally illegal in the US and possession of one is a massive felony. That's if anyone notices and you get caught, but just a heads up.
Oh good to know. Pretty sure owning them is fine in Germany but distribution or actually using them will still get you in trouble.
yeah owning one alone is unlikely to get you caught, and you can probably come up with excuses ("it's just an SDR not a jammer!") but they're extremely heavily restricted over here.
They phone home over cell. Usually 4g LTE with relatively high gain antennas. You wont jam it with that.
No that one was just meant as a general lifehack 😅
A lifehack that might wind you up in federal prison. Breaking company equipment is one thing and it might cost you your job and a small settlement. That's the kind of advice I don't mind giving. I do generally try not to tell people to commit felonies.
This is for emergencies, during riots and such because it can take down drones and disrupt communication. I think people should figure out for themselves if their use case is morally permissible and worth the risk. I'm just sharing info that's readily available. Also owning this is legal where I live and I'm not even sure we have a word for felony.
Quit. Let them know why you quit. You are a truck driver and can get another job within a week.
Varies wildly.
Some people are in unions, others "at will" employment.
This is something to ask coworkers and hopefully a union rep.
No union...
What country?
Canada
Teamsters Canada? They have a freight division: https://teamsters.ca/about/union-profile/
You can of course quit now, but that will mean you're job hunting while unemployed, which is a far worse scenario. You can also just put up with it, but it sounds like that's a shit scenario too.
So the best course of action you can immediately take right now is go window shopping for a new job until you find something you like. Whether it comes by this week or six months from now, you have the luxury of having nothing to lose here and you have the best hand.
Even look at getting a new certification if you feel like it and if you can—ball's in your court. Every time that little bastard undermines you, let it be the fuel that's encouraging you off to greener pastures. Explain that in your exit interview, and remark on how they've come up with an interesting employee retention strategy.
Hi. 3F Copenhagen member here. I believe the scaffolders club are organising something over a similar situation that is, however, less intrusive than yours. Your situation is like a horror story version of what the scaffolders are getting (GPS tracking, logging of their company vehicles. They don't have AI... Yet...).
Do you have a union you can turn to?
It will be interesting when they can't keep strong workers because they've scared the shit out of them.
I feel ya, mate. I've got the same thing in my company vehicle. It absolutely irritates the shit out of me that anyone above my level of the hierarchy can look at me any time they want.
I point the inside camera up except when I piss in a bottle (:
There are fucking cameras in the cab.... damn I'm sorry, yo. That blows ass nuggets.
Ha, I wish! They've fired people already for merely obscuring the camera for a few seconds. There is a hilarious clip of someone reaching up with a pair of scissors and getting the wire, but I like having a steady job with insurance too much. Maybe when I get tired of this shit and get hired somewhere else.
Find a company that's already unionized or form a union within your current company.
You might also tell them that the AI is distracting because it's constantly talking, which is likely true anyway.
Find Miles Dyson
Line up a new job. Then get in the passenger side of the truck and let the AI drive today.
Then enjoy your new job knowing you made the world a better place.
HARD BRAKE DETECTED!
This will become ubiquitous. Every job will soon have AI analyzing all your work throughput and flagging any employee for inefficiency.
I am glad I will be retiring in the not too distant future. I would not want to have to work with AI constantly watching me.
Its bullshit because AI has zero experience driving a truck.
gold
Give your truck a lobotomy.
Could try a wifi cell jammer. Ai don't do shit without internet
That's going to be incredibly illegal to use outdoors. Make sure you know what the regulations are before engaging in any kind of jamming, you might block someone else's emergency transmissions.
better to find the antenna and short it out. jammers are at best illegal and at worst you end up leaving it on and fuck up someone's 911 call.
Probably true, couldn't think of another solution that doesn't damage the vehicle
Until he drops off the truck at the office and it uploads everything at once.
Yes this problem likely won't be solved without someone taking apart the telemetry software. Spoofing the sensor data is an option if you understand how the data is collected but hardly a good option for someone without a specific skillset
you could blow up solera's HQ. that would definitely make them consider the cost/benefit
Typical of the practicality and savvy of the answers given in this thread
Can you afford a phone carrier jammer?
Lol why don't you touch some grass?
What? Why do you want to do wrong things with your truck?
"They"?
The people higher up that sit in offices and make decisions.
What context is this? Insurance? Company vheicle?
The guys that sit in nice offices and dictate policy to the people on the ground doing the real work.
Hm. Im not in your position so take what I say with a grain of salt, but, malicious compliance. Do everything right. Sit at red lights. Miss exits. Etc.
right because no one at a desk ever does real work
Lol I also didn't understand wtf OP was talking about and thought he this was a schizo thing. The context missing from the title is apparently that it's a company vehicle.
Meta: Why aren't the bans showing up in the modlog?
What bans?
Who are you trying to ban?
Holy fuck you all are a bunch of callous assholes. Telling someone to "join a union" or "ask your union" about it are fucking mental. Do you really think OP is working a union gig or are you really that stupid to think you just go out to the union store and ask for one union card? How is this helpful to anyone who is in a non-union job working for a non-union company. I'll bet you all are the same people that tell depressed people to "just be happy." It's just useless, if not ourtright malicious, advice to give someone.
Well, if it is not helpful advice for OP it is not bad advice.
It's really not even advice. It's just self aggrandizement and dumbass people looking for a circle jerk to join. It doesn't address the issue that OP has in the slightest practical way, and is kind of callus to their actual problem.
There are two camps in this thread. On one side you have people saying to move to a workplace with a union. On the other hand you have people advising criminal retaliation, vandalism, sabotage, and fraud. And you have a problem with the unionists.
I have no problem with unions and I'm extremely pro-union. I'm also practical and not naive enough to think that you can join a union in every job. They don't exist for a lot of jobs at all and you have to be very diligent to be able to form one without losing your job from unjustly being fired.
What I hate is people giving shitty advice so they can feel superior. "Join a union" is great advice if your job/field already has one. "Join a union" when someone has a work dispute with their clearly non-union employer is idiocy and belittling to the person that is asking the question. I made the analogy above, so I'll turn your question on its head, do you think depressed people should just try to be happy? Because it's the same level of advice as, "Join a union" in this instance.
No, it's on the same level as "make major life changes" to either a depressed person, or someone working in a non-union environment. There is no analogy needed. Sometimes you cannot make major life changes, even if it might help with significant problems. But we don't know that. It's valid advice. Unlike everything else said in this thread.
Idk why you're getting downvoted. You're right. It's insane that for some people "create a union" seems to be a magic solution that anyone can just magically do on their own.
There is a lot of magical thinking and ideology in this thread, very little grounded, human to human advice.
I know most of the comments here are from ignorant disinterested observers who aren't really thinking through what they are saying, but man. If the first thing you think of is fraud and sabotage when your employer acts within the boundaries of your contract, you're a bad person.
Are you an employer or a bootlicker?
Well, I'm not an employer. You'll have to define what "bootlicker" means to you. Go ahead, I dare you.
Are you also endorsing fraud and sabotage? It sure seems like you are.
Okay... Bootlicker: A person who behaves in a servile or obsequious manner.
You seem to be an ardent defender of the ownership/elite/capital class's controlling behaviors. If you're not a member of that class and say what you have been saying, then you are a bootlicker of said class.
I don't believe me calling you a bootlicker is an endorsement of fraud or sabotage, although I hope things work out for OP. That would be such a demeaning situation to be in.
Crazy idea I haven't seen posted here, but hear me out:
Stop driving like a dick. Follow the rules of the road. Stop speeding. Stop swerving. Stop going over the lines at stop signs and traffic lights. ETC...
This will slow down the route by hours. That's the only way that they'll discontinue it, when they realize that it's making the delivery routes slower.
and stop driving like a dick, you're driving a fucking truck.
Have you driven a 26 wheeler in the city with people that don't pay attention or even know the rules of the road?
Meh, these systems are ripe for false positives, all it does is weed out riskier drivers, or provide incentive to encourage reduction in pay and benefits in order to mitigate said "risk." These systems are cancerous.
You trust some POS computer over a human driver? I don't. If the damn computer is so correct in its assessment, it should be driving. And, obviously, I know that's coming, but it's not here yet. It should be one, or the other, not a computer back-seat driver.
Usually they just flag events like really hard braking or other high-g events, speeding, travelling off-route if you pay for that module, and operating hours. At least that's the easy to tattle stuff. They're not smart enough to do anything like drive for you.
But some operators DO need to calm the fuck down and just obey the speed limit. These things usually let their manager know they're shitty drivers before the police let them know they're shitty drivers and they subsequently lose their DOT certification.
It's never the speeder at fault, it's always those damn {politicians, cops, other drivers, cameras} who are wrong.
Only if US drivers would stop driving like idiots and idling their motors wasting fuel.
Don't American cars have a start stop automation that stops the engine as soon as the car isn't driving? Or are they also disabling it?
It exists in some cars, but it's clunky and anyone with used car experience gets a jump scare every time it happens. It's really only well implemented in hybrids.
That's gotta burn out starters really fast.