When

[GeoffDiamond]

Well i had one of my best employees come into my office today. This guy is great been with the co for a long time. He told me that we would like to stop plowing after this year, and run the yard or something ( next year we will have somone at the shop to load trucks and keep the yard clear, tired of having a messy yard because it gets driven one 100 times before it plowed). I told him he was one of my best drivers and would like to keep in as a driver, only if he wanted do stop i would try to find someone to take over ( now i will need two drivers because i will probably add a truck or two, if i get the school)<p>So my question is when do ya make a shoveler a driver. I don't want to take a equipment opperator out a loader and into a truck, because the loader is much harder to run. I have some shovelers that want to take a crack at plowing but they are kinda young, when is the right time?<p>I have a guy that started working for me full time the day after High School Graduation. Great guy, always on time works hard, only has never driven one of my trucks or equipment. Then i have some other guys 5 years older than him, that i think would be ok. When is the right time to giver someone the driver's responsiblity ( to me the guy driving the truck has a big responsibility)? Do you guys go my age, years at the company, past experience, or what? Me well i started plowing at age 14, then took a break from it while i was at school, the got back into it.<p>Just don't want to tick off the guys that have been there 5 years ( they keep thinking next truck in and i am the driver, because it's kinda been that way in the past.) I don't want to have my shovelers quit their job, because then i got big problems.<p>Geoff

 

[yortengel]

Well I started plowing when I got my first 4x4 when I was 17, I had plowed with a tractor at a much earler age. but I was self taught. I always train any operator of anything I have before I let them loose. I don't judge by age but by how they treat the equipment. I am a one man plowing operation, but I was service manager at a very busy repair garage. there I trained a lot of kids to do alot of different things in car repair. as for plowing, Well I have helped out a lot of friends in the techinque, and then the repair of the equipment. If there resposnsible, Move them up.<br>Good Luck.

 

[Lou]

If the kid is as good as you say, he appears to be loyal, you have a great opportunity to train him to plow exactly how you want a driver to plow. No bad habits