Current Actions Affect Future Options

IQ, UQ, we all Queue for EQ

While you are employed with your current employer, you are laying the groundwork for your next job. Your current actions affect your future options.
EQ, or “Emotional Quotient” is one of the components the sociologist gurus are saying differentiates people from being successful or not so successful. In general, EQ is the ability to be aware of your emotions, the ability to manage your emotions (or at least control the actions resulting from the emotions) and be savvy to others’ emotions and influence them for better relationships.

We’ve all known some smart people who could not manage their own emotions or make the link between their emotions and stuff that happens to them. In dealing with professional drivers for over 20 years, I have found one of the more telling traits of the successful professional driver is a high EQ. By “successful,” I’m talking money, safety and job satisfaction.

W.C. Fields once said there’s not an adult alive, who at one time or another has not wanted to boot a child in the “fanny.” There’s probably not a professional driver alive (at least one with a little experience) who has not wanted to wring a dispatcher, dock worker, truck driver or surly weigh station worker’s neck. And the heck of it is, all of them at one time or another have probably deserved it. Any yet we (most of us anyway) never go any further than imagining that we have the offending person in a headlock and we are giving their noggin a good old country Dutch rub. And it’s a good thing we don’t. Think about it—who gets hurt if you get mad and speed, drive like you’re mad, or abandon your truck and look for another job?

In fact, while you are employed with your current employer, you are laying the groundwork for your next job. Your current actions affect your future options. Be smart. If your current employer is not what you want or has really made you mad, take a deep breath and begin looking for a job that has what you are looking for while you are employed. If you speed and get a ticket, do something radical that gets you fired or abandon your truck, you will limit your options and hurt yourself more than your employer.

To give yourself options for a better new job, start with your current job:

• Don’t leave until you have another job if you can help it. If you are currently employed with a motor carrier, most recruiters will assume, with some validity, that you can’t be that bad a driver or you would have been terminated. If you are employed, you are more employable.
• If you feel you must leave before getting another job, give notice and try to leave on good terms. A bad reference will usually follow you for 7 to 10 years.
• Know what past employers report on you, know what’s on your MVR and other reports potential employers will obtain. Correct mistakes and misidentifications.

Companies need drivers. As a professional driver you’ve been dealt a good hand—if you play your cards smart, you have got a lot of options.

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