tracking

[spacedust]

the company i work for is about to introduce tracking units into their cars
are there any techs out there who already use these systems ?
what are the pros and cons ?
what are your thoughts ?

[Hansoon]

I'm an Indy so I am my own boss (that's what I believe.......) but German IRS "urged" me more or less to install a GPS device otherwise my car and car costs would not be deductible anymore in the future. The device works very good and as long as my wife doesn't know how to extract the protocols................................



Hans

[vincent64]

If it is a company car, then the company can do that, the one I used to work for, made us put them on our personal cars, was not well recived, it made one tech quit on the spot, couple others shortly after that, it's just another way for them to micro-manage ya'll.

[Ollie1981]

Yeah, we've got the GPS trackers coming soon too, although I think we'll be tracked via our PDAs (as they already have a GPS unit in them) rather than a vehicle installed unit.

We've had the usual lines of bullshit as to why we're getting them:-

1/ It's for our "safety" as we are lone unsupervised workers
2/ It's so the company can monitor driving habits for safety and environmental reasons
3/ It's to verify accuracy of business and private mileage logs
4/ It's to make sure all staff are where they say they are to make sure customer SLAs are being hit,
5/ If you have nothing to hide, then you've nothing to fear

The real reason we're getting them is:-

"We don't trust you, we think you are sat in McDonalds car park all day cramming burgers into your fat overpaid face rather than doing what we are paying you to do. We don't like the fact that the nature of your job means that you can't be directly supervised during working hours and beyond, so hence we are now putting you on an electronic leash so you know we're always watching you.
Oh FYI, this system has cost us a SHITLOAD of money, hence we are expecting to see a pretty substantial return on investment. Hence expect us to be on your arse for more calls per day even worse than before, if your PDA is tracked expect us to start tracking your bathroom breaks .... MORE THAN TWO SHAKES IS PLAYING WITH YOURSELF, GET BACK TO WORK!!"

Ask yourself this, if GPS tracking is sooo great. Is your boss getting it fitted to his car? ... Thought not.

[Akitu]

I think my service manager would die of boredom from watching our little blips on the radar. In a lot of our locations there are drive times exceeding 4 hours.