Profile For William J.

My first question is, what is your company policy on split sleeper berth?

My trip planning always includes longer drive days at the beginning of a run, so I have wiggle room for things that inevitably go sideways. Quite often, on days where I am delivering and then picking up on the same day, I'll do the delivery, turn and burn to get to the next pickup (or as close as possible) and do the short off duty stretch (good for road laundry) or the long Sleeper stretch, that way I preserve my 14.

Right now, on this delivery, I ran into a slow down that delayed me enough to make a 10 impossible before delivery. (Very strict no more than 1 hour early delivery.) I do have enough for an 8 in SB, will drive the 9 miles to my delivery, where historically I haven't been unloaded in less than 2.5 hours, thereby I'll complete the split, and get back my full 11/14 clock, minus the 9 miles to drive, and the on duty time dealing with paperwork and getting into a door.

To finish up the delivery load I had to drive 2 hours and then do my 8 AM delivery. 8 AM delivery got unloaded at 10 AM. Drove another 90 minutes to the shipper for my next load. That load, loaded at 4 PM. That loads appointment time was for 7am the next morning! And it was 686 miles. So there is no time to squeeze 10 hours of break time in there. Basically you would have to have your full clock from the time you’re loaded and drive straight through to the delivery to make that load work. And even then at 686 miles, you’ve got a hope there’s no major delays. Absolute total impossible load. And so now I get to sit for four days! Not acceptable to me! Especially when I told the guy this.

Well I’ve been three months at my new (five years OTR experience) company now and overall I like it with the exception of one thing. Every load is a hot load and the back loads that my dispatcher gives me…well about 75% of them are mathematically impossible to get there on time. On the day I deliver a load for example I’ll have an 8 AM delivery. And then he schedules a pick up time for the next load at say 4 PM. Well if I was starting my day where I was picking up the load I could make these loads. He’s not calculating in the fact that I’m using up most of my 14 between these two appointment times. And the load is super tight to begin with. This makes them impossible. I immediately recognize this and call it to his attention. I don’t know if the guys picking the fattest paying load off of the load board and not really looking at my numbers but every single time it’s impossible. And then it goes like this….I send him a message telling him how it’s not possible to run the load on time. He never says he’s going to fix the load or cancel the load or change the appointment time, it’s always well let’s wait until you’re closer to delivery and see how you’re doing. And I’m like screaming in my brain dude it’s not happening. This is simple math a fifth grader can do. Well so far he’s gotten away with these late loads. And then my four years of previous truck driving I’ve never had a single light load. So this is new for me. Up until last week I’ve always been able to finagle with the receiver to get in and still get unloaded. And then it finally happened.I told him it would never be on time, tells me to run it anyhow, and when i arrived, basically the receiver told me to go fly a kite. They aren’t gonna unload me for four days.and my dispatcher is acting like he doesn’t know this and being coy. I have a point when things start to boil over for me and this just might do it.

William I’d like to suggest taking a hard look at how you interact with your driver management, especially as you move forward with perhaps a different employer.

There is an old saying, somewhat Biblical in nature that states:

“You reap what you sow” If you are interacting with your management and dispatch the way you have come across here... it’s no wonder they are not attempting to work with you.

My approach to trucking has always been, and always will be to treat others the way you want to be treated. With respect and a professional attitude. Especially with individuals who are responsible for managing driver operations and evaluating performance. They can either enable your success or hinder it.

I can recall countless times when this professional approach has been rewarded with a choice run or additional money for doing something extra.

I’m offering this advice from experience (9 years in trucking and 60+ years of life) because I’ve seen what can happen to drivers who project a negative/hostile attitude. Typically they are met with indifference and at times completely ignored. No, I’m not suggesting to kiss management’s ass... just consider adding a little finesse and basic kindness to smooth your obvious hard and sharp edges. Understand you are one of many drivers they are working with. Set yourself apart in a positive way... not a negative one.

The results might surprise you. Maybe not with the current employer (nameless?), but certainly looking to your future.

Hope you think about this, turn the focus on you.

Good luck.

This is certainly noble and sound advice and not anything that I’m going to dispute or argue about. Because you’re spot on and correct. But I don’t think we’re quite comparing apples to apples in our analogy here. When you approach dispatch for something like say detention pay. This is a very 2+2 = 4 situation. It’s not an evolving situation, it’s not a debatable situation, it’s not open to some kind of analogy. The company policy is if you sit at a shipper or receiver with an appointment time for more than two hours you are put on detention pay. So if I sit at a shipper or receiver waiting to Get loaded or unloaded more than two hours past my appointment time I’m to start getting paid, correct? Last time I sat for six hours which basically was the entire afternoon. I put in for my four hours eligible detention pay. It was ignored. So I pick up my phone and I called. I get to listen to the huffy and heavy size on the other end about “OK I’ll tell so-and-so and will get it in for you”. Another day goes by, the PO for the approval of detention pay never comes through. I send Another message. No response. Another half a day goes by and I’m growing frustrated. I’m getting irritated. I pick up the phone. I remind them again on the phone. Yes at this point I kind of have a sarcastic tone. Who wouldn’t? This is not a mistake at this point this is intentional. The dispatcher I get this time tells me so and so will send that right over to you within the next half hour. By this time I’m done for the day. I take my 10 hour break and go to sleep for the night getting up the next morning and still it’s not there. I called again. This time Im mad. I ask you once again, who wouldn’t be? I’m literally being ripped off by dispatch. A few minutes later the approval finally comes through for my four hours of pay.

I don’t feel like I need to be ultra nice at this point. When dealing with things like this. You’re probably correct I might get further licking their boot in a situation like this. Maybe cracking a joke or two. Trying to buddy up and be their friend. But when someone looks at me square in the face four times and tries to rip me off? I’m just not gonna be able to go there. I’m going to call them out on it. The way I see it is I’m doing my job. They need to do their’s.

Or option 4... Ask them to look for a load that delivers fairly close to your home so that you can get to the house easier and be ready to roll Monday morning. As Turtle said, no they don't have to pay you for the weekend to sit away from home.

Laura

OK but do you see my logic behind my original question, I drive back-and-forth to the yard. It’s five hours each way. So I’ve got 10 hours vested if I go home. Not to mention it’s about $200 round-trip in my truck plus gas. So let’s say I have them dispatch me from close to my home which I can do. I show up at the yard on a Saturday morning per the way they assigned me my loads. Say it’s 10 AM. I have eight hours left to drive on my clock. 35 hours left for the week. I go into the office and they tell me they don’t have a load. At that point in my opinion they have two choices. Send me a dispatch to go home in their truck, or pay me to sit on their yard. Otherwise I’m literally a prisoner stuck at that yard with no transportation, no way to make money, and I’m at their disposal. I don’t know where you all come from but where I come from that is not fair. Lol that’s like slavery type stuff.

Call me ignorant, but I am wondering how it is that you are running hard and remaining with half of your 70 on Saturday? If you start on Monday and run hard until Friday night/Saturday morning, I don't see how you still have 35 hours remaining. That's only working 7 hours each day, which means that might only be driving 5-1/2 hours each day. I might not know a lot of things, but I don't think any of the regular experienced drivers would call that running hard. Sounds pretty soft to me.

I have a real problem with you talking about this being like slavery. No dude. You chose to work for a company where the terminal is 5 hours from your house. No one but you chose this place of employment for YOU. Don't like it? Find another place to work.

Some of the responses here are things that probably were taken out of context. No I don’t go into the office screaming and yelling I can just be a bit sarcastic. And the comment about slavery was definitely a sarcastic comment as I know I’m not literally a slave. Point being, they have no loads and I can’t leave so I sit for free.

My uncle who was a lifelong trucker told me, “ no truck driver in the history of truck driving has ever been fired for wanting more miles.“ sorry if it runs the wrong way, but this trucker likes to drive.

The other part of your response was under the assumption that I work for a Monday through Friday company. You don’t know what day of the week I started. I’ve been with this company for one year and four months. I average 552 miles per day. Every day overall average since I started. I have run countless loads that didn’t formulate out to what a dispatcher should assign and have run them all on time. I.e., I had to get very creative in how I managed my time for a day or two to get the load on time. Sitting in the driver seat waiting for the clock to roll over, skipping a 30 minute break driving eight hours straight without stopping and stuff like that to arrive within 15 minutes of the appointment time. I do all it all the time, every time abd never complain. Do I ever get a “good job” in response? Nope! I do it because that’s how I’m wired to work.

I’ve come to the realization that the company I work for is not highly ethical or a good company. They’re just not. 90% of their drivers have less than a year experience most of them are brand new. Most of them are X cons. Most of them smash into and back into stuff all the time. They won’t pay things like detention, layover unless you literally beg and make a “legal case”

Yes, I picked this company, that’s my fault. Should have researched better. The reviews are out there on them. That’s my fault. I’m going to try and work with this company one more time, staying way ahead on planning, bugging then we’ll in advance to keep my wheels turning…if that doesn’t happen? There’s a billion other company that will take me and I’ll leave!

For those of you that gave me some advice about how to communicate with dispatch and so forth thank you very much. great advise!

Hi William, Do you pick up, and deliver your load on time? I ask this because what your describing is generally how companies get rid of their bad drivers, they starve them out.

If you're doing everything right then it's a dispatcher problem and you should try getting a new dispatcher from the your company.

Never had a late load yet. Now I’ve “caught a few” as in bad dispatched and called out dispatch…If they’re trying to starve me out I assure you it’s not because of work performance. I know everybody toots their own horn, but I worked my butt off. I always have an any job I’ve ever done. Employee of the year, quarter, every place I’ve worked. But one thing I’ve learned in trucking is to stand up for myself and often I might overdo that. When I know I’m being done wrong I will speak my mind. And I Often have done it with dispatch with a bit of a chip on my shoulder and somewhat of an attitude. I can’t help myself sometimes but to make a sarcastic comment. But what do you do as a man when someone’s looking you in the face and you know they’re just totally BSing you? Do you just take it and put your tail between your legs or do you call them out on it? I choose to call them out on it. And yes I’ll fully admit that probably gets me less brownie points at the company I work for.

Example, last week I had five hours of detention. If I put in for it sometimes they approve it right away and sometimes they act like they didn’t see it or pass the buck to someone else. I was sick of it so I didn’t let up. Including several phone calls. I had to ask six times but they finally sent me through the approval. I spent the entire day sitting at the shipper. When I could’ve been driving. Pay me. And yes I had an attitude about the fourth time I had to ask. So no they probably don’t really like me because I called out their BS.

The guy that originally trained me years ago told me if you don’t stand up for yourself in trucking you will get stepped on. Perhaps I take it a bit too far.

William, I love the answers you are getting here.

I'll throw in my two cents...

One of the biggest things that helped me in my trucking career was to make a big effort at learning how the trucking business works, and more in particular, how my specific company works. One of the first things I figured out was that weekends are terrible times to get loads. Once I knew that I had to figure out how to handle it so I could have a load on the weekend. Here was my solution, and it has always worked well for me. I empty out just as early as I can on Friday morning and I make sure my dispatcher knows that is how it is going to happen. I want him to know that my PTA (projected time of availability) will be 0700 Friday morning. That way he can hook me up with a nice long load for the weekend. He always comes through, but he comes through because I have communicated with him early enough for him to take care of it, and I always make sure that I do exactly what I tell him I am going to do.

It sounds like this has been an ongoing problem for you. So you know already what is going to happen if you show up on Saturday morning. Why keep repeating this self-defeating behavior? Make some changes to how you do things. Run a little harder so you can be MT on Friday morning instead of showing up Saturday expecting them to have a load for you. It is not going to happen. You are the captain of your ship. That means you run that ship in such a way that makes sense and is efficient. A big part of your efficiency is understanding how to do things with your truck so that they mesh with the way the company distributes loads.

You have to be the student and the teacher in this situation. You learn how things work, and then you take the steps to put yourself into the flow of work from your company. Trying to demand they pay you for sitting around will get you no results. You will frustrate yourself and anger the people who could be helping you be successful. You have got to put yourself into the right mindset, and put yourself into the right place at the right time. That's part of becoming a professional driver.

I wish you the best with this situation. Try to figure out how you can reconcile it yourself. There is definitely a way to make this work better for you.

Really good stuff! I guess for the driver who enjoys unexpected time off this type of scenario of slipping through the cracks would be great. Lol what I will do in the future is contact dispatch when I know this scenario might come up, and be like, “hey you got me lined out to be back at the yard Saturday morning, I have (XYZ hours) can we get me assigned a next load”

Something like this might work. Part of the problem with this is the first to trucking companies I’ve worked for this kind of stuff didn’t happen. So I’m kind of subconsciously comparing I think. They would have a load ready for me at the yard. Lol it would usually hit my QUALCOMM a day or so before I even got back to the yard.

Or option 4... Ask them to look for a load that delivers fairly close to your home so that you can get to the house easier and be ready to roll Monday morning. As Turtle said, no they don't have to pay you for the weekend to sit away from home.

Laura

OK but do you see my logic behind my original question, I drive back-and-forth to the yard. It’s five hours each way. So I’ve got 10 hours vested if I go home. Not to mention it’s about $200 round-trip in my truck plus gas. So let’s say I have them dispatch me from close to my home which I can do. I show up at the yard on a Saturday morning per the way they assigned me my loads. Say it’s 10 AM. I have eight hours left to drive on my clock. 35 hours left for the week. I go into the office and they tell me they don’t have a load. At that point in my opinion they have two choices. Send me a dispatch to go home in their truck, or pay me to sit on their yard. Otherwise I’m literally a prisoner stuck at that yard with no transportation, no way to make money, and I’m at their disposal. I don’t know where you all come from but where I come from that is not fair. Lol that’s like slavery type stuff.

That’s pretty harsh original poster, most companies will give you a rookie mistake as long as it’s not something severe. Squishing a little tree in a parking lot would not be considered severe in my opinion. Unless you’re leaving something out. No I was fortunate enough not to have a rookie mistake, but I did make some bonehead things happen my first few weeks, (driving where a truck has no business driving, turning down a frontage road that had a dead end in the middle of the night thinking I was going on the freeway) silly things like that. My company just laughed about it.

Honestly what you need to do is find an empty parking lot with some cones and over a couple of weeks back that truck in every which way you can possibly imagine. You’ll get the feel for it. And remember something else. Never have too much pride to get out and look. Never. At the end of the day if you don’t smash into anything you keep driving. Who cares what anyone else thinks. Your job is to keep that truck / trailer from touching anything.

The first year I was OTR I got out and looked all the time. If I was not 1000% sure about the cab door I came for a quick peek. Now I only have to do it maybe once a month or so. But I’ll still do it. I don’t know what’s back there I look.

I’m curious how some of you might handle this situation. It’s happened to me numerous times that the company I work for. I work OTR. I drive hard. I drive every load they give me. I’ll get back to the yard on a Saturday morning or afternoon with plenty of hours still drive for the day. And for the week for that matter. I go in to dispatch and tell them I’m ready for a new load. They tell me they don’t have anything until Monday morning. They tell me I’m welcome to go home. The only problem is home is five hours each way for me. Aren’t they obligated to pay me to sit there from Saturday morning until Monday morning? They tell me if I go home I should be back Monday morning. Which is ridiculous for a 10 hour round-trip drive. I tell them no, if I go home I’m going home for a minimum of four days. Your choice. Find me a load or pay me to sit here or I go home for four days. Was I fair with these options? How would you handle this?

Well he lost his quarterly safety bonus and was given a warning he had to sign. Happens again, he’s toast. He’s got 390,000 incident ticket free miles and three years.

I’m not going to argue with any responses here. They are spot on. I’ll just say I learned long ago in trucking, a lot of drivers...”do as I say, not as I do” the real issue is not the GPS / being on his phone. A lot of us use truckers path and other apps to assist. The issue IS DISTRACTED DRIVING. Of any kind. And I could rattle off a list of 100 plus things many drivers do that momentarily distract from driving. That said, I told him to learn from it. He said it really rattled his cage and he has removed his from from the holder. Said it will stay in the bunk from now on while driving. Funny he said his dispatcher calls him all the time while he’s driving, so he said he will now have to wait hours until I can phone him back.