Does Your Company Get You Home In Time?

Sounds good Troubador. I for one wouldn't mind teaming but Id have to do it as a couple team. Im just too funny about my personal space:) CRST tries to recruite me constantly but there option was 5 male team mates my pick of course but that wasn't comfortable for me.

If you want to blacklist yourself in trucking, messing with a lawsuit over home time will do just that.

It doesn't need to go so far as a lawsuit, it's not worth the companies while to deal with that, as the TruckingTruth link says, a simple call from a labour relations lawyer can cause a miracle to happen

All it should take is a polite, quiet call to the dispatcher along the lines of "The contract is clear and the law is clear, I would like my hometime as specified in the contract or my lawyer would be calling your boss."

It's been mentioned it has happened three times already, I'm usually an easygoing guy who's happy to let things slide the first time or two, but I live by the old army maxim of "first time happenstance, second time coincidence, third time enemy action."

The dispatcher needs to be reminded that they aren't dealing with a spineless sap they can just push along in order to get a bonus from the miles run by their dispatched truckie.

There was some guy who said once "Talk quietly but carry a big stick", Just quietly remind the dispatcher the stick exists. You don't need to swing it the first time the situation comes up, but you shouldn't let people think you don't know you have a stick available.

Sounds good Troubador. I for one wouldn't mind teaming but Id have to do it as a couple team. Im just too funny about my personal space:) CRST tries to recruite me constantly but there option was 5 male team mates my pick of course but that wasn't comfortable for me.

The best deals with CRST are either their new Reefer division or their Dedicated runs. Fir what ever strange reason, we cannot switch to either. But everyone I know who has left the right way, gets called back and offered a run on both. And both start out at 40 cents a mile on the split miles. \

I have followed your posts in here when I could, and see now you driving for WEL group, and I know nothing about them. Who did you start with?

Where I live, in SW FL, there is always a problem down here getting hired. I want to go into flat bedding. When I look at the job boards here, I get all these companies advertising, then call them, and find most of them only hire north of Tampa. Melton was a flat bedding company I was seriously interested in, but even though they advertise here, they do not hire. My only choice in Flat beds seems to be CRST Malone, and they are lease on only. And regardless of if leasing is a good idea, I do not have the experience running a truck to even consider leasing at this point. I have right now, Knight, SRT, Shnieder, and Werner all talking to me. Werner is offering me a 5000 dollar sign on bonus. That is probably going to be the deciding factor. If I do go on with them, what they are talking is an Eastern US route, but mostly midwest to southeast. Not too much north east, which is what I do not like. I hate the NE. SRT wold put me back on that west coast runs that I love, but no incentives, and I am not sure I want to run reefer. Werner has a flat bed division, and I could move over there eventually. The starting job would be a slip seat gig, leaving the truck in Atlanta, then they have their own bus which shuttles drivers back down here and home time starts when you get off the bus, and it has a 4 day turn around, so i could do 3 weeks out and 4 days off.

The job Shneider offered here would fly me out to where ever they needed me and fly me back home home for home time.

Knight would have me drive 120 miles to Lakeland FL and leave my truck there.

SRT did not even discuss that stuff.

Right now, I am bringing the tractor home, which is totally against the law in the city I live in, but with the property crash, the city code enforcement really backed off. The first time I came home with it, the guy stopped by, and I leveled with him, about when I would be here, and it was how I could get home, and I was doing all this to save my house. He cut me a break and told me, as long as none of my neighbors complained, he would look the other way. I appealed to all of my neighbors, and have had zero problems. But...... because I only come home every 6 weeks or is is part of that, so I want to find something where I can leave the truck somewhere. And Werner told methey have their own bus, and assured me it was not the dog, and had on board TV and food and drink, and shuttled drivers down here all the time. Well, that 5000 grand payed over 2 years looks good. It is 1 cents a mile less than knight or SRT to start but looks good, and they do have some incentive bonus programs like safety and mileage.

I also called a couple of companies who require 1 year, just to chat, and one, Lessors, liked my story and circumstance,( being 53, and working so hard at this age at a total career change, sometimes gets you some points. They know you are serious about wanting to work.) Anyhow, they took all my info and told me they would be calling me in march of next year, because they liked what they heard so much, but had to adhere to their policy. They told me when that does come around, I would start at 38 a mile. 3 to 4 weeks out, my choice, with 1 and a half days given per week out, and numerous incentive bonus programs, but no sign on.

I get what your saying, but IMHO saying "or my lawyer will be making a phone call" to an employer would put an awfully big bullseye on ones back.

I'm not saying it may never be necessary. But I would sure exhaust all other reasonable forms of communication before doing so. You can stand up for yourself and get what you need without having to result to using the "L" word

Troubador I started with WEL and am still here. We have a terminal in Winter Haven, FL. We run reefer. We fo alot of east coast between PA and WI. No West Coast unless your a team but never the less its a good company. They have I believe a 1500 sign on bonus and there experience driver pay is .42cpm. I average about 2500+ miles a week. If you live within 150 miles of a terminal you leave your truck there.

What I love about this right now......... I was a land surveyor all my life. It is a highly technical and physically demanding job, and I dont care what you guys say about dangerous........ you have no clue. I used to make 50 grand a year on regular pay and with OT could get into 65. I did as much training as I did straight work, because I was good at it. I was a pretty successful person. It was also tough dangerous work, and me being who I am, I just thrived at that stuff. Well once that crash happened in 2006/7 down here, all that work just vanished in a big puff of smoke. I have sent out literally many hundreds of resumes, and got ZERO replies. Now I am a truck driver, it seems I am a popular guy. Now I have worked through my contract with CRST, I am a thousand more times popular. What a difference to my self esteem. I have worked since I was 15 years old. I have always been able to find a job of some kind. I have done some ****ty jobs when that was all I could find, but that is what you have to do to support a family. I have scrubbed toilets when I had too, and ya know......... I am proud to have done that, because I earned a living doing it when nothing else would do that. I made sure my family ate and had a place to live.

Now...... I fulfilled my contract with CRST, and even though I live in a tough area for truck driver hire, I have all these companies basically competing to have me come work for them, because, I went to a school, took on a contract, fulfilled that contract. Was a safe and careful driver. I have people calling me to come to work, and offering me 5000 dollar sign on bonuses.

So.... in the course of my work, I had to make some choices. I went to CRST, behind on my car payments and behind on my mortgage. Well, we finally were accepted into the Haarp program, and we have saved our house. Even though we did not have a variable mortgage, our mortgage was sold and our insurance cancelled and tripled in cost, which is what got us in trouble. I lost my car. I dont care about the trade off. Believe me! I saved my house. If they had not done what they did with the escrow costs, I never would have had this trouble. This is what started my journey to be a truck driver. I thought of doing it back about 12 years ago, but at the time, I thought I had a good career. \

Well, on finishing my contract with CRST..... I decided to take on a few risks. Right now with the miles we make, I am getting 5500 to 6000 miles a week team. Means the miles are split. I get paid .32 cents a mile for normal freight, and .36 for HAZMAT. My contract is paid off. If I leave now, I owe ZERO to CRST for my school.

So, I lost my car. We saved the house and my wifes car. My wife is the administrator of the lab at a hospital locally, and makes around 50 a year. We just did not had the income to save it all. So........ to keep the house, I had to accept having my car repossessed. We almost got that, too, but my 30 year old son lost a job, and he has babies. No fault of his, just bad work. He works in the same field I did. Just crap that happens. I am sure you guys have heard it. But........ because of me changing careers and because of the help from here........ I have saved my house. I just borrowed against our 401K because we can do that at a ridiculously low interest rate and bought a car, and had enough left over to buy a new lap top. And I have job offers to chose from. And people who call me all day wanting me 6to work for them.

Oh and believe me, we were not stupid. If I lose all jobs, my wife's salary can pay the new mortgage. The payments for the 5 grand to buy the new car and laptop are at 4%. 200 a month, and any driving job will pay me enough. I bought a 2005 Mazda MPV with 120 miles on it. It has a Ford V6 engine. I owned a Ranger with the same engine, I out 200 grand on and sold still running. I paid 4500 for this one out the door.

I had to laugh, I checked it all out end to end, looked at the engine, the brakes, the tires, all inside to see how the interior was, wear on carpets, head liner. I mean this one was taken golden care of. Not even foot wear marks in the carpet. So I pick it up, take it home, and last night I am driving it, go to the store to buy supplies to go back out, and I see this unit on the ceiling over my shoulder. It is a TV/DVD player. I never noticed that was in the thing when I bought it.

This thread has two entirely different conversations going on at the same time. But hey, we take it all in stride

I get what your saying, but IMHO saying "or my lawyer will be making a phone call" to an employer would put an awfully big bullseye on ones back.

I totally agree. That's gonna make things worse. You want to establish a partnership with your dispatcher and your company, not an antagonistic relationship. And threatening to call a lawyer sounds amateurish to be honest. Doing that shows you have no intention of trying to work together with anyone. You're just going to start throwing around threats every time things don't go your way and nobody is going to want to work with someone like that. That's not how you get anywhere in trucking.

Most dispatchers are very good at what they do, but of course you'll find some bad apples. If you try everything in your power to work things out with your dispatcher and you can't make progress then call the dispatcher's supervisor to mediate the situation. If that doesn't work, keep going up the ladder until you find someone willing and able to help get things back on track. In 15 years of driving I only ever had to switch dispatchers maybe three times, and the first time wasn't until I had been driving for a few years. Things can almost always be worked out just fine.

Ive had 3 dispatchers with my company. I really liked the first one cause he rsn me hard but he was slow and not efficient at his job so he quit/got fired. The second one was just aweful. A big jerk. I put up wirh him for a monrh but he kept putting late loads on me and it was reflecting in my scores. Now my current dispatcher I absolutely love but it took some time for us to build our relationship. She lacks people skills but shes so good at her job that I accepted that fact and learned to just message her and we are all good. Sometimes you just have to know what you need and what your willing to sacrifice to get it.

Now my current dispatcher I absolutely love but it took some time for us to build our relationship. She lacks people skills but shes so good at her job that I accepted that fact and learned to just message her and we are all good.

That's such a great insight for others to see. It takes a little give and take between a dispatcher and a driver to get things figured out where you guys can work successfully together. Some people just don't care for e-mail and would much rather talk to someone, while most dispatchers would rather you use the qualcomm because it makes their job more efficient. I've seen drivers at my company quit just because their dispatcher doesn't want them calling them all the time. Those drivers will probably have problems no matter where they go because you have to be able to adjust and work within the parameters of the system which are there for efficiency anyway. Some folks are just too thin skinned for this job, and they take everything personal. Being able to roll with the punches, and understanding that this is just how it works best, can really help a person adjust to the rigorous demands of the job. You can have a great dispatcher who isn't necessarily the type of person you would enjoy sitting down to a cup of coffee with, but as long as you understand that the two of you can get a long well, and they can really help you make some money. A good dispatcher is important, and contrary to popular opinion you don't "train" your dispatcher by constantly complaining and making ridiculous demands to them.

Oh boy, I think I'v accidentally started a third conversation on this thread!

Oh boy, I think I'v accidentally started a third conversation on this thread!

Yea, but what an IMPORTANT conversation. In fact I think it needs its own thread. To me this seems like one of those topics that is probably never even discussed in school, but is vital to a drivers success.

I would really like to hear more about how some drivers have handled dispatch situations.

Woody