Checking Up

As I'm sitting here eating lunch my boss comes in and asks how long until I have a task done. Than lets me know more tasks to do, and to explain some parts of the task at hand. Well I dont mind talking about work at lunch I know he has a business to run and me being hungary shouldn't stop that but it got me to wondering how often do drivers deal with ( I'm guessing dispatch) trying to figure out how long it will take to get something done or why your stopped etc.?

Well I dont mind talking about work at lunch I know he has a business to run and me being hungary shouldn't stop that but it got me to wondering how often do drivers deal with ( I'm guessing dispatch) trying to figure out how long it will take to get something done or why your stopped etc.?

Matt, one thing you have to realize is that truckers don't work on the clock. We don't have lunch hours or even lunch breaks unless we decide to take them ourselves. We pretty much set our own schedules and go by that as long as we get our loads delivered safely and on time. Heck, I've had my dispatcher call me at two in the morning with a question at times. He doesn't call and wake me up or anything like that because he can look at his computer screen and see that I am driving or sleeping/on break. He knew I was driving and he had a question about something on a load so he called and we discussed it. I very seldom have had a dispatcher calling me wanting to know when I was going to be done with something. Maybe a rookie driver who hasn't established himself or a lazy driver who is never seeming to get things done may have to deal with that, but I am thinking that they are bringing it on themselves by not being very productive.

This business is totally performance based. The movers and shakers have little problems with dispatchers bothering them. The others? Well, you can go to just about any trucking forum and figure out who they are - they have lots of problems, and just as many complaints about the very things you are asking about.

I've almost never had anyone but backup/weekend/night dispatchers ask me how long it was going to take me to get somewhere or pester me about my schedule. Of all the dispatchers I've had, there was only one time my dispatcher called me to remind me to send a Mac 22 (at Swift, this is the running late macro) if I wasn't going to make it. My dispatchers learned that I was a "set it and forget it" driver. I didn't usually run much more than 2500 miles a week (didn't feel like it), but I always ran what I was given and often arrived way early and never late. If I ran into issues along the way, I'd let dispatch know, but if they didn't hear from me they could assume everything was going according to plan.

I've had night/weekend dispatchers wake me to ask me to repower/relay a load from another driver.

I once had a Jim Palmer dispatcher wake me up at 0300 to ask me to walk through the truck stop and wake his driver that wasn't answering

After I verbally assaulted him, I wondered how long it would take for my FM to get the email about my attitude. It didn't happen, but I bet that guy never calls and wakes up another driver lol.

If you are asking how much of our "off duty" time involves work... A lot lol.

At the USPS, a boss I hated barked orders at me and I responded "I'm not getting paid to listen to you yet. Wait until I clock back in".

My FM only messages me for ETAs when I have a 24hr window, that way he can preplan me for the next load. Many of our drop and hooks are midnight to midnight. So if I'm being lazy and still sleeping at 0800, he will message me. But it isn't " hey, just cause you can deliver til tonight doesn't mean you don't get your butt in gear"...its more of a "have any idea when you will get there, I have a great load next be need to know if you would make it".

I didn't realize this at first and took offense with the "but I still have 14 hours to get it there and I'm two hours away" attitude. I basically thought he was telling me I'm bad at my job. Until I found out that there are drivers he needs to call and wake up because they missed their appointment for oversleeping.

I am already feeling for that Jim Palmer guy lol.... just don't want to imagine how much English he had to listen to that day lol