No Loads For You….

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.

Slavery? Unfair? Seriously?

By chance did you talk with your management about your issues prior to jumping onto here for our useful, time proven advice?

Old School if I could only start my idea of a trucking company (its doable just need to figure out how to compete) I would hire you to manage the drivers as well as drive the best runs etc

Take a number, haha!!

I hear 'ALL WEEKEND' from my other half . . "I'M NOT AT WORK NOW!"

The stuff that O/S contributes and does for this community, has me aghast. Heck, I've learned MORE from O/S than I have from my LIVE IN TRUCKER OF 20 YEARS GUY!

~Anne!~

Slavery? Unfair? Seriously?

By chance did you talk with your management about your issues prior to jumping onto here for our useful, time proven advice?

On that, we are left in the lurch.

~ Anne ~

ps: i SUCCESSFULLY completed round one.

I’m gonna guess by some of OP’s comments about his self admitted attitude that may be a contributing factor for him. You can be an awesome sklled driver and it won’t matter in the end if your difficult to get along with.

You can stand up for yourself in a proffessional business like manner without ruffling feathers. Being sarcastic, demanding, loud or other methods aren’t going to get you where you want to be. Effictive communicatiin is always the key to succuss.

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.

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!

One good rule I follow is never **** off people who handle your food or people who handle your dispatches.

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.

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.