Growing Pains On The Road With WEL

PS. I forgot the biggest part of my reply. I was honestly and truly surprised by my DMs response and quite taken aback. I really have no idea where her animosity came from towards me. We have worked well together for many a yr with limited issue. A few folks in the office had their own ideas. Nothing seeming to do with me personally however DMs are ppl too and sometimes we all get "burnt out".

Ive always appreciated your replies Old School. Let me add a few facts to the bigger picture. This is not the first time Ive had this issue. Fact is about every 6 months ive gone through this. Last year we lost one of our owners and after that the company as a whole started changing just not for the better. We have lost a lot of really good drivers that just didnt want to stick it out. We have also lost a whole bunch of our accounts. The DM thats I spent 2 1/2 yrs with is known for her bullying ways. I had just never put my foot down with her before. Ive pretty much accepted whatever and not questioned much but an average of 2000 miles a week just isnt enough. I dont work OTR to sit in truck stops. Its depressing. I am not to say that Im 100 percent right at all in this matter but if I was 100 percent wrong I wouldn't have had 10 ppl begging me to stay either.

Maybe it is. I just wasnt ready for things to end that way. If I go it will soley be my decision. A carefully thought out decision. I will fix things until they cant be fixed.

The funny thing about grass is. Sometimes it IS greener on the other side. For your sake I hope things work out where you're at. If not I'm sure you'll be able to find a well paying seat somewhere else.

Hey RedGator, Jopa here ... I know you will land on your feet cause you always do ... be interesting to see what happens so me and a bunch of people will be following your thread to get the latest ... hang in there and have faith it will work out the best way it can ... meanwhile, get some needed rest, eh? Talk to you soon ...

Jopa

Just glad to see our resident bada$$ back here aka Redgator, I was going to file a missing persons report on her! Good read, hope things are better for you now.

Here's the big thing I am taking away from this (Experienced drivers, please chime in if you see issues):

- Being recognized as a top 10% driver in your company two years in a row affords you the ability to question issues and get results. I get Old School's message: Try this as a newbie and your miles dry up and you are out looking for another job.

RedGator, you were here when I started and helped me understand what I was getting in to.

Thank you.

Now I was always one of the hardest running drivers you'd find out there. I always wanted around 3,000 - 3,200 miles per week. That was about perfect. Anything under 3,000 was a disappointment. To be clear, I always used paper logbooks, not electronic logs , so averaging those kind of miles was never a concern from a logging standpoint.

In 15 years I also had a perfect safety record and was late for an appointment time maybe once a year. I ran hard, I was safe, and I was reliable. Therefore I always expected to be near the top of the list when it came to miles.

But sometimes thing would get slow for a few weeks here and there, normally sometime between January and April which was always the slowest time of the year. When that would happen I'd keep on top of dispatch, basically with "let's go already!!! I need some miles!!!"

The first thing I would do is talk to any of our company drivers that I'd see throughout the day. I mostly worked for large carriers so there were plenty of drivers around during the course of my travels. Often times I would find that everyone was slow, everyone was complaining about low miles. When that was the case I knew it wasn't me getting short-changed. It was simply a soft patch in the freight, which happens at every company.

Redgator, did you get a chance to talk to a bunch of drivers at your company to find out if it was slow overall or if you were getting singled out for some reason?

If I found out things were slow across the board I would let dispatch know I was aware of the situation but I would keep campaigning for more miles. I mean, that's kind of like an Italian campaigning for more food.......everyone knows Italians always want more food! ( I'm Italian :-) ) So they would do what they could and I would endure it, begrudgingly.

But on the rare occasion I found out others were getting decent miles and I wasn't, that's when I'd start making phone calls to people I had gotten to know higher up the chain of command to see if they could pull some strings. And they always could. Because when you think about it, what else were they going to do? Here was one of their top drivers who knew for a fact that freight was available but somehow I wasn't getting my share. They would get me assigned a good load or two and give the heads up to dispatch to make sure they kept me rolling.

Did you talk around with other drivers? Were they getting good miles while you were sitting or were they struggling too?

You've been one of their top drivers for a long time. If there's freight available but somehow you're not getting your share then obviously "something is rotten in Denmark" as my Grandfather inexplicably used to say. It never came to this for me, but if I had found out I couldn't get my share of freight no matter what approach I took then I would have spoken one last time to one of the higher ups to say, "Listen, if you don't want my services any longer I'm fine with that. There are literally thousands of companies that would put me in a truck tomorrow. I know the freight is available and there's no reason I'm aware of that should keep me from getting my share. If I continue to find that others are getting good miles while I'm sitting then I'll take that as a clear sign you don't want me around any longer and I'll move on. If you want to keep me around, make sure I stay near the top of the mileage list. Simple as that."

At that point there isn't much else you can do I guess.

But honestly that never happened to me. It never got to that point. If miles were available then I was getting them. If they weren't then we all sat around waiting it out.

Brett and others, she did not tell them she was leaving or threatening to leave, they found out because of the applications (with multiple "s" according to the number of recruiters calling her). The dispatcher threatened her and she said "ok". It's more of "You want to fire me? Ok, I need the vacation." She did not threaten to quit if they did not give her more miles. She was exploring opportunities and they found out about it.

Redgator even decided to give them some more time. The thing is, she is in the drivers seat literally and figuratively on this one. She is one of the top drivers and she already has job offers. And she is a trainer to boot.

Redgator, I don't know whether you are right or wrong but that dispatcher, like you, can have a bad day. That does not mean that they or you can bring that to work. He/she probably about fell out of their chair in shock when you said to route you to the terminal.

You have sounded like you have been happy with the company over the last 2.5 years. That is also something to think about. The freight might have been slow for a few weeks but then they should have offered home time to people during those weeks. That would have left more freight for other drivers.

The whole thing is that you are not demanding something unreasonable. Just keep you running. You already know how hard it is to keep rookie drivers past their first year and you have been past 2. That says a lot about the company and the driver.

As for your burn out on training, take some time off from that. It sounds like you like to train but you also need your alone time. Well I may have a solution. Take the time off needed to recoup and refuel on the training thing. Then when or if you go back to being a trainer, instead of back to back trainees on your truck, skip a month in between. So, train for a month then solo for a month. You would be training someone every other month. This give you a break for some alone time that I think you are missing.

Squeeky wheel gets the oil. If you dont squeek you might not get the oil. So go ahead and squeek!

You're really in kind of a uniquely advantageous position. You're a proven top-tier driver, you have a track record of longevity with your company, and you live in a major freight lane. It's not surprising that companies would be falling all over themselves trying to recruit you as soon as you cast the line out there. Nor is it surprising that some of the top brass would be falling all over themselves trying to get you to stay. In the end, though, sometimes the grass really is greener on the other side, and the only one who can decide what's best for you is you. Whatever decision you ultimately make, I'm sure it will be well thought-out and one that you're both comfortable with and confident in.

Good luck!