Co drivers, what’s your relationship like with your dispatcher?

Well, Mack, that is PIXX POOR. It's one reason I distanced myself from this industry. When I was trucking, that thought never crossed our minds leaving the yard. Most places I drove for, the drivers looked out for each other, even the union crybabies had more decency than to pull a fellow drivers 5th wheel. MAYBE, leaving a truckstop, but if you can't trust a co-worker, I surely wouldn't want to work there. Sometimes I get depressed now that I'm 70, and on the "last lap", but GM Chrysler, what a different world I'll leave behind.

 

Dang, the computers couldn’t figure out how to help people finance their $40 purchase on the Internet?

 

The problem isn't just one purchase. It's when people think that they're paying so little for these things. They just keep doing it again and again and they still have a few months left to pay for the first thing and everything adds up to too much for them to even afford to finish the payments. Kind of par for the course these days.

 

Klarna and the others don’t report the debt either, so the debt load that people place on themselves these days is way worse than the reported credit card debt. Financial literacy should be a mandatory course in high school for everyone because at this point we have people making poor financial decisions raising children who will think that poor financial decisions are normal and the problem will continue to get worse. Everything will continue to be spun as “it’s impossible to do X these days” when in reality it’s usually a series of bad choices that lead someone to where they are.

 

In Illinois and Wisconsin it is - and has been for more than 40 years. Problem is the course is one semester sophomore year, long before they will be able to apply the knowledge learned. The larger problem is that it, like most schooling, is approached with a "Gotta get through it" attitude and not "these are skills I need to learn and develop" attitude - but that's a different conversation.

In a more abstract way, financial literacy is part of Common Core .

"Everything will continue to be spun as “it’s impossible to do X these days”" - we have experienced a fundamental shift in economics over the last 30 years. It used to be that living expenses were cheap and luxuries were expensive. Today it is reversed. In the 90s, a flat screen TV would cost $10,000 but rent for a 2 bedroom apartment was $300. Now you can get a top of the line TV for $1,000, but studio apartments in Green Bay are going for $600.

I do not disagree that bad choices are a root cause. I'm simply saying that we've created an environment were making bad choices is easy and even 'smart choices' come with a financial penalty.

 

Last one did such a "great " job (sarcasm) they finally promoted him. Word on the street they replaced him with a her that was even worse. Not my problem anymore.
To answer the question - Strictly biz

 

My "driver manager" seems to be the last one to know anything. Actually I am the last. It's different here at ATS than the other 2 companies I worked at.

Load planners and customer service reps can go into the system and change your pick up or delivery time without any heads up. I find that VERY frustrating. The DM doesn't know anything about it! It happened to me today.

 

Can I make a recommendation?

If you are doing specialized, you should have both the shipper and receiver contacts. Some times, the BOL will have contact instructions. Call these contacts and make all appointments yourself. Identify yourself as the driver. Call the receiver as soon as you’re loaded and call again the day before delivery. If an offer jockey has changed anything, you will catch it. Some jockey may have changed things because the receiver hired a crane to unload and there’s another truck on the way. Problem I would have is that they didn’t communicate with me, and that’s going to hurt them.

 

that's good advice and it's necessary to do it here.

 

For what it's worth, I have started calling on every single delivery I make... to many times in the recent years have I showed up to a place where ur supposed to have a delivery appointment yet nobody told me and now i get to sit there for 6 hours while they "work me in".

Somehow we are supposed to be mind readers and know how every business in america is run. I get tired of that conversation when I show up and they ask if I have an appointment and I say no and they give me a #### u look..the give me the spiel about how I'm supposed to have an appt, what nobody told you? No they didn't you moron because I'd have one if someone told me. Or maybe tell your shipper to add that into the paperwork like the vast majority of businesses do..
so I call and ask everytime and it has helped out more than once... and if doing jobsites always call 100% of the time. Atleast the day before. and if they don't answer just shoot a text , actually I find most times those guys would prefer text because they are busy anyways, I give them my eta and ask for a GPS pin to the jobsite entrance or good directions. And they are the first people I update if i run into a problem somewhere along the way.