Abilene Motor Express....A New Place To Call Home

Not often.

 

Being that I've only worked for one company I can't say what the norm is. But I know most of the details on any loads that weren't standard repeats for the company were left to us to work out. They'd give us the info they had and a number or two to call. Can't tell ya how many times I'd call them and get 3 or 4 more to call before speaking with someone who actually had an answer for me. Got frustrating at times for sure.

 

That's good to know. Just an educated guess on my part but, all this sounds like some growing pains for the company. New trucks sitting in the yard, DM changes, some paperwork changes, loads getting confused etc.. etc...

 

As I said, I called the number I was given. Left a voice mail that has yet to be returned. I was given a sheet of paper of the rescheduling procedure. It's a website that requires a login that I don't have. What else can I do?

 

I'd explain everything that's happened so far in a free form to your DM and keep trying to call both the customer and Abilene. As far as voicemails, I had a standard rule of thumb. If my call wasn't returned in 15 minutes or less I'd call back.

Right now your only goal is get out from under that load so pretty much anything and everything is fair game in my book. Being polite and professional of course. But you're just trying to pick up what obviously seems like a dropped ball. Hope it works out for ya soon but I wouldn't wait on others to do it at this point.

 

I think it's only happened twice to me... That a drop n hook turned into a live unload...

Customer wanted what was in the box sooner than later so they had me back up to a dock so they could grab it... Then I did the drop n hook with an empty box.

Customer Service.

 

That makes sense. That happened to me as well from time to time. Mostly on beer and wine loads.

 

Yup ... Do what needs to be done in a politely persistent manner... As a Driver we may not be able to always easily get the info but we can be proactive about encouraging others to not let us slip through the cracks of their desk.

 

Exactly. It can be easy to forget that we're not the only driver out there and the office has many fires to tend to. So it's important to be as you said, politely persistent so we keep ourselves at least near the top of the priority list.

I have no idea what the ratio of drivers to DM's is with Abilene but with WS, we had well over 700 OTR and 200 local with 7 regional dispatchers. Not only does that mean each one has a lot of drivers to cover, but being regional those drivers were always different and changing. For the drivers, It was hard to build a relationship with all of them. For them, it was hard just knowing who the heck they're talking to. LOL

 

It's an acquired skill. ... lol