is it unreasonable to WANT to know where i am going?

@ad356 I will chime in here with my perspective.

Having complete trip information and your GPS locked in is completely reasonable. However, the real world doesn't always work that way.

I haul flatbed for the oil field. We are an expedited service and if we don't arrive to the shipper within an hour of dispatch it's a service failure. Almost all the loads are hot, need it there yesterday.

The problem is the dispatcher might have two lines on hold, six dispatches that still need to be sent to six drivers already en route, and four quotes pending. It's common for me to get a call, "I need you to start heading to shipper X right now, pick up a load headed to a rig near San Antonio. You might have additional stops after X. I will text details as soon as I can!"

That's all I need to get moving. Sometimes I am told to start rolling toward a town an hour or two away and somewhere in the general area is an oil rig. Along the way I receive GPS coordinates and/or turn by turn directions. Then I can either plug them into my GPS on the fly or pull over and do it if it's complicated.

If you have never worked in an intense office environment, maybe you should take time for a meet and greet to observe what they are up against. It's a very competitive business. If you aren't rolling right away and your boss doesn't have someone else to cover that load, the customer has other trucking companies to call. It sounds like your dispatch is working under pressure similar to my dispatch.

If I were you I would roll, ask for directions by text, or find somewhere along the way to stop and write down directions.

 

If he's paying you by the hour to drive the wrong way, drive the wrong way.

He also has to pay you by the hour to drive back.

 

Here is the part YOU don't seem to get, his job isn't to worry about safety, IT IS YOURS.

So I will tell you this bluntly, if you get into an accident while you are on the phone, kiss your trucking career away. Chances are you will face an ambulance chasing lawyer who will pull your phone records just to see if you were texting and when they discover a pattern of your phone calls, they will go after you and the company for even more money. Your boss has insurance to cover this plus he also has a plausible deniability issue with telling the court "well I thought he was pulled over while talking to me on the phone".

So I don't care what's good about it, the bad out weighs the good and you can get so easily distracted while trying to figure out where some place is and that can kill someone or a few people.

 

Winner winner chicken dinner....

 

We have another , winner winner chicken dinner....

 

OP , you need to adjust to your job. You don't seem to understand. Some good valid points have been made and your still whining. Why don't you go elsewhere, try OTR, where your working nights, weekends, and holidays, of course, you know exactly where you be driving to and that's seems what you want. Like mentioned already, it's his truck, your on the clock and if his calling while driving, PULL OVER. The only issue I see is you, your not very experienced and you don't seem to find a way to adjust. Once your there for awhile, you will know where to go once you dispatch to all you pick ups and delivery point. I cant count how many times my broker/dispatch has called me while driving and change to where I was going, btw, USE A BLUETOOTH, so your not using the phone. Makes it easier. "ADJUST"...... is your keyword. And stop with the drama.