When you are a victim of extortion....

I can 100% guarantee that had this mechanic let you go he would’ve never seen a single penny for the service he provided.

 

like you said not your truck not your worries. Let the company handle it.

he refused the give you a quote but your not the one responsible for the cost of repair. Person calling it in is and they are responsible for the payment.

once again why are you driving in the truck if you don’t have provisions or equipment that can handle extreme cold weather in case of a breakdown? You do know places exist with no cellular service right?

 

I kind of have a similar take on it.

I'm not going to demean or put down anyone especially if it's a female with a dog in freezing weather in the middle of nowhere. I don't see anything funny or trivial about that.

The driver's job is to drive. It is not her truck. If the truck breaks down the trucking company needs to have a way to pay for that. Whether efs was down that night or whatever else, someone at that Trucking Company needed to get on the phone with that mechanic and take care of it, even if they use their own personal credit card. Someone at the company should have taken care of this not just pushed it off onto the driver. There should be someone there on the overnight hours that has the authority to take care of these kinds of problems. Having a truck broken down in the middle of the night, a driver stranded, your load is stranded or the next load picking up is going to be late, and a mechanic charging you by the hour is pretty effing important for someone to take care of.

I also took it that the driver went to sleep because they thought the company was working out the payment with the mechanic not because they didn't give a crap what was happening.

If your truck was fixed and you think the company is paying the bill why would you not go to bed? You have to get up the next day and go to work. If you waited 5 hours for someone to show up after you've been driving all day and it took them however long to fix it you're probably pretty tired.

And after all of that if someone woke you up and said hey man they're not paying me I'm taking it off the truck freeze to death, I don't know that you would have handled yourself perfectly calmly and maturely and professionally.

The bottom line is that it's the company's responsibility to take care of this and they didn't. Drivers should not have to wrestle with problems like this because it's not their problem.

And it is not their call to decide whether to call for a tow truck or any of that nonsense. I'm sure the driver called in and said hey the truck is broken down and they said okay we'll find you someone to come out and fix it.

Again, none of this is the driver's fault. The company dropped the ball and this is completely their fault.

I remember being out in Arizona in the middle of nowhere and the truck broke down and they called a mechanic and he fixed it and they paid him and he was on his way.

That is what should have happened here.

 

I understand what you're saying. But you're a company driver. The mechanic's rates going up or down had nothing to do with you. All you should have been concerned about was your company finding a solution to keep you safe in a very, very bad situation. They should have just paid the mechanic and ate their losses. End of story.

You sitting there and waiting for a tow truck or another mechanic to come to you (if the 1st mechanic stuck to his word and undid all the repair work that he did for you) in the middle of nowhere, in the (way below) freezing temps, should not have been an option for them either. At that point, the cheapest or "fairest" price should not have been their concern. Your safety should have.

Again, why did they not have multiple emergency company credit cards for these exact types of situations? It's unexcusable.

I am in no way blaming you for anything. I think you got caught in a very bad situation and so did the mechanic. I am putting the blame 100% on your company. It's inexcusable how they treated both you and the mechanic, given the (very bad) circumstances that you were in that night.

I think one thing that's being lost in this thread is, weather aside (although your life was certainly at risk with below freezing temps, especially if you're older and catch pneumonia or something), your safety was 100% at risk being in the middle of nowhere in the desert, late at night and stranded. Whose to say in a situation like that, that someone doesn't pass by your truck with bad intentions? Unfortunately, that's the reality of the world that we live in. And again, YOUR SAFETY rather than the companies wallet, should have been their very 1st priority.

 

Didn't the 400$ come from the waiting to get paid?

Ridiculous you're still making excuses for your company.