Is it really easy?

Apparently i got our weekend dm today and apparently he had some benzadrine and mountain dew for breakfast.

Ive had a slow week which i havent been happy about but the dm today seemed to make up for it!

Different people do the job differently (read better) i guess.

 

The same can be said both ways. Most drivers don't know squat about the industry either and are hired because of their ability to pull a truck/trailer down the highway.

 

I've had good and bad experiences w/dispatchers in the last year.I had a load taken off of me when I was 15 min.from the terminal and when I dropped the MT and got to the office the dispatcher was gone to lunch so I sat for 2 hrs.waiting for him to get back and set me up with another load.One of his "Buddies" didn't want the load I ended up with so he swapped them out.I didn't mind getting the loads swapped just hated waiting 2 hrs.while my clock was running.
My current dispatcher gives me my load and leaves it up to me to get it there.Just let him know what is going on.

 

My DM rocks, I don't complain, I know he wants me running. Funny thing is that he doesn't have the greatest rep among other drivers...hmm? He is "known" for not communicating enough. I just wait for the "beep" and keep going. When something goes wrong he makes it right. Did I mention that I don't complain?

 

You won't have the same dispatcher forever. Everything will be going good, and then you get a new dispatcher that might have his favorite drivers, and guess what, you ain't on the list.

 

Oh well, I don't worry about that stuff. I'm open minded about change and don't concern myself with "favorites".

 

Open minded, change two things that never make it past paper half the time...

 

I love it when someone sends me a wake up QC message.
"Okay, time to get up and get going!"

..I didn't know my mom got a job here.

 

You should of replied that back. "Mom? Is that you"?

But to the OP, no it's not easy being a DM if you aren't experienced. Just like drivers you have to be cut out for it. Among other things you have to be people oriented and know how to deal with many different situations in a split second. A good dispatcher is layed back and doesn't act on anger.

When I started driving, it seems dispatchers handled 15-30 drivers. Then it moved to about 45 drivers. My last job a dispatcher handled 100 drivers with a helper. Totally over worked.

 

If it is one thing I have noticed about Truckers, is that they think every ones job is so much easier than theirs, and that "trucking" is hard work. I don't know if it is mostly guys who have done nothing else but drive a truck, or if they have been in one so long they forget what actual hard work is..

Me, I have only been driving for a little over a year. Before that, I was in the Union Iron Workers, and my specialty was doing rebar on bridge decks, busting your rump for 8 hours straight. Or the good old "Mill Shut down", working 7 days a week, 12-20 hours a day, so hard work is VERY fresh in my memory. Even if you pull a flat bed, you work hard for an hour or two tops, and then you get to relax and drive for 11..

So drivers, let's stop this, "Oh, his job is so #### easy, he has no idea".. Surely, there are hard aspects to our job, but for the most part, it is pretty #### cushy. Stressful, but cushy.