Fill-in Dispatcher!

When I have this problem, I send in the arrival call with no load confirmation call. I disregard computer telling me this can't be done. Of course I talk to my FM the next morning, who will work out a relay or change deliver times.

 

hey I tried explaining to my dispatcher that if I show up at 0900 to my shipper to get loaded if they take 2 hours it leaves me with one hour to deliver 30 miles away across Chicago...not really enough time to make it from one end to the other...lol...

 

Menomonie,WI? I take it you are going to the Walmart distribution center? If so that should be a drop and hook and it shouldn't have a set appointment time on it.

 

I send in confirmation right away and then send msg letting them know I can't deliver at that time. Pick up the load and then plan it and follow up first msg with MY ETA. From there my FM can adjust it. Dealing with another FM, I usually don't have any issues. Dealing with night/weekend, 50/50.

 

Jeez Louise. If it is close send in the confirmation and pick it up. They can change the ETA later or relay it in Gary. Things come up like weather, traffic or truck issues that can change an ETA. I don't remember ever declining a load in my twelve years at Roehl except one that would have made me late for my own wedding. I still picked it up then relayed it. If they sent it to you go get it and work out the details later. Sometimes that means putting on the big boy pants and getting up early to beat Chicago traffic. I guess this is what trucking is turning into. "Sorry dispatcher I can't pick up this load because it is five hours away and I only have 4 hours and 59 minutes available. The shipper is twenty minutes away but I spent twenty minutes on the phone trying to get a hold of you and now they close in ten minutes so I can't get loaded today." I thought about moving into dispatch. I "shadowed" my dispatcher for a day and saw enough to make me run for the hills. He said out of forty drivers you can send out loads to thirty of them and they will just do them. The other ten need constant hand holding. Between the whining of some drivers and the BS that gets put in their lap from higher up I wanted no part of it for what they get paid.

 

hey...that was the 2nd short hop they wanted to stick me with..LOL...hmmm I guess it was enough stink....don't worry last..from what I have heard at the mothership is that by the end of the year ALL the old trucks will be gone......