dispatcher horror stories...let's hear 'em!

I have a good one being on the other side of the glass. I worked for a local food grade tanker outfit from 1999-2005. The owner wanted to branch out and try regional, 11 western states, and needed another dispatcher so I accepted the offer. My first load, our brand new account, was to load raw organic milk in Amargosa NV to Spokane WA. P/U cream at the same facility in Spokane, and deliver to F4less in Riverside Ca. The boss even bought a brand new Pete 379 America class and a new tanker. No expense spared. the driver hand picked to do the run was our senior dispatcher/ terminal manager's husband. Needless to say I was sort of jelous. "Hey Boss, I'll take that first run if you want". Boss. "No your job is behind that desk.

This is how my first dispatch went down. I get a phone call later that night at home. " Hey I'm out of service at the Oregon POE"... " What?" " Yeah, scalehouse pulled me in and checked my logs, and I was uh 2hrs over my 70 hours, sooo". I won't get into the details of the conversation after that, but apparently this driver never took log book 101, and why in the world would you go through a POE knowing you're out of compliance without making some adjustments. If you want to run by the book I'm cool with that but let me know about your situation ahead of time so I can make some phone calls.
I get to work the next morning and have a "civil" discussion with Mrs. Knucklehead, (the head dispatcher) about her husband, and call the customer up in Spokane so I could eat some crow for breakfast because now our first delivery will be late. The owner now calls Mrs. Knucklehead and myself into his office for a very unpleasnt conversation which even woke the mechanics in the shop at the other end of the building. I've never seen a mans face turn purple or foam at the mouth up until that day.
It gets worse. Next day, and after giving said driver a crash course on how to fill out a log book while driving past the city limits, he proceeded to tell me that both ladders on the NEW tanker are now facing south because he bottomed pulling into a parking lot for breakfast. " What!" "Yeah, Ahh... I don't like going to truck stops so I tried to park at Dennies.... and the driveway was.... well a little high". " DO YOU THINK YOU CAN MAKE IT TO CALIFORNIA WITHOUT CAUSING ANY MORE PROPERTY DAMAGE OR GETTING ARRESTED?" silence.
Hey boss guess what supper trucker did now. Hee Hee Hee. I was politely asked to return to my office and not be seen for the rest of the day. Oh BTW, we lost the account and knucklehead went back to local where he belonged. I remained in dispatch, got a new account or two, and as the company grew became safety manager for about 6 months and then back into the truck, where I belonged. I even got that new Pete and tanker with repaired ladders.
Only working 8 hours a day and being home every night was great but I think I aged 10 years while being on the office end of things. Being a driver has it's moments but only having to worry about what I have to get done is less stress for sure. It's nice not getting an ##### chewing for someone elses f ups. I have fond memories with that company, and have even better stories about the dispatcher/ ex driver that replaced me.

 

I ran for Schneider for about a year and a half, regional out of West Memphis; had a half-decent DBL/STL/whatever. For the most part everything went off without a hitch.

Weekend/support shift was the pits; let me tell you.

So I'm headed to Houston to pick up a load. It's Sunday night, and I should have been home Thursday or Friday. I'm about 5 hours out with maybe 6 left on both my 11 and 14. Paperwork tells me to be there at 1900. No problem; there's supposedly onsite parking, and traffic would likely not be an issue.

Mind you, Schneider just switched us to the wonderful Workflow system, which took away our written directions/notes and just gave us a GPS routing. As we all know, GPS isn't worth a ####e except for a 'general reference', and not too many people carry around a pocket-sized map of Houston.

I called the shipper, figuring they'd be able to guide me in the last couple miles. No dice. No answer. I called Support Shift, as they were usually great about finding alternate contact info or directions... I was given another number to call, only to hear a message explaining that the facilities closed at 1700.

So I call support shift, who swear up and down that the load is to be picked up at 1900 and not a minute later.

I make my way around to the place, only to find out that it's a maze of one-way streets, low-hanging live oak branches and near-impossible turns. I pull up to the entrance, only to find that the place is locked up tighter than Folsom Prison. Not a soul to be found.

So I make another call to Support, just to be put on hold. I sent several messages via MCP explaining the situation while waiting for someone to answer. I finally got someone on the line, only to be told that I'm full of ####e and that I obviously just don't want to run this load. It took a bit of convincing, to the point of my offering to take photos of the entrance (replete with signage) before Support relented and admitted that there might be 'problems'.

By this time I had maybe :30 on my clock; just enough to make it the 11 miles to Baytown and find parking. I make it with about 10 minutes to spare, get parked and start on my end-of-day paperwork, and an urgent message comes over the MCP.

To paraphrase, "Why did you not make your pickup? You showed that you arrived at the shipper and just left. Why are you now 30 miles away?"

WTF? I wasn't about to respond just yet - ######, I was halfway through my paperwork and my sandwich.

The phone rings. Some ####y little girl just starts in, demanding to know why I left without getting loaded; did I think I owned this truck? (Eh, guess someone conveniently forgot the phone conversations and qualcomm messages from earlier) And futhermore, why did I drive 30-plus miles out to Baytown when I should have stopped at our Houston terminal (Which both, incidentally, were equidistant from the shipper, at about 11 miles).
G-d knows I tried to get a word in edgewise, but this peckerneck kept getting louder and louder, eventually asking if I was just stupid. Oh, I was going to pay for those out-of-route miles; I'd learn to park where I was told! (Told? Nobody told me a ###### thing - I wasn't going to park on a side street in the rough part of town or at a terminal which rarely had any parking, when I could get half decent food and a shower right up the road!)

So I snapped, adjusted my volume to outdo her, and asked her if she knew how to read load details, MCP messages or a map. I asked if she'd done anything more than, say, daydream about driving a truck or roleplay as a bunk-bunny.

Silence. The line goes dead. I as done talking to this particular bonehead anyway, seeing that I probably hadn't gotten any point across. I send a message stating that I'll try the shipper again at 0600 Monday morning, and I lie down to sleep.

I make my way back the next morning, pull in through the gate and am promptly told that I am an hour early. A. Freaking. Hour.

No biggie; I'm at the dock, playing on my laptop when my DBL calls, laughter in her voice. Apparently talk of my conversation with the kid on the previous night had made its way from Green Bay to West Memphis.

I was told not to worry; I'd done my part and covered my ### - it was customer service's fault - instead of Sunday at 1900, the load actually picked up Monday at 0700... and that someone would indeed be teaching my little adversary how to read a ###### map.

 

Has anyone ever recorded there conversations with these dispatchers & posted them to You-Tube? It might give us new guys some in site on how to deal with these people.

 

I'd run out of room if I explained each dealing with a dispatcher that had their head in the sand. Though, there is one that I will never forget and tops them all! I was in east NC and headed to pickup a load going over to WI. I got lost on the way, but got turned back around and was just barely going to make the pickup on time. I was on edge because I was pretty new and didn't want to be late. I was about 10 mins away when I got an important QC message. The dash had a little readout that showed the first bit of the message. It said STOP NOW!! IMPOR... So I stopped to read the message. It said that there was a damaged trailer that needed to be taken to repair shop a few miles away. It would make me late to my pickup, so I said "I cant, I don't have the time". I then got a quick response that said "if you don't have the time, there is a clock on the qualcomm". I swear to you that made me so mad that every blood vessel in my body popped out of my skin.

So, he took me off the load and I shagged the damaged trailer and even waited a few hours for it to be repaired since I already missed my pickup. After it was fixed, I let dispatch know and got another load. It loaded at the same place I was going to pickup from and....it was a cross country run straight to Tracy, CA. It would be my first time ever that I went west of Houston, TX. I guess that was the dispatchers way of saying thanks for not cussing me out after that little joke I made, and also for waiting on that trailer.

 

Guss I'm going to lay over in santa barbra on tusday. Don't know how that's going to work out.

Not a horror story but really? Frigggin moron.

 

While working for May, electronic logs.

Dispatcher " Got a load. Picks up in Roseville Ca Thurs at 11:00 Delivers in San Diego Sat at 04:30. Costco load." Me "No Problem." Six hours in. Dispatcher " Oh there's a mistake. Delivers Fri at 04:30. Shouldnt be a problem right?" Me " Yeah big problem " Dispatcher " Well you accepted the load so you better not be late." Me Facepalm.

E-logs and on time don't always mix. After 30 or so phone calls later we had an "understanding" about accepting a load and e-logs.

Edit cause it was a pile of words.

 

Had a load once a preloaded trailor in Gridley IL going to Oskaloosa IA. Hopper Bottom (Grain Hauler) well the Trailor was preloaded for me on there scale. Guess was new guy there the trailor weighed 80,000 pounds even good no? I hook up to it and pulled it on our scales not knowing the trailor was at as heavy as it was new somthing was wrong when I could hardly move on 1% grade up to go to our scales. Call my Dispatcher and said hey you know they preloaded this trailor he said yes.

I proceeded to tell him ya its 80,000 pounds he said good we get I think it was $90 a ton. I then proceeded to tell him its just the trailor thats 80,000# he was like really how much do you weigh now? I told him 105000#s he said I will call you right back I said alright. Hour later I get phone call he said a new guy loaded the trailor and didnt know that you had to include the tractor I was like really didnt know that one. And where they loaded it you cant take none off. I proceeded to say well I am going to have to get some permits for this heavy load I told him what it would cost and he said na just go with it. I said I am not going to pay for overweight ticket he said no I got you on that we will pay all overweight tickets I Said I want a signed document from the company stating this please this was befor the PSP scores for the drivers. He sent me a fax with it stating that they would pay all fines with overweight tickets. After I got that I started to head on over to get unloaded taking 2 lane roads threw back country and stuff. He calls me up and said thanks so much yada yada and stuff. I get there unload and call him for next load said I need to be down in Mississippi by 7pm the next day easy peasy easy load was under 70k on that one get there got unloaded he calls me up after I get unloaded and said I needed to be in waseka MN by 7am the next morning tell him there is no way im already burning my logs.

He begs me I said I want double my hourly rate I was paid by the hour He said if I did it and got it there befor it opened he would double my weeks pay from that year of my highest earnings. I said sure it'll be there befor they open. Was great company to work for just ran you ragged sometimes they had there own feed buisness so thats who I was hauling for for there mills.

 

Dispatchers.....They don't earn a dime for any company they work for. They are like mechanics, they provide a service for the company they work for but they DO NOT ACTUALLY earn revenue. So economically, they are overhead for the company. But you must understand that they wear nice shoes, they don't stink from sleeping in a truck that has no A/C for weeks and they see drivers as numbers on a dispatch board. Like pieces on a chess board.

If any company actually wanted to excel at freight and keeping drivers, that company would start with their dispatch and maintenance system. But no, as long as the driver is available to blame all the company ills on it will continue. All truck drivers are stupid! All you have to do is ask a dispatcher and they will confirm this. It is like mechanics, most of them can be replaced with a cardboard cut out photo with a sign around its neck bearing a huge "NO" sign. Because is that not the job of a mechanic is to tell the driver no? I worked as a mechanic for years and it was not the job that ended it for me, it was my fellow mechanics who thought their job was to make sure the coffee maker was always brewing. Most are actually looking for a comfortable place to be, just like dispatchers.

 

I suppose that Tiffany the front desk angel was busy texting her high school boyfriend? I don't know how in G-d's name these companies ever get anything done! What all of them need is a practical application of the trucking business. They think Qualcom, Peoplenet and the Smith system is going to make up for not knowing a cabover from a pop top camper. Most of the time, I have to do the dispatchers job anyway so I may as well be in business for myself.

 

My second dispatcher at Swift Transportation was Kent Oberhelman. He had a sense of humor like that and was always quick with a smart ##### reply. The first few times I got tee'd off and then calmed down and laughed cause they really were funny. After I got used to that I realized it was his way of breaking the tension and boredom of the road. Quite a guy and he knew drivers and how to handle them.