CRETE - A Year in Review

I think your DM needs a better understanding of how, & how not, to book a load. If there is no load confirmation sheet with specific load info & rate, then you don't pick up the load.

 

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there! Our trucking jobs don't always allow us to be home on days like this...However, having a father and being a father makes us a lot of who we are! Hope everyone is well out there today. Take care and enjoy this day!

 

No longer OTR, but worked today nonetheless. Got calls from the kids, but could not talk to my father. He is still on the planet, but 90 and in a VA home. Go DAD!

 

Jimbob long time no see did you move out of your house? I noticed it looked empty

 

LOL, I guess I should know better than to try and outsmart my a#s. manager. I sat at SLC almost 24 hours (until Sunday) when they finally sent me a load going to Oregon (800 miles but not delivering until the 19th!). Of course it was a trailer that had been sitting in the yard since I had arrived on Saturday. I sent the usual message "please try to get earlier appt" with my ETA, already knowing their response. Early Monday, I call the receiver and sure enough get an appointment 24 hours earlier. It's not a no-no customer like Target. Right on cue, the qualcomm beeps and I get the message "no, can't deliver early" (although even that simple statement came with ridiculous misspellings and transposed letters). I didn't bother to tell my a#s about the new appointment for fear of her somehow messing it up. It's at night so was hoping to avoid her and get something good from night dispatch. But no, she sends me a pplan today that picks up the afternoon of the 19th. I guess I should be grateful that at least she's trying.

 

You would think a company would want increased productivity. Good luck getting your reload early too.

 

Exactly, but it must have something to do with an accounting advantage or some kind of benefit if they can kill time while you are under a load instead of while you are empty and waiting on them. At least six of my loads in the last 2 months, I asked them to try and get an earlier appointment. Not once did they do it, but instead said "sorry that was the last appointment" or "there are no earlier appointments". So I started calling the customer IMMEDIATELY (I mean within seconds) of getting that message and instantly and easily got an earlier appointment on 100% those I attempted. In this case I didn't even wait for dispatch to respond, yet they did the same thing.

 

You are giving the management in High Command way way waaaay too much credit...it is my opinion that most of the underlings couldn't find their head with both hands (mainly because it's so far up their butt they chew their food twice). I personally feel that they have a wake-up service because most can't plan for tomorrow...I think the wake up service calls them each day they are suppose to work and reminds them that they have to be in the office at 0700...and will even send them directions if they need.

 

I honestly think it's a total lack of desire to care or try...they come in, sit down, log onto the system, and attempt to make themselves look busy until break time, or lunch, then kill time and milk the job like it was a Amish dairy farm until quitting time(Amish dairy farm is one with no electric milking machines, all done by hand so it takes longer).

Generally if I deliver early, I don't even ask or warn them...I just do it and when I get empty, the system will automatically start looking to dispatch me. Like a former boss said to me when we were ordering something we weren't pre-authorized to order...''It's easier to ask forgiveness than permission". by the way, he is still working for the same company 20+ years later, so I guess he was more wise than anyone ever gave him credit for being.

 

Incompetence indeed rules. Three times today, I had to explain to someone in Lincoln that due to the shipper taking too long to load me, I would not have enough hours to get to the consignee and take my break before unloading (the only way I could make on-time delivery). I don't know how some of these people find their car in the lot after work.