Good night from...

It changed from the preplan to the dispatch. IE I accepted it to pickup and tcall it 44 miles to the yard but was dispatched to pick up at the yard and deliver 650 miles south. Like I said, my fault for miscalculating/misreading the recap hours when I sent my MAC 2 ETA but this shouldn't have been put on me to start with if they knew I didn't have the hours to make it happen. Trying to get back in the swing of this after a 3.5 year hiatus and learn all the new technology has made for a rough week. And I did everything possible to give the planners a chance to get it there but I'm still standing here holding a service failure with another one pending.

 

Whatever you do, make sure you have communication in Qualcomm to document the situation. That's why in an event like this I would be sure to use Qualcomm freeform messaging to write a recap of the events leading up to the "service failure". Note that you accepted the load under condition "A" and after being assigned the load it did not match what you agreed to on Mac-9. After that a phone call to your DM on Monday should be done. Recap the phone call using QC freeform. Make sure you have everything in writing.

Within my first week running solo I also had "issues" with load offers that didn't comply with my available HOS. Interestingly these issues seem to always happen on weekends and/or nights, when the "A team" day shift planners and DM's aren't on duty. You need to be careful managing your 70. For a while there I developed an Excel spreadsheet to analyze my available HOS on long haul load offers, to make sure I could make deadlines. That came in handy a few times.

After "graduating" from the training DM it seems my permanent DM is a notch better. I've always had "doable" load offers. However, these "doable" times are fairly frequently changed when the load is assigned.

 

rightcoast...send a mac 22 and give them the eta you can get it there. not your fault if they change the dispatched to what you accepted. call your dm or whoever answers the phone and explain the situation(send mac 22 first.). planners do send preplans with times you cant do. its your job to make sure you have the time to do it before you commit. its a larning curve and you'll get the hang of it

 

I burned right through my 70 this week because I have been "logging it as I do it" 100%. But between a couple drop/hooks that required some shuffling of trailers, an overweight load that had to go 40 miles back to the shipper after scaled, and just generally being slow at doing things because I'm rusty, all my hours just got torched. I'm all for logging completely legal but something that I could have logged as 15 minutes on paper takes 26 on elogs. Life seemed easier in 15 minute increments than it does minute for minute. My trip planning has been off too because there has been some major discrepancies between the dispatched miles and actual. I've always been dispatched on practical miles so this was a bit of a shock. Plus they just don't seem to be dispatching things well. Almost every load has been ridiculously tight with problems on one end or another. It's been a challenging week.

 

One thing about the "log it as you do it" and saving time at shippers and receivers:

1. You need a minimum of 5 minutes for any change in status.

2. When I arrive at a shipper or receiver to check in I log "On Duty" with comment for Delivery or Pick Up.

3. After checking in I might then log Off Duty while waiting for a dock assignment, etc. If I'm assigned a Dock I then log On Duty while I'm actively getting the trailer in the dock, then log Off Duty again.

I try to log Off Duty as much as possible while at a shipper or receiver. Only log when you are actively doing something, like checking in, doing a drop and hook, etc. When I do a drop and hook as soon as I'm hooked to the new trailer I log off duty while I do a Mac-2.

Managing time on the road is also key. For example, I never take a 30 minute break until I have 2:30 or less on my 8. That way I will only need to do a single 30 minute break to maximize my 14.

If I have a 700 mile load I try to run as many miles as I can on the first day, taking my 10 as close as possible to the customer. That way on the 2nd day I can deliver and have maximum hours available to take another load.

 

What exactly does a service failure mean here anyway? I'm assuming one isn't the end of the world but what should I expect? It's frustrating. I came here with a really positive attitude despite all the Swift bashing out there, and made myself available for anything from HAZMAT to Canada but just feel like I've done nothing but fight every load this week. I even really like most of what Swift is doing and was looking forward to getting on the road after orientation but it's been one bad experience after another.

 

You might want to rethink going off duty to do your loaded call, that is considered "on the job" and can be tracked during a log audit. There are other times during your arrival and drop and hook that you can go to off duty. I may only show a total of 20 to 25 minutes total on duty time at a customer during a D/H, but any time I spend doing macs is almost always on duty.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I did just go through an internal logbook audit by safety with no issues. They noted that I'm logging time at shippers and receivers, with comments. But I'll keep on duty for actively sending my macs from now on, just in case....

 

I had a service failure early in my solo career. My fault for accepting a local delivery out of Mira Loma without taking into account traffic issues.

The target for on time deliveries (ie. non-service failures) is to be On Time on at least (and someone can chime in with the actual number) about 98% to 99% of the time. Once I had my service failure it took me about a month or so to achieve the target rate.

Bear in mind that much of the load offers, actual load assignments, fuel stops, etc. are generated by computer. When I receive a load offer with tight schedules before I accept the load with the Mac-9 I'll either send a freeform message and/or contact my DM and ask, "What is the window?" Often the ETA's are showing as solid times, yet the actual customer requirements are much more broad. For example, I might see a deadline to pick up tomorrow morning at 09:00, but it is a preloaded trailer and I am doing a drop and hook. I see I can easily make the delivery deadline, but just can't make that 09:00 pick up on time. I contact the DM and find out the actual deadline for pick up is 15:00. In a situation like that I note it in a Freeform message and accept the load offer "as is" on Mac-9.

Even DM's and planners are sometimes perturbed by the fact the computer is generating times which can't be met. Find out what the "shipping window" is before accepting loads, document it on Qualcomm, and run with the load.

 

got to the final and got a door right away. forklift guy was waiting as i backed in. get this unloaded and go grab the next load here which is already ready and get to ontario and drop it at midnite. i'll run to fontana term to waste the hours before the delivery. at least get a shower lol. i'm about 4 hrs away from the final from here.