Arnold Drivers, What's your 20?

You've never been upstairs in dispatch at Jax on a Saturday night. You wouldn't be saying "dispatchers", plural. I've been up there numerous times and there is (1) dispatcher. So please don't exaggerate ha ha

Well to be fair, there's always 1-2 out in the guardshack dispatching as well. So that makes 2-3 dispatchers on a Saturday night so I guess you were right all along...

 

Glad to hear they are getting y'all some team miles. I'm sure they realize that teams have options.
I'm in Kingman,AZ this morning with a Baker-Hughes HM ld for Bakersfield tomorrow morning. I've been on this acct for 5wks now and this is the 1st west-coast load I've had. The CEO sold me on this gig based on loads to Bakersfield, as well as OR, UT, ID, WY and Minot,ND.
The reality has been short runs for Baker-Hughes, such as Tomball,TX, Plainville,KS, Woodward,OK and one Minot that I had 4 days to run. I don't complain about the shorter runs, but I finally called and left a voicemail for the CEO to let him know things were not going quite as advertised. Next day, I get preplans for Baker-Hughes in Sand Springs,OK to BH in Pasadena,TX, followed by a DEnver load. Cool... Then on the way to pickup from OKC, it gets changed to the Cali load. Thanks,Boss.
Operationally, GP still has the same issues. Not enough ops bodies on nights/weekends to handle satcom ops, so drivers start calling the phones, spending 30 min trying to get GP on the phone to disp their next preplan. Too bad we don't have auto-respond that would send your next ld as soon as you sent an empty call.
Empties are still an issue. If you drop at WM/Target/etc and they have no empty, GP will waster your clock sending you here & there to find an empty. At the yard, there are 4-6 trailers with OS&D product or rejected lds. No one seems to have a plan for what to do with the product in order to free the trailer.
I arrived at GP with a trailer I had brought from BH in Sand Springs that had one cage-tainer of Ford plastic interior parts in boxes. I advised FM I would need someone with a fork to get it off so I'd have an empty. No response. When I got there I unloaded the boxes off the tail, then used a cargo strap to drag the cage-tainer from the nose to the tail (great workout) and went to the shop to get someone to fork it off. Done, but then term mgr Josh calls me later to chastise me for doing it. It seems some are not used to people who take the initiative and improvise, adapt, and overcome to get things done. I didn't ask for extra pay, I was simply ensuring I had an empty.
That was not the 1st trailer I unloaded for that reason. There was another that had 3 pallets of OS&D product that I broke down, fingerprinted to the tail, then stacked it off back onto pallets. Voila! an empty...

 

Another issue is e-logs. I ran paper for the 1st two yrs here, violation-free. I've been on the E for a month now and it really magnifies the ops issues when that 14 is ticking. Most of the time no sweat, but if anything goes wrong, you are hosed.
I've come to the conclusion that the real problem is our method of compensation. Everyone else is either hourly or salary. No matter what crap happens during the course of work, they still get paid the same. Drivers? Any little issue or delay impacts our earnings or potential to earn. Clearly, we need to be paid like train engineers and pilots.

 

Here's the current SMS. Bob in GP safety told me that Arnold is very close to threshold in the hazmat cat. Bummer to see we have gotten worse. The driver fitness score appears to be tickets for medical cards, some of which look like due to not getting there medical card documented at their home state DPS and getting an automatic DL downgrade. That's how OK does it...


[TABLE]
[TR]
[TD] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] PERFORMANCE







[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD]BASICs Overview What Does This Mean?
(Based on a 24-month record ending February 21, 2014)[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]On-Road[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Investigation[/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="align: center"]BASICs Status[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Unsafe Driving[/TD]
[TD="class: performance"]

61.9%​

[/TD]
[TD="class: nagperformance"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="class: nondeficient"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Hours-of-Service (HOS) Compliance[/TD]
[TD="class: performance"]

58%​

[/TD]
[TD="class: nagperformance"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="class: nondeficient"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Driver Fitness[/TD]
[TD="class: negperformance"]

81.4%​

[/TD]
[TD="class: nagperformance"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="class: deficient"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Controlled Substances and Alcohol[/TD]
[TD="class: performance"]

68%​

[/TD]
[TD="class: nagperformance"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="class: nondeficient"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Vehicle Maintenance[/TD]
[TD="class: performance"]

74.8%​

[/TD]
[TD="class: nagperformance"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="class: nondeficient"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Hazardous Materials (HM) Compliance[/TD]
[TD="class: performance"]

Not
Public​

[/TD]
[TD="class: notavailable"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="class: notavailable"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD] Crash Indicator[/TD]
[TD="class: performance"]

Not
Public​

[/TD]
[TD="class: notperformance"][/TD]
[TD][/TD]
[TD="class: notavailable"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[TABLE="width: 100%"]
[TR]
[TD="colspan: 2, align: right"] [/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

 

hanging out in Bakersfield waiting on a backhaul. Yesterday, Baker-Hughes was a goat-fornication. I got there at 0745, but 5 other trucks were already camped out. One driver said he'd been there since Saturday. WTF? Anyway, I was told to go around the block and park on the side-street til my turn. Then another Arnold showed up and went right in. Swell... BH forgot about me so the other Arnold got my preplan from Shakeytown back to Durant,OK.

 

Mira loma ca to austin. Dh to temple for ochelata ok. Trailer needed flap and wheelseal so now at GP waiting on shop.
Tip for Ats drivers. If u have a trailer prob and will be dropping,call breakdown when you drop and let them deal with it so you can keep moving.
When i msgd my fm re:trailer prob,he said it would be easier on the road than GP shop. A sad indictment of the shop...

 

Now that im getting a handle on e-logs im less and less willing to do any free
Work that burns my clock. GP wants me to go check a location for empties,
I need a $50 trailer move sent to satcom.