Trans Am Still

Passport, that just plain stinks, your early (not ) morning loads/the huge mix up! Glad things turned out ok with the receivers unloading their loads. That's the way you like to see things work, with people being flexible and not throwing a fit. I just don't have any words to express about the DM....though, I agree with your opinion that she's an idiot! George has had some issues with night dispatch messing things up on ooccasion also. Like, seriously, daytime DMs should realize that happens! So much for attempting to be the team player. Wow!

 

Thanks, I know I get a little Rain Man like when I start to rant. If you know what a San Miguel light is and we can find it outside of the Philippines and it is a truck driver appropriate time to tip one, it is on me!

 

Hey Passport , drank me some San Miguel the other day , we have it here in Korea and can also buy it on base. I like the regular better but the light is not bad. Very good beer.

I was just wondering does anyone know what type of money these DM's make ?
I assume they have a boss also , don't they have to answer for all their mistakes ?
Seems like whoever is in charge of TA would see that they have a lot of issues and try to fix it.

Just curious about all this. Do they get paid real well and don't care or maybe under paid and don't care.
Seems to be a nation wide problem but I do hear a lot of people who say they are very happy with their company.

Oh well , lets get back to the San Miguel. Lol. Maybe we can all tip one together one day.

 

passport I feel your pain. Stuff goes wrong but how your DM handled it was all very wrong. I have noticed that we do not have a very good customer service communication to our side, hence all the faxes over temps that they should know. Something should be done about it. Your lucky that it was all discovered before they just took everything and then hours to figure out what was wrong. Just trying to throw in a silver lining, if there is one

Made it home. Even got my trailer washed out before I got home. Tried a new Asian restaurant in town, pretty good. Wednesday night will be here to soon. I am suppose to go to Pergo and bring it to Cheyenne. Hopefully I can get loaded early but if not I should be able to get at least 1,100 more miles in by the Thursday midnight cutoff. Should get in a decent week

Be safe out there

 

Spending the evening here in Lake Junaluska NC at the Pilot. Got here at 3pm got fuel, parked and went to bed. So my 10 is up after midnight but might wait until 3 or 4am which will put me at E St Louis IL Pilot early afternoon, 24 hours before delivery. Got a preplan for Ottumwa IL headed back to Hawthorne NJ but supposed to have a B, E PM and a B dot this week. My DM said she has me penciled for 11/15 but I thought it had to be done before this Saturday 11/1. Well back to bed. Nite Nite gang.

 

Man passport, when it rains it pours. Should be about due for some sun light about now, eh?

At truck world, Hubbard, oh. Delivering in the chicago area, early Wed. morning. Not sure what I'm doing after that. Starting on my 4th straight week of running, and hours are getting all over the board. Club house open yet and stocked??

 

I agree with what dennisroc and jaso said, passport. Your DM acted very unprofessionally. That's no way to treat a driver. If DMs react that way often, TA will be fortunate to keep many good drivers. No one should have to deal with such ttreatment!

 

I think the national average for a dispatcher is $34,000 .....but they are also responsible for planning at that salary. Very good ones with experience can make around $50,000. I have seen ads in Springfield for night dispatchers for $8 and $9 an hour......which would put them making about $20,000 a year. The turnover rate for dispatchers and driver managers is almost as high as truck drivers ....in the 90% range, the turnover rate for drivers is 103% right now. Very few of them remain in the industry .....George would be an exception to the rule having been a dispatcher for 15 years.....from what I have read there has not been a dispatcher that has made it to the 20 year mark, in these studies anyway. There have been several studies conducted on the effect of dispatchers on the driver turnover rate and the lack of quality dispatch has been listed as a major cause for drivers throwing in the towel. They are also cited as a contributing factor in a lack of safety in the trucking industry. Every study has recommended better training and quality standards for dispatchers and has listed them as a major problem within the industry and yet much the same as the lack of adequate training for drivers, the recommendations go unheeded. There is too much profit built into the system that is in place .....until it becomes unprofitable to have poorly trained dispatch and drivers not much will be done.

TransAm does have some long time dispatchers that do a great job ....but they are few and far between. The King had some truly great driver managers while he was there ......believe it or not Jack was one before he moved to leasing. He also had some that were so obviously unqualified for the job that our income dropped 30% because of their screw ups.

If drivers are a dime a dozen, dispatchers (other than the rare few) are a quarter a dozen. They are one step up the ladder and catch flack from both sides ....unhappy drivers and middle management. Some of them should never have been hired and all of the training in the world would make no difference .....some of them with the proper training would eventually become one of the rare few. Who do you blame? TransAm for poor hiring and training practices or people that don't have enough integrity and responsibility to attempt to learn their job?

A driver is only as good as the information that he has .....poor planning, poor dispatch equals a lack of good information so that a driver can plan his time......and make a living.

Things happen and folks make mistakes ....in this case passport it all worked out, thankfully. For me the main problem isn't that your DM is an idiot ....although I agree that she is because she wasn't intelligent enough to find out where things went wrong before she jumped to conclusions ... it is in the disrespectful way that she treated a driver. Especially knowing that you have a proven record of cooperation and responsibility and on time delivery .....probably a much longer and more successful track record than hers, if the truth were known. She should have apologized to you for the mistakes that were made and told you what she was doing to straighten it out. Then it would have just been a hiccup in plans and no hard feelings on anyone's part. That is where the real problem is .....not in the mistake on the swap .....the problem is the disrespect and rudeness that the little twit showed toward you. Report her .....since the Fleet Manager in Rockwall leaves something to be desired .....take it a step up. You have nothing to lose .....a good driver can go anywhere.

 

Enjoy your time at home, jaso!

 

^ Wow, great info about dispatchers HTQ. It is not just your handle that makes you the Queen of our little club here!

I already have an exit strategy with TransAm. I am now just trying to white knuckle it through until my trip to the Philippines. I think my situation with the Tyson delivery resolved itself. Maybe behind the scenes, I was marked down for making a late Tyson delivery. No way I would ever know.

Supervisors as far as I know, are past DMs, they all work in the same building with customer service representatives. Have birthday sheet cake together, play secrete Santa together during the holidays. Play office politics together. I think it leads to an Us vrs Them mentality, with the "them" being the drivers. Hard for anyone in the group to hold another accountable for mistakes, easier to just blame it on the driver who they will not have to see face to face at the water cooler later.