Truckers skew older as a demographic while dispatchers tend to be young - freshly minted English and Communications majors making ill use of their degrees as no one pays for knowledge of 19 th century romantic poetry. Isn't it hard to listen to instruction on how to do your job from someone who has never done your job? A Mature person would not be so presumptuous and that is the point. (I may post another thread about "safety talks" from people who have never driven a truck).
What follows is a video about my most recent dysfunctional communication with dispatch and how I deal with this kind of thing. The main point is to accept this differential in age/maturity (generally speaking) between drivers and dispatchers and from the "adult" position, better manage our experience with dispatch. I have recorded a whole series of videos on this subject and would welcome some feedback from my comrades on TTR before I post them all to YouTube.
Dealing With Dispatch
Discussion in 'Experienced Truckers' Advice' started by dogtrucker, Feb 29, 2016.
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LindaPV, G13Tomcat and joesmoothdog Thank this.
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IMO, you have done little to encourage him to change his behavior. Personally I would not get to a stop greater than 2 hours earlier than appointment time, unless there is bad weather, I am being compensated fairly, or I know there is a very high chance of getting unloaded earlier.
I know he's your supervisor, and you are supposed to do what he says, but as long as you allow yourself to work for no money, the likelihood is the company will continue to treat you you in this manner. Like any other decision in an employment situation, you will get, what you allow yourself to get.
Not happy, tell them nicely, if this continues you will be looking at employment elsewhere, provided you are willing to back that up. Not al companies treat their drivers like this, many pay wait time.
Then again, if you are making great money and/or benefits, you may decide it is worth it, but if you think the conversation you described is going to change things, I think that is highly unlikely.DominguezTrucking, RERM and Dominick253 Thank this. -
I am well paid and like my job but - I got a new dispatcher and this is a little documentation of the "break-in" process.
I think this kind of B.S. is common and so thought it worth a thread. -
That being the case I would have told him @ time of dispatch, I do not need to be there (did you say 16 hours earlier?) that's a full days pay you allowed to be taken out of your pocket?
So I will be leaving at "x" time which will allow me to be there "y" hours early.
But that's all I can see from sitting here, only you can decide.
And that kind of BS may be common (I don't know one way or the other). But if it is, it is the driver's fault for accepting it. There are plenty of jobs out there, if drivers did not put up with that kind of crap, then companies would stop doing it.Dominick253 Thanks this. -
Kinda of irionic. I am a driver with a BA in English literature. No use for poets though.
G13Tomcat Thanks this. -
Dominick253 Thanks this.
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Well in all fairness I am young, 34, and I got it to teach school, which I did, but I just didn't like it.
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Why did you dislike teaching? - kids today ...hell in a hand basket and all that? -
Yep. Taught 8th graders in a small community. If you didn't grow up there you didn't fit in. Family trees didn't fork much there either. I was 22 and immature. Couldn't control the classroom. Came back home to Ohio. Couldn't find another job so I left teaching.
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Regardless, I hope you consider your time studying literature well spent. The breadth of context it gives our perceptions as well as the sheer pleasure from great story telling is something everyone could enjoy - but like much of what is best in life, money is not part of the picture.
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