Grow a pair

I believe enlisted military refer to that as 'Jody'...

My training company was CRST (don't hold that against me, my trainer had the experience and I was smart enough to find a better company, three years later I have a good record), and when they continued to route 5,000 miles after they were told power steering was failing and steering linkage was binding up, (both are OOS violations), I told them in no uncertain terms (via QC) I would volunteer it for a level 1 at the next weigh station.

Why didn't I do this sooner, you may ask? First, I was told on a run to Laredo that we would be routed to a terminal in Cedar Rapids from Laredo. That changed to OKC... So I asked why we were being sent to Phoenix. No reply. So after sitting the entirety of Xmas week in SLC Sapp Bros with a single 9-mile run and having to kiss a-s to get a $25 advance on money I'd already earned (this was my first time out EVER after my trainer's truck), I finally put my foot down when we were routed again to Laredo TX.

At another company, a dispatcher wanted me to mark a load delivered while I was still en route, even though I wasn't going to be able to deliver that day due to HOS. My response? Log falsification is log falsification, and I knew for sure that I would be passing a weigh station en route the next day. So I told them to put it in writing on QC, and I'd do it.

In both situations, they changed their tune REAL quick.

Amen to that. I had a dispatcher once that would b-tch if I didn't run my hours out daily. The day finally came I was given a load from Loch Haven PA to Elgin IL with a 20-hour deadline after I told him I only had 14 left on my 70. Mileage - 635.

Sure, it can be done in 10-12 hours, but I was 90 minutes from the shipper, and they took 4 hours to load. Guess who ran out of their 70 in rush-hour Chicago traffic? You think I was stopping that truck? Not with six idiots on the ramp corners watching the truck for any opportunity. And of course, there's not much between Chicago and Elgin for truck parking.

I got lucky. I had taken a nap while I was being loaded, so logging was able to change my 3-hour OD/ND to SB, which put me legal with enough time to get to the Elgin TA. Had 10 minutes left when I parked... Guess who had kittens when I told them I couldn't run and needed a restart? "A 34's going to kill me in the middle of the week."

My response? "Well, you should have thought of that before telling me to run my 11-hour out every day. I tried to tell you..." Of course, it was like talking to a tree. Keep in mind, I have been on E-logs from day one. He could have viewed my logs at any time. He just never bothered.

He didn't seem to get that A) I couldn't run 10/11 hr days without frying my 70, and B) it made more sense to sit 34 hours to reset for 70 hours than to sit 30 hours for a 6-hour recap. Constantly had issues with that guy.

They'll try all the wheedling in the world, but in the end, they'll put it on you if it goes bad. It's not worth the risk. People can say what they want -- Been on e-logs from day one and I like them. Too many drivers are looking at it as treating them like idiots. It has nothing to do with US, folks. It is to teach dispatchers how to stay within our limits. I'm not afraid of paper logs, but if you run them, you have no life. And what's worse, the blame is all on you if it goes bad.

 

And this is why I have a much less obtrusive ringtone for certain calls as opposed to family and certain friends... Hell, some numbers I set the ringtone (dispatch, most company numbers) to silent, that way, unless my headset is on, I won't even know they called.

 

i think it's a challenge for these companies to find good dispatchers especially on the over night, when i was working at a certain company during my sb i had to keep my phone off and remember to put the QC vol down so i could get through my rest break uninterrupted, i bought a second phone so my ppl could still contact me for personal emergencies

i did a local run as a favor to my day dispatcher and customer was taking so long to load i was doomed to run out of hours, and night dispatcher who happened to be an ex-driver, wanted me to get loaded and start my sb at dock and then park on the street near the shipper and finish my sb where i would certainly get a parking citation, i objected to this idea mostly because i would not get much rest and my load next day was over 600 miles, it was Halloween night in a major metropolitan city and i was reluctant to park all night on the street

customer backed me up and said lots of drivers do the following: get loaded at dock and drop the loaded trlr at a spot in the customer yard where the next day the local driver could pick up easy peasy and then i pc to the drop yard about 5 miles away, the customer is happy, no violations and the local driver is set up pretty good, my sb is still jacked up but at least i could relax a little more and not deal with the holiday nonsense, and probably save the truck from vandalism

he did not approve of that idea and wanted me to do it his way, i stood my ground, made sure the entire convo was documented on the QC and just did it my way, so later during my sb when i was deep asleep at the drop yard he called me to "get the last word"

i made a formal complaint to his supervisor that was based on the fact it's a safety issue to wake up a driver during the sb, and that the dispatcher could use his computer to see when i was on sb and maybe he should exercise some decency and wait for me to come out of sb before hassling me

was told by the supervisor "it's very difficult to see your hours on our computer system, we have to dig pretty deep" that's just incompetence and bad dispatch and that familiar corporate approach to drivers--it's always the driver's fault, and even though drivers are the only ones who actually do the work to bring the revenue into the company our welfare is their last concern, i was pretty relieved when i left that company

 

My phone records all my calls. Just in case... I need evidence.

 

Yup, and that's why I have two ringtones... One for friends and family, and one for everyone else... Including all company numbers.

 

I disagree. You can have the same life on paper as you do on elogs...more so even. How? You can burn through your hours as quickly as you can early in the week to use up as many as possible heading into the weekend...and if the weekend rolls around and you need an extra hour or so to make it home it is easy enough to go back and fix without asking permission from the company and cluing them into what you're doing. Elogs, you either beg the company to edit your logs to show a little less time on line 4 through the week or sit in the truck an hour from the house taking a 34. For the home-every-day crowd like me, it is the difference between making it home every day, or running the risk of needing to get a motel 30 minutes from the house if there are any delays (loading, unloading, traffic, breakdown, DOT deciding to randomly inspect you, etc...). Can't have a life if you don't make it home. And if you are running legal, it doesn't matter if you're on elogs or paper, you run out of hours and are therefore unavailable for further dispatches at the same time...so your life is only as non-existent as you allow it to be either way. If you're out of hours, you're out of hours either way. And if things go bad? Elogs doesn't make it any less your fault.

 

So do you as a driver do the legwork finding customers and building relationships with those customers in order to put freight on the truck? Do you do the paperwork involved in keeping up with licenses, permits, taxes, fees, insurance, regulatory compliance, and everything else it takes to keep you legal? Do you perform the maintenance and repairs on the truck?
Your job wouldn't be possible without that support staff, and they are the reason you are able to "just drive the truck". In many ways, their job is more difficult than yours, as you only have to sit there holding a steering wheel because they take care of the rest for you.

So how would you feel if breakdown turned their phones off at quitting time, leaving you helpless if you have an after-hours problem until they show up to work again the next morning? What if they worked random hours, with no set schedule? "Leave a message and we'll get back to you when we can" isn't the best thing to hear when you're sitting on the side of the road.