Saying "No"

I recently became an owner operator through Werner Enterprises. Yeah I know, why in the world did I do that? It's a long story and took me a lot of research and thinking to make the decision but I did and that's not what I'm here about. What I want to know is for those of you leased on to a company that has dispatchers where you don't ever talk to any brokers, when and how do you say "no" to loads. For example, I'm sitting here at a terminal in Laredo right now, just brought a trailer down from Palmyra, PA so a really good load for a Werner driver . They told me to split the load here and head to a customer down here to pick up a cargo claim load, take it to another customer (in the same town), then take it back to the original customer. Based on the miles system Werner uses, I will get exactly 0 miles. What I do get paid is $30 for a shag run plus $20 for the stop. This would appear to me to be a full day's worth of docking, waiting, waiting, docking, waiting...etc. So all day I'd make $50. So I messaged my dispatcher and said exactly this: "This load will have me sitting around all day for hardly any pay. Just a shag with one extra stop. I won't be able to stay on top of my expenses with loads like this. Can you please find me another load?" That's verbatim what I sent him. What I want to know is if it is OK to say no? He and I both know there are hundreds of company drivers that would be happy with an easy load like that because they don't pay for anything. $50 could fill my DEF tank from empty. So I said no because I need to get miles, not shags. In less than an hour if he gave me a 50 mile run I'd make $100. So obviously I don't want this load. One of the things I was told by other owner operators across half a dozen companies all told me the same thing: "Don't be afraid to say no." But if I piss off my dispatcher, I'll be twiddling my thumbs until I go bankrupt. What do you guys with owner operator experience have to say about this?

 

I'm not locked into this company completely but I sort of am. The plates have already been ordered by Werner so they have the title and all that for the truck. I bought the truck through Fleet Truck Sales, Inc who are separate from Werner but still connected as if they were still Werner. But they gave me a shot to start o/o with next to nothing. So as far as that goes, I'm stuck until the truck is paid.

 

Yeah that's probably what I should do. Get him on the phone and lay down some ground rules for slaving me.

 

#### lol. Depends on the account but I get paid on a sliding scale :

Miles Rate
0-24 $2.45
25-100 $1.70
101-200 $1.30
201-300 $1.21
301-500 $1.08
501-700 $1.05
701-1000 $1.03
1000+ $1.02

 

Hmm, never thought of it like that. Good point. Even still, I don't want to be sat at the terminal because my fleet manager is pissed. But if that happens I will get a new fm.