Dispatch tells you?

Sirscrapntruckalot - I need more drinking in my life after some of these threads...ha.

 

That's where we came in with FFE as a team, national firemen going wherever to grab trailers and run them delivery asap. I recall a flower load we took off a trainer and his student in Voss MO one day after a wild 6 hour cross country run through the woods to get there.

Apparetnly both of them stayed 12 hours in AZ and again in NM after loading a hot flower load (Probably west Phoenix or Mexico transfer) and the customer in Chicago was pretty ballistic, demanding that they will see these things fresh by midnight or never again as a account. It was there a little after 11 PM, delayed by a full on plural drug dog search through the whole trailer. (We were against the governor at 63 in a 55 zone a hour from Chicago) no tickets no defects or drugs found but they were all over it once they got ahold of that bill in hand. Temperature compromised and everything.

That made it memorable. We were expecting to be home in Arkansas three weeks near memphis when the order to stop and take orders came over that day. We never did go home again for a while.

They were picky though. We pretty much took anything and everything that came in to solve problems of that nature. With one exception. We had a Buffalo to Phoenix 2500 mile run out of ice storm winter into 100 degree summer and Chicago FFE asked if we wanted to give this trailer to Detrioter to someone and take his late load into Ontario which was a sheet of ice by then. It would have been 400 KM of 10 mph on interlock and reward Mr Late in Detriot with a summer time destination?

"NO"

Silence

Seriously? Yes, no. is no. what part of no don't you hear?

Apparently Chicago did not like that and took us off their plum list. Phoenix made us welcome with a whole stack of Nogales for NE and east coasts so it was not too bad excepting Nogales were not exactly a place you wanted to go.

 

Most of the time Dispatch only tells me where to go.

 

I think much, if not most of the problem with dispatch is GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out). Any time I have had issues it boils down to wrong information coming from the customer, with very few exceptions. This is why I often call the customer before pucking up or delivering a load, especially if something doesn't make sense.

I have a great group of dispatchers where I work. They work hard and know their ####. Most of them drove for the company and know exactly what the challenges are. They know each driver by name, how they like to run, and don't play favorites (that last one can get them fired in a nanosecond).

It's common for me to be asked to start rolling towards a city and then get turn by turn directions to an oil rig and full dispatch information as I roll. We are a service intensive industry and do the "ready, fire, aim" drill frequently (fire to aquire).

Whenever there is a cluster ####, I don't get bent out of shape at all. It all equals out in the long run. Getting bent is the poker equivalent of going on tilt. There's no advantage for you to go on tilt if your aces get cracked.

Communicate. That's the most important thing in this industry.

 

Is that code for a word with an f? It could be puckering up though...

I didn't want @IluvCATS to be the only one to feel the love.

Sirscrapntruckalot - Just having fun.

 

Nah...

... I guess that's my covfefe moment.