Time to Leave Trucking to there own Devices

Frank....Frank....Frank.....<sigh>

 

Exactly, if you’re not happy with your situation change it!

 

Not enough freight? From some it seems that way.

I’m sitting beside a L/P who has been waiting to be dispatched. He’s been waiting for 7 hours now lol

I’m on a 34, enjoying the day and cleaning my truck. I’m also booked out until next week. Then it’s to the house I go.

 

Linehaul. My home terminal was run like the military.

 

I’ve been a professional driver for 20 years, most of them as a charter motorcoach driver, more recently as a truck driver, and the OP is correct that dispatchers play favorites. I should know, I’ve always been a dispatcher favorite. Amazingly enough, none of my employers were relatives, or friends of relatives, or old classmates, or anyone who would have any kind of reason or predisposition to favor me.

Nope, my unfair advantage was that I showed up every day, did my job, took care of the equipment, looked out for our customers, kept my dispatchers and managers informed about any issues that affected the company, said yes to any reasonable request and said no when I had to. I’m a naturally positive guy, and I’d rather laugh than #####, and I’m pretty sure that played a significant part, too.

Don’t get me wrong, over 20 years I’ve had a few pretty bad experiences, have been frustrated and angry, have quit jobs that just didn’t work out. But those situations were the exceptions, not the rule. If everything is generally bad, if everyone seems to be trying to screw you, I’d have to guess that maybe it’s not them, but...

 

If you are a positive reliable mule as you say you are it makes no sense for a dispatcher to feed you gravy loads just because you are such a wonderful guy. A mule like that will be used and abused to patch up delivery schedules without regard to mule' earnings. Once in a while they might throw you a bone.

 

You might think so, but you’d be wrong. Since I occasionally took a bullet for the team, I consistently worked when other drivers were sitting, I got VIP assignments (because dispatch trusted me to handle them), and I consistently made more money than many, if not most, of our other drivers.

My only complaint was that I worked more than I really wanted to, but I have a hard time turning down opportunities to make money.

 

Depends on the company. If they're low-lifes, they'll take advantage of your work ethic. If they have some sense of right and wrong, they'll reward it.

 

Nothing wrong having good work ethics , until you start intentionally making other drivers look bad and they then realize you have your face firmly planted up the company's butt.

On the other hand it's like feeding the bears if you do it long enough it will be expected from you along with big recourse the day you stop jumping through the hoops.

As you have learned from your dispatching experience , they can smell a butt surfer from miles away so there's a fine balance of being real or just being a bend- over babe.