Covenant Dispatching - A Comedy of Errors

Well Redcoat heard from Maverick today. They had contacted Arrow to find out what their side of the "dismissed" story was on Redcoat's DAC and so far have not heard from them. So they are still waiting for that.

They called Redcoat to ask his permission to contact Covenant. On his DAC Covenant only reported him as working for them during August of last year. They need to verify his time of employment and they also wanted to know drug test results and if he had any accidents. By now Redcoat has totally had it with Covenant so he told them to go ahead and call 'em up. So they did and the recruiter told Redcoat that Covenant went ahead and verified his employment time but they wouldn't give them any of his drug test results nor would they verify that he hasn't had any accidents. Redcoat told the recruiter that he has never failed a drug test and he hasn't had any accidents. He said he could prove it because he's gotten his safety bonus every quarter and if he'd had anything CLOSE to an accident, that would be the first thing they'd take away.

As it stands now, the recruiter told him that they will approve his application pending what they hear from Arrow and Covenant. He said that if anything bad shows up after they hire him, they will have to let him go.

So Redcoat will have to take a leap of faith that Covenant will not try to screw him over. He plans on giving them his two-week notice next week when his gets his "hometime." It's not really hometime because he's still not able to come here to North Carolina. He's getting time off in Mississippi and spending it at my mom's house. He'll get his hazmat endorsement taken care of and if Covenant trys anything weird, at least he'll be able to get all his stuff off the truck and have someplace to put it.

Maverick says they should have a final decision by Monday.

If there are any Maverick drivers reading this thread, Redcoat wants to know if they have an "open door" policy where the drivers get to meet their DM. Or do they keep the DM's locked away behind closed doors like Covenant does? At Covenant, the drivers are kept separate from the administrative people where you have to talk to them through little holes in plexiglass. Is it the same way at Maverick? Does Maverick allow the drivers to enter the offices like real human beings? He was just curious.

 

JohnnyR33 I've already sent the form to get a copy of Redcoat's DAC. Been there, done that on the credit report thang so nothing new in this department. I'd be willing to bet that when Redcoat applied to TMC and got turned down, that was probably why.

OK so I have lots of soap opera fodder for y'all today.

Saturday August 8th. Yesterday Redcoat arrived at the receiver in Port Allen in the afternoon and put his name on the list to be called at 0230 to go deliver the load. Then he went back to the truck stop to try to get some shuteye. He had me call him to make sure his phone worked because he had a terrible signal. He didn't sleep well. You know how it's hard to stay asleep when you are expecting a phone call in the middle of the night. He woke up at midnight, then again at 2, then again at 3, and again at 5. By then he thought maybe his phone wasn't working so he called them at 0500 and they told him to come down right away. When he got there, the man was berating him for not leaving his contact information. Redcoat retorted that he'd left the paperwork and his name and phone number. The man said they had the paperwork but nothing else. Redcoat has the man show him what they were looking at and pointed out RIGHT THERE (4 lines up) his name, Covenant, his phone number, and load number. "Well, we thought that was yesterday's...." Redcoat said that if they'd have done their job and marked off each line as the load was delivered, they would have known that he should have been the first in line to call.

Morons.

It took them 20 minutes to get him unloaded (they were in a hurry to leave) and Redcoat sent a macro 8 load delivered. After that he heads up to Monticello, MS to pick up there and arrived at 0930. That took an hour and he leaves at 1030 headed to Augusta, GA. He plans to get in a reset over the weekend.

Now, here is another example of how the crap that comes over the QC can mess with a driver's head. Keep in mind that Redcoat's load is due for delivery on the 10th at 1630.

QualComm message traffic:

0613 from Covenant: Job xxxx945 is resent for delivery confirmation. After the job assignment comes this cryptic message --
Loads are highly visible and need to be delivered by midnight on the day you pick up. These can not be late for any reason. It is imperative that you confirm your dispatch as soon as possible on these loads once you receive the work assignment.
0618 from Redcoat: Cannot confirm. In comments Redcoat says that he cannot make a midnight delivery time due to lack of hours.
0627 from Covenant: Your load is due on Monday at 1630 for a live unload.
0628 from Redcoat: Then can you please explain message 32.
No answer.
0642 from Redcoat: Please explain message 32.
0644 from Redcoat: Can you please explain message 32.
0656 from Covenant: What is message 32? We do not go by message numbers.
0700 from Redcoat: He repeats what message 32 said and asks why it was sent to him. He says he won't confirm the job and asks again why the message was sent to him.
By now Redcoat is thinking that he should go ahead and confirm the load because if he doesn't soon, he will get a service failure.
0707 from Redcoat: Sends a load confirmation with comments that he cannot make a midnight delivery time.
0726 from Covenant: Why are you saying you cannot make a midnight delivery time? It does not pertain to this job.

And THAT, my friends, is what Redcoat wanted them to say in writing. It took an hour to get straightened out.

I suspect that message was meant for the DMs and that it wasn't supposed to be sent out to the drivers. If that's the case, then it sure caused Redcoat a lot of unnecessary stress. Yet another example of how managerial ineptitude and the consequences. If it actually WAS meant for Redcoat, then he suspects it to be a Covenant Jedi mind trick to get him to do something he wasn't supposed to do so they could get rid of him. He wonders if his dispatcher knows that Maverick made an inquiry....