Accept load first, THEN scramble to deliver it?

I know on more than a few occasions in years past when I was with a larger dry van carrier ... I had talked with a fellow driver earlier that morning at the nearby truck stop who said he was dispatched on a crappy load and "didn't like it" or they was working on something else in the mean time or some other story, (I too am empty and available for dispatch) ... we part ways, and low and behold about 16:00 a load comes across my qualcomm with immediate PU orders and it appeared suspiciously like the load I was talking with the other driver about 9 hours ago ... Trust me, with many 'hurry up and get it' loads, there's more to the story then simply booking a late load for an immediate pick up. Often you can blame fellow drivers who suddenly "got sick" and the load was "assigned but not assigned" and all the other drivers in line before refused the load or the load was lost on somebody's desk or whatever.

 

You get paid to drive and they call you 'driver'. They get paid to plan and are called 'planners'. If drivers drove the way that planners planned, we'd all be dead. If we trip planned the way they trip planned, we would all be sitting on the side of the highway out of fuel.

 

I can't say it any better....

 

I liked the time the load planner called and stated they had a load to go 400 miles and it had to be there in 4 hours. All of this in a 64 mph truck.

 

Its only 2" on the map. Somethings never change.

 

Wearing the other shoe, have any of you tried to have a face to face conversation with a dispatcher during business hours? It's an impossible quest. With my company each dispatcher is handling 60 trucks. At any given moment a fair chunk of them are either waiting for dispatch or will soon be waiting for dispatch, the phone is constantly ringing, and they are trying to get the majority of their work done by matching available loads to drivers on their computer screen.

There's no way I'd want to be a dispatcher. I know that another forum member in another thread mentioned that he'd been a dispatcher for a short time before driving, and said it was the most high stress job he'd ever had. I believe it.

The problem with such high driver to dispatcher ratio is that they have very little time to really vet the loads versus driver resources. For example, I might use the Qualcomm to let them know I'm available and have 5 hours drive time left.... then I get a load offer that requires immediate pick up and 10 hours total drive time to make immediate delivery without taking a 10 hour break in between.... I think the dispatchers aren't looking at all the parameters because they don't have enough time to carefully review all the information before "throwing the load up against the wall" and seeing if it will stick.

The best course of action for any driver is to carefully review the load offer and see if you can make the deadline. If not, then let them know when you can make the deadline. Sometimes I've gone through repeated load offers, "rejecting" each one by letting them know when I can make it and having the load disappear. Actually, this better serves yourself, the company, and the customer... being honest up front.

 

At swift the dispatchers are pretty much the person you talk to about problems or so. The drivers connection to the company. The planners are the ones that sends loads out to the trucks. When you call to annoy them about wanting a load you get the reply ok ill message the planners. Dispatch pretty much baby sits for the ones who need baby sat. I havent talked to my dispatcher in 3 weeks. I think she still works there. Lol. Now I have called night dispatch because even tho they say using the qualcomm is quick. I can fire off a qualcomm message and call at the same time and get my answer on the phone about 5 mins before it comes through the qualcomm

 

You make a good point, MPH2... about dispatchers having to babysit certain truckers. It seems to be a common issue, especially with a company with so many drivers that are completely new to the industry and for some of them... perhaps the first time they've ever been away from home. Gotta feel for the dispatchers...

 

I was a dispatcher and can tell you one thing, the person who is making it look hard is not doing a good job. Many dispatchers in this industry seem to be sitting around when I've seen them by my work experience.

Truck loads are easy, no matter what time constraints on put on by the customers, but there are far more high pressure dispatching in the world (like 911 medical dispatching) that gets hard at times. The thing is many dispatchers were never truck drivers, never brought up through the ranks so they can't understand time management or even how to talk to a trucker to begin with. Many I have found out sit in the truck for a couple check rides and that's about it. I think three years on the road would be a good start, 6 would be better to be a dispatcher.

 

Our company is good at sending " 7/17 0700 pu" "7/19 0700 del" ooook pick up two days ago, deliver before we even got the load. Then say its a hot load needs to be their on time. Then the broker calls and wants to know what time today your going to make it, because someone didn't tell them when they handed out my phone number.