Advice For Getting Along With Dispatchers

Decent appearance is a must. As far as I am concerned, I can't expect to be treated as a professional unless I look like one. We have a uniform, and I wear it at work. It's not complicated, just a pair of khaki slacks, a company shirt, and neat shoes. But I carry spare clothing in the truck, and if I get dirty or in some other way unsuitable, I change clothes. Many of my customers have showers for their employees, and I use them to clean up. It's a matter of pride in your appearance, and it shows up in the way that you handle yourself. I don't have much tolerance for the guy in grubby socks and sandals, cut off sweeat pants, and a dirty Jack Daniels T shirt that shows up, and it';s pretty clear they don't get treated as well by the customers as someone who dresses neatly and acts like a professional.

As for other web sites, www.trucknet.com is a pretty decent forum, though there are a couple of regulars there that are kind of negative on trucking. Don't know why they spend time on a trucking site with their feelings, but they do. www.layover.com is another site, not very active and there can be some real goofballs on there. www.classadrivers.com isn't too bad, some good advice there, but the guys seem to get into more strange situations than any other site I know of. And www.truckstopusa.com is a fairly new site, about the same number of posters as here. But they seem to attract the types that want to have a strike to solve everything every day. Kind of a kiddie truckers site more than any other. This one, and the first one listed are the only ones I post on much, with an occasianal comment on Layover.

 

Oh, one last thing then I promise to leave this subject alone for a while. Asking the dispatcher "how much does it pay" each time you talk about a load really tends to grate on their soul. It makes it sound like you only want to take the high paying loads (which you obviously do!) and leave someone else the poorer paying ones. My advice is that if the company hasn't made a habit of screwing you with bad paying loads, just take the load and see what it paid afterwards. If you didn't make what you feel you should of for the effort you put in, then you might not want to run that load again. But most times I make out okay, and I don't ask what a specific load pays. Since I work on percentage, if I didn't make enough on a load, then the odds are the company didn't make enough either. We drivers are encouraged to report when we don't feel the load paid enough so the sales dept can look into it and see if the rate needs to be adjusted for the effort involved. My truck should make about 65-70 per hour for it's work, and we keep than number in mind when running.

Of course, you have to take into account the conditions of a load before saying it doesn't pay enough. Our hourly wage is calculated at 16 per hour, so I look at what a load pays, the time I spend, and divide those to get my per hour income. If I make out okay, then great. But I may do less for a load where I can unload quickly, the clerks are fast, and the silo takes better pressure. And I may have a preload 7 miles away, so I factor that into what I get paid for a load.

I don't expect to get rich on each load, but take a long term view of what I make. I know there are some loads that don't pay as much, but they still have to be moved. Sometimes, those customers have other lucrative loads, so it all balances out in the long run.