Bad Dispatcher

When I was OTR, I would send a message at the end of my shift to let the dispatcher know I'm doing my 10 and I would also let the dispatcher know when I'm up and ready to go after my 10
..... Any dispatcher that calls me when he knows better is wasting his time
.... Any dispatcher that yells at me will quickly feel stupid when he's done running his flapper
There's an old saying that goes :
"give em plenty of rope and they will hang themselves"

 

Yeah pretty much.

 

I'm local and work 7-10 hours a day. Good money. Home every night to be with my family. Why wait to go local though? My company is begging us to help them find drivers. They hire anyone who has six months experience and doesn't have too many accidents. They're hiring right now. I just got my friend a job with them and they're great. Also I got paid $24/hr to practice and take my cdl. So I can't understand why you otr drivers are willing to put up with so much for so little. What's the average pay? $.45cpm? I get $1/mi. Plus overtime. Home every night. Brand new equipment. So why work for a bad otr company that only gets you home once a month?

 

First off, you work less hours than I do, but it sounds like I take home more per year than you do. That is important to me when I'm trying to meet a certain financial goal so I can move my family somewhere that I feel is a more healthy environment to raise a family.

The other problem is that your job is local means local. I would jump on your job, if I could commute in 30 minutes or less. For 11-1200 a week and rarely going over ten hours a week I'd consider an hour commute.

My local job market has a lot of jobs at 15 or less per hour. There are a number of jobs paying under a grand a week. The good paying jobs are mostly an hour or more away from me with 12-14 hour work days. Other jobs I've had no success getting into them.

My other issue is that I had a very unstable work history before driving a truck. After I got my cdl I had a job for three years, left for another job and got laid off after four months of not enough hours to make it worth it. I got this job in a hurry. I didn't have six months to get the perfect job. If I were to leave this job right now after stumbling into the perfect job it would make for 4 jobs in less than a year. I don't need that on my record.

So for now I bust my tail at this job, get home most weekends, and make three money I need to meet my goals. And when I move, part of what I'm looking for is proximity to decent paying jobs.

 

Thats cool. I guess I'm just sick of people acting like I'm lazy if I don't want to work all day every day. I believe life is about balance. It's just hard finding a place that work for you. I wish you the best. If you're looking for a job around Chicago let me know.

 

For me, I understand wanting to work less and have more time at home. If I was back in a local job, and I had the choice, I would prefer to work (and earn) more, but I don't disparage your view either.

What I don't understand is the folks who are away from home and still aren't interested in working more hours while you are out since you are away from home anyway.

 

True. I can understand what you're saying. You're already away from home so it better be worth your while.

 

Ya know, what ever somebody else thinks about what you are doing, doesn't really matter at all. Just for myself, I really don't give a right rip if folks think I'm lazy, (probably true,) fat, (definitely true,) ugly, (well, in the eye of the beer holder...) or what ever.
I do agree with your statement about balance. However, balance can be darned hard to come by in this industry. Or for that matter, for anyone who is "success driven." Just look at all the unhappy people with money, or trying to make people think they have money.
I believe that the major thing is to be happy. If you are unhappy at home, and unhappy at work, (BTDT) life is a real PITA. It's not so bad if you have happiness in one or the other, or fulfillment through other things.
But it is absolutely GREAT if you have a job you love, and a good home life. (BTDT too!)
Driven people, (class A personality types) that get fulfillment by working long hard hours to become what in their mind, is a "success," are likely to be just as happy as can be. Of course their families likely aren't so happy.

 

Do you have to take a drug test to be a dispatcher?

If not that explains everything.

 

Lepton1, I do not smoke, I do not drink and take certain medicines. A urine test is not the problem for employment.

The vices I described in which you quoted from my post implying that these are the same as my vices. They are not. I was a smoker for decades and quit cold turkey. Arkansas requires a drug screen for employment. I have no fear of them because my doctor provides a defense against what is triggered as a false positive from one of the medicines I take.

With that said.

The Interview process went well took about a hour and change, I learned a lot in that hour more than I have ever learned watching dispatchers fall apart on the job dealing with difficult drivers and multiple personalities. A percentage of them fall down to vices to ease the stress which eventually screws em up.

There is a old story in trucking.

Earl was killed on the mountain one day he was introduced by St Peter at the golden gate to a place filled with large cars waiting for drivers like Earl. This is heaven.

Earl thought a minute and asked Peter, why so many large cars?

Peter said... we have drivers by the army load. It's Dispatchers we aint got up here yet.

*rimshot. He he he.