Broke Down 69...The Adventure Continues

My trainer's trainer was also there. Sat almost as long as we did just to find out his load was canceled. So he re-hooked the trailer he dropped and went home. Now THAT was a wasted day...

 

Shirt happens, at least it is a rare thing for something like that. or at least for me it is.

Should something like that happen to you, do the following. when talking to dispatch, and they say that the load is cancelled, The first thing you do is politely ask them to send a conformation over the qualcomm and also to include what your pay for this will be. This being a holiday week and wanting to get people home, things will be a bit different. On a normal week, they may have you lay over or deadhead to a different load. Again politely ask what they will bw compensating you for your time and miles. Dont be shy about it.

The reasons for this.
One, if you dont ask, they will not offer it voluntarily.
you should get paid for your time. they are billing the customer for the truck showing up.

Two, While this one may seem hard to belive, dispatch does a CYA move, and sends in an extra truck here and there, to cover a potential miss. Fred is running behind, his next load is here, may not make it, gotta cover the commitment. so they send you, because you wont ask to get paid.

Three, sometimes the shipper over books trucks, or is having a problem getting loads together. maybe the order gets covered by a different DC. The shipper is paying the company something for the truck sitting at their location, you should get paid for your time and efforts.

 

My dispatcher might be playing the blame shuffle on that today. I'm sitting for roughly 28 hours between loads, so I asked about layover pay. "Oh, (name redacted) is handling that."
Riiiight. I asked yesterday, and nobody in the office today, so I'm texting (name redacted) first thing in the morning to make sure I get mine. I don't mind at all being gone on a holiday, I don't even mind sitting. But what I DO mind is sitting for free.

 

The one thing we have to remember here, is the company. TMC, Maverick and a few others, while a potential Mega style company, are some of the better ones in that catagory.
(not a poke at your choice, gotta start some where to get the experience, they do train well)

Small companies are different, less likely to have the CYA mentality. plus most just plain can't have a truck sit for hours.

One of my biggest pet-peeves when I ran for big companies, was dispatch making promises to a customer, that they had no buiness doing in the first place. How can you commit someone else to your promise, and not know what that may entail to make happen. Then when it does fall apart, it is you the driver who gets the short stick, from both sides no less.

 

Yea u better go back to driving with that attitude. Lolol. You have to be a compulsive liar to be a dispatcher.

 

Just hit on another of my peeves.
The driver needs to call in to get the final info and load numbers. Or some some form of that.

Brokerages that play that game, or the tracking app, have no need to be on my trailer.

One broker i had to call was a bit put off by me.
Called them, talked to agent, asked why was I calling them, wasting every ones time with this. they could have made life a lot easir and just given the info to my dispatch and been done with it. I told them don't call me, call the office, speak to dispatch, if they don't have the answer, they will call me. if you call, it will be an unknown caller and go to voice mail, and it could be hours before I check it. I don't answer unknown callers.

After a few loads with them, we sort of became a primary carrier. Often requested my truck. never had that problem again. was cool by me.

 

Yeah, he went to check on it, and there was a glitch in the system, so he called his dispatcher, a few more calls were made, and dispatcher called him back to tell him it was canceled, and grab his trailer and drive to the house and enjoy his fourth. Handled above board.

Unfortunately, Lowe's is one of the company's bigger contracts, and we don't get detention there. We let detention know, and so the company called and worked it the best they could. We checked in with our pick up number and all that, but it is what it is. We had a load out of that same D.C. last week, but it was waiting on us when we arrived, so quick drop and hook and we were out.

 

When I was doing a trailer swap at Lowe's or home Depot dc I would figure out how long it would take to get to the store from the DC. And plan on two hours for the trailer swap. Then I would see how long it was going to take me to get to the DC. With that information I would not start my clock until I was ready to start heading to the DC. Very seldom would I have to sit waiting for my trailer to come out and conserved my clock.