Calling in to the company.

These people are all giving you bad advice. What you should do is this......hang on, I am on the other line. Listen to the music and I will be back shortly.......

 

You like to pull the wings off flies for fun, don't you?

 

I've always been of the mind that it is just plain easier to ask forgiveness, than permission!
For one thing, if the person you have to ask permission from, happens to be insecure in their own mind, the first thing going through their mind is likely to be "uh-oh, there's a reason he's asking this. He's trying to shift blame, I'd better say no!"

 

I once got chewed out properly about a think in Company Policy. I had two possible routes. I decided to take the one route that offered ME certain... nicer things when I got moving on it. It's not as FAST as the other interstate route. Instead of me being there in about 8 and 20 minutes I would ease down the quiet two laner with no worries in the world except a particular truckstop called midway in PA for dinner services that I considered very nice. Taking away the meal stop the trip turned in right at 10 hours leaving nothing more left to be kicked around town in Maryland on errands. I might still have a log or two stored really deep that has small notes on the day; working sometimes leaving the trailer and it's load to another company driver who would put into the docking. For me to unload. He's already gone with a load on himself. So in those days if I dipped into the 100 mph mark a little bit and conviently disposed of 60 or so trip miles off the odo and just went by the HHG miles .... it whould work out. But it[ close. Im still working on recovering that particular route from old maps. It is a good route and a strong favorite. My problem is I misplaced three old truss bridges marked one coal truck trailer at a time on each of them. CB radio time to figure out who takes which one first and when. All of it done at 70 or so. =) I suspect the state dynamited the truss bridges and poured modern concrete.

 

And that was probably asking ECT for the permission when your DM was off duty? I've never had a problem when I spoke with my DM about a route change.

But you're right. Go your own way and call in for fuel when you need it. Just make sure you can get to a fuel stop that Swift uses.

One time I had to call for fuel, and I wasn't even out of route. I had to get a company advance and do it for cash because it wasn't at an approved station.
I didn't notice it when I got the receipt, but the place had charged me for unleaded gas.
That being the case, I was not reimbursed for the $100 in fuel.

 

It was for a dedicated beer run on Miller Coors. Milwaukee to Irwindale, CA... the route I wanted to take was 150 miles further but it took me down 40 instead of 80 which was shut down, 76 which had 60mph sustained winds and Vail/Eisenhower followed by long snowy winding grades the whole way.

Turned down a 2200 mile load over that. The DM was saying they would have to get Miller Coors to pay for the additional 150 miles. Like it's better for us to get 3mpg for 1500 miles than to get 7 for the entire trip with 45k in a box. Not to mention being shut down for a week, possibly dying in a multi vehicle accident on the highway, having to chain multiple times...

Elected to take an 800 mile load home for 4 days instead lol

 

Only outfit that I worked for that cared about staying "in route" was a small refer out of St. George. I loaded in Holcum Ks. Other drivers were telling me about the weather up on I-70, so I elected to take US 50, and listen to weather reports. Sure enough, they were talking about road closures on the interstate around Burlington. By the time I got to Pueblo, they were talking about 70 being closed both ways out of Denver. So I stayed on 50. Just before I reached Gunnison, got a Qualcomm "WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF ROUTE" I called dispatch on my cellphone. She saw who it was before answering. She answered "WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUT OF ROUTE!"
I told her to calm down and quit yelling at me. That pissed her off even more. I couldn't get a word in edgewise, so I hung up on her.
She called me right back, and continued her little temper tantrum. I hung up on her again, and call one of the partners that owned the company. I told him what was going on. His response, "keep doing what you're doing, I'll take care of the #####!"
A few minutes later, got a Qualcomm apologizing to me. Also telling me that I was the only one rolling out of Kansas right then.
What really torqued my shorts was that this gal used to team drive with her husband....smh