Covenant Dispatching - A Comedy of Errors

Unless you're in a hole like me I'd forget the $500. I did back in 2004 when I quit a job with TransAm 1 week before I would have gotten both the yearly bonus AND the safety bonus to go back to my old company!
My question to Mrs Redcoat is WHY be at home, then go to Choo Choo to clean out the truck? While at home clean it out and I mean CLEAN IT OUT! I've seen and heard over the years about a driver "cleaning out the truck" and then being charged for a "truck cleaning"! Give the notice while at home and remove everything in the truck, clean it with Mr Clean with the new Freebreeze in it so the thing smells fairly nice and then pack the bag that you'll put on the plane or bus to get home on. That way everything is in the "Bag" so to speak as I've seen drivers put out on the road after giving their notice and having to sell off everything in the truck just to get home!

I don't even carry that much in my truck for in case of emergency and that's just what happened this past Friday in Victorville,Ca to me. Had to go to the ER, Doc took me off of driving status, (After I did!) Boss gets me a flight home and what's left in the truck the next driver can have but it all fit in 2 milk crates and can be dropped off here at Springfield when he gets back or he can trash them! Why carry the weight around in the truck?

Any way Mrs Redcoat, when he gets to Covenants yard he should only have to unplug the CB and put it on the top of the bag and walk away with everything in hand. The most important thing in that hand being a check off sheet that the truck is in good condition and that he also has a sheet he has made up at home on the computer stating that He had given such and such amount of times notice to VOLUNTARILY quit his job and have someone like his DM, or Human Resources department (Recruiting) sign the thing so that when Covenant fills out the DAC, USIS, Hireright or what ever they call themselves this month, form to make that $19.00 for the report and it has something negitive on it you can send them a copy to have the negitive report removed! And yes DAC/USIS pays all companies to report a driver! You don't think these companies waste their time (which costs them money) to report you did you? LOL!

CYA as I did with Trans Am and keep that DAC/USIS clean! If they refuse to sign your form then demand they cough up one of their own! But be nice while you do!

 

.. i agree with Rollover 100%, is the $500 worth the risk of something bad happening waiting the xtra month, espcially when it's been so hard for him to find another company that will hire him right now.. just clean out the truck during home time, get the papers u need signed off on & make sure they don't deduct anything truck related on his final check, it's against the labor laws for them to do that, they need to send him an itemized statement separate from his final check if they are claiming any damage after he has turned his truck in..

..just leave on good terms with them so RC has the option of coming back (the worst case sceanerio!) if things don't work out at Maverick & he can be driving again .. I'm hoping he won't have to use that option & we will get a new thread from u & RC driving for Maverick!

 

Good luck leaving Covenant and going to Maverick!

 

Companies will throw any responsibility back on the driver, and the part of the federal rules that say a driver is not to drive when they are not able to do so safely. They will claim the driver should have notified them they were ill, and continued to drive against government and company policy.

Everything is set up against the driver.

 

By the way, i went to orientation with covenant. My being hired is pending but they do want me.

 

To be honest, not really. Most of it just sounds like his dispatcher was an idiot, and I'm going to be over the road and not dedicated, so i won't have the risk of getting the same dispatcher. But sure, some of it is obviously company-wide, like your numerous complaints about idle policy. Also, it tells me a lot about them if theyre willing to continue to allow that dispatcher to work for them. There is no shortage of dispatchers. Just like drivers.

By the way, I have a copy of the very badly arranged driver handbooks in my hand right now, and something stood out to me about the idle policy (from Covenant Driver Quick Guide Information, JNE [sic] 18, 2009)...

"Each truck is allowed a certain percentage of the overall run time to be time spent idling. Solo OTR units have a target of 30%. Team XL and Dedicated units have a goal of 25%--the drive time of the truck divided by the total time the engine was idling for more than 5 minutes."

And first of all ,i note that this means that RC gets the same idling allowance as a team driver...even though his truck has to sit every night. Nice, right?

Also, a lot of times it only takes 5 minutes to cool the truck down for...a lot longer than 5 minutes.

I did some calculations though...

2000 miles at 55mph = 36 driving hours...at 8 hours a day, thats 4.5 days rolling. Sounds pretty typical for a 7 day week to me. This gives RC 9 hours a week to idle. Even at 30%, its 10.8 hours.

wtf do they expect you to do? wake up every hour while you're sleeping to run the truck for 5 minutes?

When i go solo, if i get a freightliner without an APU or Optimized Idle/TAS, i am going to build a device to do EXACTLY THAT. It will tap into the fuse box, needing no modification to the truck whatsoever. I will disguise it as a CB radio and will hide it in a bag when not in use.

I could get rich off this thing. I can produce it and either sell it to companies if they like it, or i can sell it to drivers if companies dont like it!